Basic Technique

• 1). Ceremonial dress blues require regular size medals, except in the Air Force, which prescribes service ribbons instead. (Mess or dinner dress uniforms, the military's version of the cutaway, require miniature medals.)
  
  
• 2). Sort your medals according to category and rank-in-category, as specified in your Uniforms Manual. Lay them out in a row on a flat surface, with the highest-ranking medal in the left-most spot (the wearer's right), followed by all the other medals in descending order of importance, left to right.
  
  
• 3). Beginning with the most senior medals, and preserving their order, slide as many of them onto a mounting bar of appropriate size as your Manual specifies (varies by branch of service and medal size). This will become the top row of medals on the uniform. Continue until every medal is fitted on a bar. The last (lowest) row of medals may or may not be completely filled. Note: The Medal of Honor alone does not go on a bar with other medals; instead, it is suspended by a ribbon around the recipient's neck and rides centered high on the chest on top of the uniform.
  
  
• 4). Refer to your Uniforms Manual to determine where to place the first bar of medals on the uniform. Push the bar's mounting pins through the uniform coat's cloth and lining at the selected location. Holding the bar in place with one hand, pinch open one of the spring-loaded locking pips the bar comes with and push it all the way down on a pin protruding inside the coat. Release the tension to have the pip grab the pin tightly. Repeat with the remaining pips and pins.
  
  
• 5). Maneuver the remaining medal bars and fasten them as described in the previous step so that they line up precisely as illustrated in your Manual. If done correctly, the rows will overlap one another so that only the top row will display the complete medals with ribbons; for the rows below it, only the metallic parts of the medals will show.