Friendly note for national news journalists who are covering the military for the first time amid all this news:

The National Defense Service Medal is not a big deal, and you don’t “win” it or other medals.

A Senior Airman is not actually senior

Specialists are not special

A Marine with a sharpshooter badge is just an average shooter

The award has to have a “v” device if you’re going to say it was for valor in combat

Having a NAM ≠ highly decorated

There are lots of others, but look... it’s like any other beat: if you’re new to it, ask around and go to folks who have covered it for a long time, or even just soundboard online to make sure you’re on the right track ( #miltwitter is a good start.)

An easy fix though: get more vets in newsrooms. It’s not that serving a single enlistment makes you an expert on all thing “mil,” (not at all, tons of civ reporters know more about DoD than lots of vets, myself included)...

But many service members maintain their ties to this community after getting out. Which means: if that veteran news intern or junior reporter you just hired doesn’t know the answer they’ll likely have a laundry list of contacts they can hit up who do.

There's lots of resources out there, but some that come to mind right away are: @MVJNetwork, @MilWritersGuild, @NatSecGirlSquad, among others (apologies to those I probably forgot.)