From modern battlefields to 1898, DLA Troop Support keeps America’s rarest military medals in stock

While Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support routinely equips the U.S. warfighters with food, clothing and textiles, a variety of equipment and construction gear, along with medical supplies and vaccines, its strategic supply depots also safeguard a century of living history by stocking newly made medals for conflicts fought long before automated logistics existed.

"The Spanish-American War, I do remember buying that one once," said John Fricker, integrated supply team supervisor for Heraldics in DLA Troop Support's Clothing and Textiles supply chain. "It was once, in all the years that I've been here, that I've had to buy it. I haven't seen anything further back than that."

Keeping these medals in stock means working closely with The Institute of Heraldry, the Army branch that creates the official blueprints and rules for every military design. Orders for vintage awards do not come in every day, so when supplies drop too low, agency planners have to order enough from factory suppliers to make the production run worthwhile.

"We stock all of our items in a warehouse, so we won't put out a solicitation for just one medal at a time," Fricker said. "We would do something in the ballpark of 1,500. And then as the orders come in, they would be fulfilled through the requisitions at the depot."

When these medals leave the warehouse, they often end up in the hands of family members who never knew their heroic ancestors. Today, descendants reach out to the National Archives to recover lost heirlooms.

"Family members can order it as well as the person who it was awarded to," Fricker said. "There's an office in Virginia that works with our office in Philadelphia, and there's a whole vetting process that takes place before they would be eligible to receive one."

After government staff confirm a service record, relatives can ask to have the veteran's name and service dates stamped directly onto the award. Army Civilians through the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command handle the engraving on specialized machines before boxing up the medals and mailing them home to waiting families.

Making these pieces requires heavy machinery that looks more like a factory than a jewelry shop. Commercial manufacturers use forge die blocks to punch detailed designs into metal under massive hydraulic force, washing the pieces in running water to smooth away rough edges.

"A lot of these medals are stamped out through what they call hubs," Fricker said. "They use the hubs to make the dies, and the dies actually press the medals. It's pressed in these big four-floor machines that are floor-to-ceiling, and they press them on these big rolls of thin brass. A lot of them are wet-belted or wet-sanded, where it's an automatic sander, but it has water on it instead."

Most regular military medals ship out attached to plain white cardboard cards inside standard paper envelopes. But the country's top honors get special treatment, sometimes calling for custom-built wooden cases that require approval from the highest offices in the land.

"We were actually involved in the redesign process for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is one of the items that we buy here," Fricker said. "We ended up, this is back during President Trump's first administration, working with the vendor on developing several different choices. It went all the way up to First Lady Melania Trump making the final decision as to what she wanted to do and how she wanted the medal to be presented."

The team's work goes far beyond traditional battlefield awards. Among the hundreds of items DLA buys are unique honors meant for service members and scientists who take on dangerous peacetime missions in freezing corners of the globe.

"The most unique that sticks out in my mind is the Antarctic Service Medal," Fricker said. "I've had to buy that on a number of different occasions. That's more of a popular medal than people think."

The warehouse shelves also hold medals for long-standing overseas duty along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, as well as newer ribbons requested by federal agencies for security duty on the southern U.S. border.

"The Korean Defense is one that we still buy a decent number of," Fricker said. "Versus something like the Antarctic Service Medal, where I've been here and had the Afghanistan Campaign Medal that we brought on board, there is a Mexican border defense medal with this administration that we brought on board and we've supplied to the Department of Homeland Security."

While DLA Troop Support buys plenty of everyday necessities like combat boots, heavy jackets, and field rations, the people running the heraldics team see their job as something much deeper than shifting boxes in a warehouse.

"It is significant to them, and it certainly is one of the more rewarding jobs that I've have," Fricker said. "I can do a little bit more to help them with more of an emotional item than something like a boot or a uniform. This is something that a lot of these folks will have forever."