The Engineer regiment awards and programs has been created to both reward and connect the outstanding work engineers of both the past and present. These awards and programs also mean that the Army, battalions, and companies need to understand the criteria and application process. These programs also had a big impact to the individual soldiers by recognizing them with awards such as the Super Sapper awards, Army, de Fleury medal, and the Sturgis medal. Organizations at the company and battalion level benefit from the unique opportunity to network, recognize their best soldiers, and best Sergeants. Finally the Army benefits by this program because it allows the opportunity to honor Engineers died in the line of duty, maintain the history of our Corp, help honor the civilians that help maintain the regiment, and create six magazines a year that will keep the Army up to date on all news involved with engineering.
The Engineer regiment and Army engineer association (AEA) has helped create various awards and programs that both recognize and reward soldiers such as the de Fleury, Sturgis medal, and even provides academic scholarships. For example the de Fleury medal which received its name from Francois Louis Tesseidre de Fleury is awarded to soldiers who had a significant impact on the regiment. This medal holds a lot of history and four different orders; steel, bronze, silver, and gold. The de Fleury is the highest award of Engineer excellence. The Sturgis medal is awarded to NCOs of the grade E-5 through E-7 who used their outstanding leadership and proficiency in engineer tasks make huge contributions to the Regiment. It was named after LTG Samuel Sturgis who is a former chief of engineers. Finally AEA offers several academic scholarship program to soldiers such as the Colonel Carl Baswell Combat Wounded engineer scholarship. This scholarship is available to Engineers who have been awarded the Purple Heart in Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Company and battalion level organizations have the opportunity to display their best soldiers and sergeants by bestowing them with the Super Sapper award and the Army Combat Engineer Sergeant award (ACES). These awards are supported by the Army Engineer association which also allows engineers the opportunity to become closer with the engineer community by donating. This creates a platform for highly motivated soldiers, veterans, and civilians to network with each other.
Finally these organizations need to understand the nominating process for soldiers, noncommission officers, and officers who they wish to award. For example for units must know that some of the criteria looked at by the selection boards for awards includes training conducted, combat support tasks, and construction tasks.
Organizations that want to nominate soldiers need to understand how the grading works for all the soldiers in the running for the award. For instance the Surgis medal requires that the nominees are scored on two separate forms. The first is FLW 249 which is a score sheet which grades a soldier on whether the applicants will contribute to the future of the Army, do they instill discipline, and if the contender is a mentor who others would want to mimic. The second form you need is FLW 250 which is the final score sheet which 7 board members to give final scores on who will win the award. This score sheet measures soldiers for personal accomplishments, education, and management. These are measured on a scale of 1-10. For more information on this criteria and application process use FLW PAM 672-1.
