Overseas Service Bars are worn on the right sleeve of the coat of the Army Service Uniform / Dress Uniform. For enlisted personnel, the first Overseas Service Bar is sewn parallel to and four inches from the bottom of the sleeve, while officers have their first Overseas Service Bar a quarter-inch above the sleeve braid (also parallel to the bottom of the sleeve). An Overseas Service Bar is awarded for each six cumulative months of overseas service in specifically designated areas; if you need more than one bar, we will cut them in one set to ensure they are perfectly sewn onto your uniform. The 2017 edition of AR 670-1 lists sixteen such areas and/or operations that qualify personnel for the Overseas Service Bar, beginning with “Outside CONUS, between 7 December 1941 and 2 September 1946” and ending with the most recent addition, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, beginning in January 2015.
Service stripes are worn by enlisted Army personnel who are members of the Active Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, with one stripe authorized for every 3 years of honorable active Federal service in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard as a commissioned officer, warrant officer, or enlisted member.
They are also authorized for personnel who served in active Reserve service that is creditable toward retirement for non-regular service as a commissioned officer, warrant officer, or enlisted member of any reserve component of the Army Forces, including the Women’s Auxiliary Corps. The two types of service can be combined to calculate the total number of years of honorable service (the service periods need not be consecutive).
Although there is no limit to the number of service stripes that may be worn, they cannot cover chevrons. A tenth stripe is awarded six months before completion of a full thirty years, i.e., after twenty-nine-a-half years.