Awarded to U.S. Air Force personnel completing four years of Active, Reserve, or Air National Guard service. For those members of the Reserve and National Guard, service must have been in a drilling status with regular attending of weekend drills and annual training. The decoration is awarded to both officers and enlisted personnel, in contrast to service stripes which are only provided to enlisted members of the military. The award was first issued in 1957 by order of General Thomas D. White, Air Force Chief of Staff. It was primarily created as an Air Force equivalent to the service stripes used by other branches of the United States military to denote years of military service.