Senior Master Sgt. Greg Cleghorn, the senior enlisted leader of the Iowa Air National Guard's 132nd Security Forces Squadron, receives the Army's Master Combat Infantryman Badge on Aug. 18, 2025, during the unit's annual training at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. (John Johnson/U.S. Air National Guard)
An Iowa National Guard airman who served a stint as an infantry soldier is now sporting a combat award that his former service introduced just a few months ago.
Senior Master Sgt. Greg Cleghorn, the top enlisted leader for the 132nd Security Forces Squadron in Des Moines, Iowa, was awarded the Master Combat Infantryman Badge on Aug. 18, according to a Guard statement. The badge is a new award authorized in March.
“It’s still an individual award at this point, but I’m proud to wear it and to represent the Iowa Guard,” Cleghorn said in the Aug. 22 statement. “When I go someplace, it will be unique and draw attention to the state of Iowa while I am wearing Iowa Guard patches.”
The Army's Master Combat Infantryman Badge adorns the uniform of Senior Master Sgt. Greg Cleghorn of the Iowa Air National Guard. He received it Aug. 18, 2025, during his Guard unit's annual training at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. (John Johnson/U.S. Air National Guard)
The Army doesn’t track badge awardees from other services, Human Resources Command spokesman Bill Costello said Wednesday. A total of 5,104 MCIBs have been awarded, he added.
Though it’s unclear how rare Cleghorn’s achievement is, the award requirements alone put the former soldier in exclusive company among airmen across the reserve and active components.
The decoration is for infantry and Special Forces soldiers who previously earned the Combat Infantryman Badge and the Expert Infantryman Badge, both of which can be earned only during Army service.
Soldiers who earn those two awards automatically qualify for the Master Combat Infantryman Badge without the need for additional training.
Cleghorn earned the latter in 2000 while with the 4th Infantry Regiment in Hohenfels, Germany.
He later joined the Iowa Army National Guard’s 194th Long Range Surveillance Detachment in 2004 and earned the Combat Infantryman Badge during a deployment to Iraq, the statement said.
The Iowa Air National Guard statement did not say when Cleghorn made the switch from soldier to airman.
The Air Force Personnel Center, the organization that manages members’ administrative and service records, doesn’t track the number of airmen who may have earned a Combat Infantryman Badge before joining the Air Force, a unit spokesman told Stars and Stripes on Thursday.
In addition to the Master Combat Infantryman Badge, in March the Army also authorized master badges for medical personnel and non-infantry soldiers.
The Master Combat Medical Badge has 416 recipients, while the Master Combat Action Badge has been given to 723 people, according to Army Human Resources Command data.
