The Hourglass Device is a military award

Awards and decorations of the United States military

Awards and decorations of the United States Military are military decorations which recognize service and personal accomplishments while a member of the United States armed forces...

 of the United States armed forces

United States armed forces

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

 presented as an attachment to the Armed Forces Reserve Medal

Armed Forces Reserve Medal

The Armed Forces Reserve Medal is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that has existed since 1950. The medal recognizes service performed by the Reserve and National Guard forces of the United States of America....

. The Hourglass Device denotes total service as a member of the Reserve or National Guard

United States National Guard

The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...

 and is issued in three degrees.

The initial presentation of the Armed Forces Reserve Medal is authorized with the bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 hourglass

Hourglass

An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...

 device denoting ten years of reserve service. At twenty years of service, the hourglass is upgraded to silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 and at thirty years the hourglass becomes gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. For those who complete forty years of reserve service, a gold and bronze hourglass device are worn simultaneously. This is the only case where hourglasses are worn together; in all other cases the hourglass device is upgraded to the next higher award degree and is worn as a single device.

Prior to 1995, the hourglass device was presented only upon the second and subsequent awards of the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, as in a bronze hourglass for twenty years of service, silver for thirty, and gold for forty. This was changed when the Armed Forces Reserve Medal was authorized for award, without a device, to those who had been mobilized to active duty. At that point, the hourglass device was presented for the initial ten year award to distinguish those who had received the award through years of service compared to those who had earned the decoration through mobilization.

The change in the awarding criteria for the Hourglass Device applied only to those personnel who had not yet received the Armed Forces Reserve Medal or had received the decoration before 1995 and were still serving on active duty or as a member of the reserves. Personnel discharged or retired, prior to the change of the Hourglass Device award criteria, are not eligible for a correction of records or an upgrade of the Hourglass Device, as the Hourglass Device would have originally been presented under the original award specifications.

In 1996, the Mobilization Device

Mobilization Device

The Mobilization Device is an award attachment to the United States Armed Forces Reserve Medal which denotes those who have received the decoration for duty in a recall to active service from a reserve or National Guard component of the United States military.The Mobilization Device was first...

was authorized to the Armed Forces Reserve Medal which was worn beside the hourglass device for those who had completed both years of service and a recall mobilization.