Gold frame
A gold frame is an attachment to a military decoration which is issued by the militaries of some countries. The gold frame is designed to enclose an award ribbon and is usually a means of distinguishing the ribbon's special quality or denoting some additional achievement to the award's basic criteria.
The gold frame is normally an automatic attachment to a ribbon decoration. In certain cases, however, awards may be issued both with and without the gold frame depending upon the level of achievement. Such is the case in the United States Air Force which denotes the gold frame as a "gold border."
The gold frame and gold border is a device for ribbon awards only, and there are no provisions for issuing the attachment for medals.
Australia
The Australian Ministry of Defence created both unit awards in 1991 via Letters Patent. Unlike the U.S. awards, the Australian frames are flames, not laurel leaves.
Luxembourg
The Croix de Guerre unit award was given by Luxembourg to several units during World War II and the U.S. Army allowed soldiers attached to those units to wear the decoration as a temporary unit award. It is not worn with the frame by Luxembourg's military. The decoration was permitted by Department of the Army General Order No. 43.
Philippines
The award was first created in 1946 to honor U.S. military units and naval vessels that served in the defense and liberation of the Philippines. It has been awarded several times since including as recently as 2005.
These awards were created by the Republic of Vietnam and were awarded to U.S. military members throughout the Vietnam War.
South Korea
This award has been given to U.S. military units since 1950. The award was also given to a number of United Nations member state's military units during the Korean War.
United States
The U.S. Air Force called the attachment a Gold Border and uses the wider version of the attachment. The emblems are a consistent 1 7/16 inches wide and 7/16 inches tall with a gold frame that is 1/16 inch of laurel leaves. Use of the border shows the ribbon was awarded to individuals who were engaged in conducting or supporting combat operations in a designated combat zone; without indicates a non-combat area only in the case of the AFESR.
Army
The U.S. Army only uses the Gold frame attachment for unit awards in active service, reserve, national guard and state forces. The emblems are a consistent 1 7/16 inches wide and 9/16 inches tall with a gold frame that is 1/16 inch of laurel leaves.
Joint Meritorious Unit Award