Suggested change for military sims to earn their medals.

I'm not even associated with military in any way and it kind of bothers me that soldier sims get medals just by showing up for work basically. It's all just participation trophies. 

What I would suggest is each medal getting it's own pop up situation while at work, with the right choice resulting in a medal if your sims skills are good enough. It would always require some effort, each medal requiring a a different risk/investment to obtain it. 

The toughest medal to get could involve a risk of death after being send on a mission, the risk could be lowered by a maxed out fitness skill and being in a good mood. 

Another medal could be a time investment, your sim being send on a mission that lasts several days, they would get paid for all of it but don't get to go home in between. 

Another medal could require your sim to befriend another sim in the military. 

And yet another like with a tech test could be a pop up that results in your sim coming home dazed if they failed it, like if messing with electronics at home so can't do that for a while or it would be lethal. 

And yet another could just leave them to come home with all motives in the red. 

Stuff like this could make it feel more worthwhile. If your sim has the medal these opportunities could still pop up, so they could still do risky missions and all that.