WASHINGTON—The Department of Defense plans to encourage bureaucratic inaction with the creation of a medal to reward the program’s lowest achievers, sources say.

The new award comes on the heels of a trend of rising military efficiency in recent years. While that may seem to be a positive direction to anyone who actually understands efficiency, it in fact violates time-honored defense norms.

“Bureaucratic inaction is one of the hallmarks of the US military,” said DOD spokesperson Colonel Andrew Spearminton. “Change is bad when it comes to defense. That’s why in the age of cyber warfare, the Army still has a manual for how to load pack mules.”

Historian Virginia Pliny confirmed that bureaucracy is a tradition dating from the American Revolution. “Soldiers at Valley Forge didn’t need to starve,” Pliny said. “But General Washington’s quartermaster filed ration requests in a box marked ‘for deep contemplation on the morrow,’ then forgot about them. Horses also ate a lot of the requests. On the plus side, that’s when the Marine tradition of eating anything and everything started.”