Continuity: At the party where Kevin Costner meets Sean Young and Gene Hackman for the first time, and during the other early scenes, he's wearing the medal and ribbon for the Navy Cross - but he doesn't win the medal until later in the movie when he rescues the lookout during the storm, and this is what gets Gene Hackman to remember him (when he sees the story in the newspaper). He's too young and doesn't have the right other ribbons to have won the medal in Vietnam or any other action.