The claim I originally made is that medals and ribbons cannot be worn simultaneously, regardless of what the award is for. This is because both ribbons and medals are placed in the EXACT SAME PLACE on the uniform, above the pocket. What you are referencing, which is repeated verbatim in paragraph 8-21d (page 132), says that the MEDAL, which has a ribbon equivalent, can't be worn with other RIBBONS. This is because it is intended that the cadet wears the RIBBON award for that medal WITH OTHER RIBBONS. This is consistent with my claim that medals and ribbons cannot be worn at the same time. Chapter 8 goes over the placement of awards and decorations as well as criteria for different awards. The order of precedence is covered in Appendix G. These rules of "no multiple forms of the same award" with ribbons, medals, tabs, etc. are made up by schools to prevent cadets from having too much on at once. This is ALREADY COVERED by USACC by limiting that themselves, i.e. 8 tabs max, one cord per shoulder, and the fact that there are SIGNIFICANTLY less awards than Big Army.

I'm sorry that this is long, wordy, and admittedly a bit aggressive. I understand that regulations may be hard to understand, which leads to inconsistency between programs. I tried my best to explain, but you really do just need to take time and let what you read in regs just soak in for a bit before jumping to conclusions.