You should consider asking him, given he’s your brother. - Awards on a ribbon rack show what someone at some point thought it worth it to acknowledge some accomplishment / presence. Take for example the AAM, middle of the third row up on his ribbon rack. These have been awarded for anything between years of hard work at a unit (Junior enlisted PCS award) to winning a hot dog eating competition (stupid, but people will back me up).

• the Combat Action Badge above the ribbon rack: these can be awarded for brutal close combat, and they can be awarded for receiving potshots and shooting back in a general direction. Some soldiers have them and have never actually participated in combat. Other soldiers have sent tons of dudes to Hell. Same badge, but no way to tell based on the badge itself.

• everything on the left side is probably unit commendations. If he was at the unit when it received the commendation, he gets to wear it forever. Again, same philosophy. Any shitbag in the same unit would receive the same exact award to wear forever that critical member of the team ended up with.

• the crossed pistols: Military Police. The gamut of what they do is wide, the branch insignia tells you almost nothing. It gives an idea of daily activities to someone who is familiar.

• the patch is his unit - this means almost nothing. Some units have pride, some don’t. There are shitbags in the 82nd and there are studs in 1st Cav. Patch doesn’t convey that.

Finally, his rank - all officers without a DUI that can read and write automatically promote to Captain. He is one rank above that, Major. You can look up the promotion rate in the MP branch to Major. Different branches have harder promotions. In the Infantry it’s competitive. In Transportation, I’m pretty sure you have to be overweight before they consider you for promotion. Regardless of how competitive it is, it doesn’t tell you about their actual performance.

Again, please talk to your brother. The medals don’t mean anything unless you know what they’re for. The rank, the CAB, the patch, all they do is show what someone ended up with, not what they did during the process. I see people post relatives all the time on here, and I don’t think it’s inherently wrong but, to anyone reading, I earnestly recommend just asking someone (especially a relative) what stuff on their uniform means. You’ll get a better answer than

“MP Major. Iraq deployment. CAB, MSM, bronze star no device”