The Combat Infantry Badge is awarded for satisfactorily performing infantry duties while assigned to an infantry unit while personally and actively engaged in ground combat and under hostile fire.

Audie Murphy was awarded the coveted Combat Infantry Badge, nicknamed the "CIB", with the issuance of Special Orders Number 39, dated May 8, 1944. The orders were published by the 15th Infantry Regiment. The same set of orders also authorized Murphy's Bronze Star 1st Oak Leaf Cluster. These original orders are later reissued, possibly when the original orders were lost, by a set of "letter orders" issued by the U.S. Army Adjutant General, Verne L. Bowers, on December 11, 1954.

When the award was made, Murphy was a Staff Sergeant and was in training near Torre Astura, Italy. For some reason, the CIB was awarded nearly a year late to Staff Sergeant Murphy who should have received it while in service on the island of Sicily (Simpson, page 102).