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Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 6:06 pm
by riptidenj
The US military has gone overboard on medals since Vietnam ended and that greatly cheapens them IMHO. On another board I visit one Vietnam veteran said any medals from that conflict awarded to anyone above the rank of 1st Lieutenant are suspect, so many generals in that conflict received the Distinguished Service Medal that it became know as the Generals Good Conduct Medal. It was a considerable source of embarrassment when Samuel Koster had to be stripped of his DSM for his role in covering up My Lai-he was the commande of the Americal Division at the time.

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:33 am
by DuncaninFrance
Like em :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

Quartermasters in the British Army can be awarded the OBE, Order of the British Empire but it is always changed to Other Buggers Efforts by those who know better :roll:

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:34 pm
by Aughnanure
Here's a well known Australian General, Peter Cosgrove, wearing all of his medals and awards.
Image
Nickname : Cos
Place of birth : Sydney, Australia
Allegiance : Australia

Service/branch : Australian Army
Years of service : 1965 – 2005
Rank : General
Commands held :
Chief of the Defence Force
Chief of Army
INTERFET
Joint Deployable Force
Land Command
1st Infantry Division
School of Infantry
1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment

Battles/wars :
Vietnam War
International Force for East Timor

Awards :
Companion of the Order of Australia
Military Cross
Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Commander of the United States Legion of Merit.

Other work : Leader of the Cyclone Larry Task Force
Quote and photo are from Wikipedia.

Not all that many, but . . .

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:44 pm
by Niner
Can you imagine working at some job for a pretty good while and wanting a raise or promotion and your boss and his boss get to talking and after figuring out there is no open spot for promotion unless they want to fire one of the owners useless relatives, which they can't do, and they darn sure don't want to give you a raise in pay....and they think... "I know, lets give him a medal with a bit of ribbon. That's the ticket. All the other wage slaves will be want one too. Throw in a certificate saying what a swell guy he is and what a hard worker. Can't cost much to make up a batch of these things. " Now how do you think that would play?

Re: Medals too heavy?

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 3:00 am
by DuncaninFrance
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvid ... aring.html

Not the sort of thing a grunt wants to see from is commander me thinks :loco: :loco:

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 9:07 am
by Niner
I saw that....if McCain wasn't so windy he wouldn't have put the general to sleep.

I noticed the medals. Guy couldn't get another two or three without them running over his shoulder and down his back.

One thing about medals, in the US anyway, is they are put on in order of rank. The more significant the medal the closer to the top. Now, that being said, most of these showboat displays have ribbons that do not rank as high as the run of the mill ones that privates get pretty regular. If I remember right the general's bronze star, V device admittedly, ranked in the second or third row from the top, real close to his air medal, arcom and good conduct medal which would have been not too far behind it, all medals that ordinary soldiers often get awarded. Must of been half a dozen rows of been there medals below the "average" medals.

By the way, why does Britain still have a "Royal" family? Just show isn't it? At least this general is a "real" general. All that fruit salad is in the same line as a lot of pomp and pageantry with figurehead monarchs seems to me. Only this guy is expected to really do something once in a while. :D


Also by the way: "Petraeus was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, the son of Miriam and Sixtus Petraeus. His mother was an American citizen and his father was a sea captain who had immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands during the initial phase of World War II."

After further study ....I'm bored and can't go fishing today thanks to BP.... I found that the significant awards he has are these:
Defense Distinguished Service Medal (2)
Army Distinguished Service Medal (2)
Defense Superior Service Medal (2)
Legion of Merit (4)
Bronze Star with Valor V
Defense Meritorious Service Medal

He was wounded once..no purple heart. Shot by a unintended rifle discharge while observing some training exercise.

He was too late for Vietnam by the time he got out of West Point, so Bronze with V a pretty low valor award for a field grade officer even though he served as a division commander in attack on Baghdad....not enough chance to build that slot I guess. Strange no mention of an Air Medal.

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:22 pm
by DuncaninFrance
Honestly, just looking at that picture says it all for me - just a lot of coloured clutter which means naff all!

My father served through the whole of the Second World War and at the end didn't bother to apply for his campaign medals. He said that he knew where he had served and that was good enough for him.

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 5:34 pm
by riptidenj
As Anthony Herbert said in his excellent book Soldier, "There's nothing like a chest full of ribbons and the old war record when the promotion board meets.." and one reason why Vietnam was the bloody fiasco it turned out to be was because, as one USArmy general put it "Too many brigade and battalion commanders were simply trying to punch their tickets instead of actually lead."

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 7:18 am
by Aughnanure
Well here's one from the Vietnam era:
Decade of deception ends as veteran claims exposed .
Erik Jensen
September 7, 2010 SMH.
Image
Gordon Tisdell is a broken man. For a decade he has been the public face of Anzac and Remembrance Days. His photograph has run in Life magazine; in the Australian, where he claimed to be a Vietnam veteran; in the Herald, as a survivor of Long Tan.

In 2006, his portrait was among the finalists in the Olive Cotton Award. It was titled Shadow of Remembrance.

The problem is, Tisdell never served in Vietnam, or any other war. His name is nowhere on the nominal roll. When the 6 RAR was in a pitched battled against the Viet Cong, he was on a dairy farm outside Gloucester
continued at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/decade-o ... 14y1o.html

Makes one wonder.

Re: Wearing non-entitled medals

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 3:30 pm
by DuncaninFrance
LITTLE SHIT!