Kings coronation medal

Zefan said:
Medals are overrated :p I managed to go through 12 years service without receiving one, despite being in during the diamond Jubilee and going away for a total of over a year (yes this is small beer compared to some but definitely more than the average for my trade).

They're giving them away for certain deployments to Cyprus now, where you're living and working within a stone's throw of married quarters where kids are running around living normal lives. I'm not bitter.
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They aren't 'giving them away'. Those that get the medal are directly supporting Op Shader - others on the base are not. I got a medal for living in a 5* apartment in Southern Italy because i was supporting the Bosnia conflict. Not my proudest medal, but jets were guarded, loaded and flew from the Italian Air base and thus all those supporting were awarded the medal.

Diamond Jubilee, like the Kings Coronation medal, are 5 years service at the time of the event. It sounds like you were unfortunate and missed out, but the lines have to be drawn somewhere.

I guess your 12 months away were in non-operation areas ie Falklands etc? ****, during Op Herrick i was away for 6 months (+ 6 months pre-deployment training) every 2 years for quite a while - that took a toll on the family and I :(. Lads/Lasses who were on tour in Afghan were getting notified that they were going back out again! I never had it that bad.
 
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ivrytwr3 said:
They aren't 'giving them away'. Those that get the medal are directly supporting Op Shader - others on the base are not. I got a medal for living in a 5* apartment in Southern Italy because i was supporting the Bosnia conflict. Not my proudest medal, but jets were guarded, loaded and flew from the Italian Air base and thus all those supporting were awarded the medal.

Diamond Jubilee, like the Kings Coronation medal, are 5 years service at the time of the event. It sounds like you were unfortunate and missed out, but the lines have to be drawn somewhere.

I guess your 12 months away were in non-operation areas ie Falklands etc? ****, during Op Herrick i was away for 6 months (+ 6 months pre-deployment training) every 2 years for quite a while - that took a toll on the family and I :(. Lads/Lasses who were on tour in Afghan were getting notified that they were going back out again! I never had it that bad.
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Yes I'm absolutely clear on all the details of why medals are awarded, and I can absolutely say that they're giving them away to guys I know who are supporting shader. The deciding factor between getting a medal being working in office A supporting shader or office B not supporting shader is exactly my point, they're overrated and misunderstood. Your point saying about drawing the line further proves my point. Someone who was awarded the medal because they've done 5 years and 1 day vs someone who's done 2 days less.... You can't say that isn't "giving it away" compared to the other guy.

Yes Falklands mostly, once back to the same job, same room only 13 months later, relatively unheard of in our trade and shows that only a handful or so people were qualified/deployable at the time. No medal despite sacrificing at least as much as others who went to Cyprus and sat on the beach for 90% of their time within walking distance to the patch. I'm pretty certain guys have been in receipt of medals who have been "Deployed" to the UK in support of certain ops. My entire point is a joke really that they are overrated, because A) I haven't received one so it's my typical self deprecating humour, and B) because a medal in itself really doesn't mean anything on its own, context is important.
 
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Medals have always been a decisive issue and there’s never a perfect line for who should or shouldn’t qualify. Some guys on my squadron received the UN medal for the Libya campaign as they were sat in the back of a tanker ferrying the bombers down to the med and back - eating food and watching films for 8 hours just in case the tanker diverted for any reason…

It’s nothing new though - people qualified for the Granby medal in 1991 by being in Cyprus. Allegedly, although I’ve no idea if this is true, it included the Red Arrows…
 
Penfold101 said:
Medals have always been a decisive issue and there’s never a perfect line for who should or shouldn’t qualify. Some guys on my squadron received the UN medal for the Libya campaign as they were sat in the back of a tanker ferrying the bombers down to the med and back - eating food and watching films for 8 hours just in case the tanker diverted for any reason…

It’s nothing new though - people qualified for the Granby medal in 1991 by being in Cyprus. Allegedly, although I’ve no idea if this is true, it included the Red Arrows…
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You mean the Mickey Mouse version without a clasp . Yep we all have a chuckle on veterans or Memorial Day at the guys who don’t have one .
 
Medals always bring up debate. The SHADER medal has definitely caused a few conversations with many people, including myself. I do get the fustration, even personally I have been located in an area where like has been mentioned, the person next to me is SHADER and gets the "nice to haves" for that, but I was at that time under another Op name so qualified for nothing, yet did longer in country etc etc.

There was talk of introducing a new medal to capture all these Op deployments that don't currently get you anything, but I am pretty sure it keeps getting rejected. Tbh, I would have thought the GSM could just do that, but even the GSM gets people arguing.

They made a hash of medals introducing the OSM from what it looks like. And especially made a hash of the qualifying criteria for the SHADER OSM, it does seem pretty random.

As for the others, It's nice to see they opened up the criteria for the coronation medal to the last 5 years service too, I thought they were going for the cheap option and only those on parade would get issued it. All those that hedged their bets to get on parade, waste of time now ha.

That will be my 3rd so i'm getting there :)
 
StriderX said:
Yes? I was looking for an answer as I don't know why it's specifically 5 years service.
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So the people have shown some sort of commitment, and not the ones who joined up two months beforehand or are still in training.

In the army especially, you’d be surprised how few years some of them do.

Also, saves money.
 
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