The plot thickens.

[Tony Farrell]

Now here's a mouthfull. This is called the... wait for it... Accumulated Campaign Service Medal.

Instituted in 1994, this medal is awarded for three years' accumulated campaign service. It is rather an oddity, as it embodies attributes of both campaign and long service awards, but is neither one nor the other.

Initially this medal was sanctioned to denote the difference between someone who had completed just one tour in an operational area and received the General Service Medal, and someone who had completed several tours.
However, in 2001, it was decided to extend the award to anyone accumulating service in any operational area - including UN & NATO operations. This is due to the GSM becoming semi-defunct and the increase in UN & NATO activity.

The award, however, is not retrospective in this latter amendment and personnel who had accumulated 36 months' operational service (prior to the amendment date) in any other theatre than Northern Ireland; or who are entitled to the Air Operations Iraq clasp - both of which are still current - won't get it! A clasp is issued for a further three years' service in operational areas.

[Rick Research]

Oh, goody! A Non-Specific Generic "Served Somewhere" Medal.

Spiffing.

"That man! Yes, you horrible little man! Where did you serve then, eh? Hmm... Somewhere, somewhere--that must have been rough, what?... somewhere--cakewalk, that... somewhere...."

May I, in all earnestness, suggest that you Brits take your ENTIRE awards proposal, design, and approval teams and ship them off post haste to all those nice empty "psychiatric institutions" in the Formerly Wicked Empire?

Will it take a mass military parade heaving this **** through the fence at Buckingham Palace to wake SOMEBODY up?

At least in the pre-Yuppie-Trot All-But-Republic days some dessicated "loony" old hereditary Peer would get up and flay some deserving fanny. This is cringe-in-mortification stuff!

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Rick Lundstrom ]

[Tony Farrell]

Rick, as ever, you have me choking on my Earl Grey! Actually, I quite like the ACSM. It's basically a continuation of the GSM - that was thought up before someone decided to semi-scrap it.
It differentiates between some bottle washer who's been cutting butties up for a month at Bessbrook, and some unlucky sod who's had the boyos taking pot shots at him for three years in South Armagh.

Providing the medal is issued with sense - and so far it has been, then all's OK with me. After all, the bloke would have to have a GSM to start with. But now it's been extended to cover UN & NATO ops too, so I (and many others, no doubt) don't know how it'll work out.

I also gather that the new Operational Service Medal will be issued... get this... UN-NAMED! Excellent, another ****ing brilliant bit of cost cutting. Well decided that muppet. Have a CBE!

There's also a Humanitarian Service Medal in the pipeline too - much like the Aussies & Kiwis. So yes Rick, the buggers are in cahoots after all!

[McCulloh]

Unnamed! Bloody Hell!
Time for the Tories to come back and conserve what little is left of a once great awards system. Perhaps Ian Duncan-Smith, who I believe has a GSM with a couple of bars, will do away with this cheap nastiness.
I agree with Tony above about the pre-2001 Accumulated Service medal though. I'm not certain about the bottle-washing example though. Anybody in Bessbrook for more than a month deserved the medal. Poor Baruki(of the Sanger fame) washed a few bottles before he was killed-and so were a few other chaps I knew in Ulster.
Cheers,
JeMc

[Rich G]

Yeah don't get me bloddy started ! My dad died on the streets of ulster. He was in the UDR part time from it's inception until 1978 when he was murdered.
My mum nearly went through the roof when they told her he wasn't eligible. How they worked that out is still a mystery, as he had served for 5 - 6 years, with patrols nearly every week-end and sometimes mid-week. Funnily enough, all the officiers and senior NCO's all have their medals

[McCulloh]

Wouldn't your Dad have qualified for the UDR regiment medal? Also, you and your family should have received the Ulster Defence Regiment Medallion.
I'm surprised about the GSM award as the UDR is a full regiment of the army, so therefore I would've thought 90 days service was all that sufficed. Have you contacted your M.P.? Sometimes the Rev. Ian Kyle can work miricles with bureaucrats (I suspect they give him whatever he wants so as to shut him up and make him go away).
Cheers,
JeMc

[Rich G]

Thanks for the suggestion,JeMc.

I think at this stage my mum doesn't what to have any more to do with them. I'll mention it to her anyway, as she may have calmed down a bit by now.

Regards

Rich