I think the Women deserve every medal awarded by the Services.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12360638/

Ranks of U.S. combat amputees now includes 11 women

"Her body had been maimed by war. Dawn Halfaker lay unconscious at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her parents at her bedside and her future suddenly unsure. A rocket-propelled grenade had exploded in her Humvee, ravaging her arm and shoulder.
In June 2004, she became the newest soldier to start down a path almost unknown in the United States: woman as combat amputee."

"For Halfaker, an athlete with a strong sense of her physical self, the world was transformed June 19, 2004, on a night patrol through Baqubah, Iraq. Out of nowhere had come the rocket-propelled grenade, exploding behind her head."

Another soldier's arm was sheared off. Blood was everywhere.

"Get us out of the kill zone!" she yelled to the Humvee driver. She was a 24-year-old first lieutenant, a platoon leader who two months earlier had led her unit in repulsing a six-hour attack on a police station in Diyala province. As medics worked to stabilize her, she warned: "You bastards better not cut my arm off."

In the hospital, there had been no other way to save her life.
At first, in the early days, she tried to ignore the burns on her face, her wounded right shoulder, the fact of her missing arm. She had been a basketball standout at West Point, a starting guard through four years of college. She was fit, young, energetic.
Suddenly, she was a disabled veteran of war.

"I didn't want to know what I looked like," she recalled recently. She asked her mother to get a towel and cover the mirror in her hospital room."

I have to agree. The description given for this award doesn't justify any exclusion of gender or much else for that matter it would seem.

It doesn't exclude women. It's a bad quote. It is saying that some women who enlisted after WW2 are ineligible for the medal because they didn't do the required four years service. If they had done four years service (which is the minimum return of service) they would be eligible. It also says some Korea veterens are ineligible... because they only served 2 years. But that is just the criteria of the medal.

The outcry is that a lot of people think it is a pointless medal. Australia doesn't give out medals for everything like some other countries, and this seems like a bit of a cop-out medal. Thats the only outcry.

Thanks Nick, I was hoping, and expected, the outcry from the Aussies would be about the pointless nature of it. Nice to re-affirmed of my opinion of the blokes down under.

Fluff medals and awards suck.

Originally Posted by AussieNick

It doesn't exclude women. It's a bad quote. It is saying that some women who enlisted after WW2 are ineligible for the medal because they didn't do the required four years service. If they had done four years service (which is the minimum return of service) they would be eligible. It also says some Korea veterens are ineligible... because they only served 2 years. But that is just the criteria of the medal.

The outcry is that a lot of people think it is a pointless medal. Australia doesn't give out medals for everything like some other countries, and this seems like a bit of a cop-out medal. Thats the only outcry.

Thanks for the clarification, but ah well, Nick, although it can certainly be overdone, having an "I joined the Army" button come out once in a great while can stir sympathies. I remember how I felt way, way, long ago when I was a young EM and got that National Defense Medal as my first among many more medals to come. At the time it made me feel included. I'm sure the folks your way are hoping for something similar. Napoleon well knew how such things can engender support. He said, and I'm paraphrasing so forgive me if the quote is not completely accurate, "If I had enough ribbon, I could rule the world."

We've come along way since those day's of female exclusions,personal opinion on medals they seem to be more trouble than they are worth. And when the troops deserve one they have to fight tooth and nail to get it! For example the lads who served in Suez canal zone 1956 are only just now being awarded one! Clearly the Aussies are far more generous with their "Shrapnel" than the British!