new Aussie medal

Sounds like it is similar to the USA's National Defense service Medal. One thing I did not think was fair was the exclusion of women.
Also excluded were large numbers of women who enlisted after World War II for what was then an initial period of four years, and those injured in training accidents, who felt obliged to seek discharge before they had chalked up six years.
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Just my opinion.
 
What is the controversy?

Honestly I don't understand people whose self-esteem is tied up in some sort of public recognition. If I know I did the right thing that is enough for me, I don't give a rat's hindquarters who else knows.
 
Not sure why they want to exclude the women, either. They served their time too.

The article makes it sound like a fluff medal they're trying to make elite by tacking on crappy exclusions.
 
Basically it's an everyone gets a gong award. Do 4 years service, get a gong. Simple as that. Like a certificate of participation.
 
tomtom22 said:
Only controversy I can see is the exclusion of women.
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Yeah, I think that is just wrong. When the NDSM was first issued, the recipient had to have served honorably between 27 June 1950 and 27 July 1954;(Korean Conflict)

Between 1 January 1961 and 14 August 1974;(VietNam War Era)

Between 2 August 1990 and 30 November 1995; (First Iraq conflict)

Between 11 September 2001 and a closing date to be determined;(Second Iraqi War)

I'm pretty sure women were included in that one as they are in all of the US Armed Forces medals and ribbons.
 
Interesting exclusion. If this medal is supposed to be tied to combat service I could understand the ommission but it doesn't read like that. I am just curious what the Aussies are up in arms about, they tend to have different sensibilities at times.
 
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.
:)
 
AussieNick said:
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.
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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!
 
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