As one of 400ish personnel sent to Cyprus on Telic I feel I must comment. I am not bothered about getting a medal personally although I won't turn it down if it's offered.
Rumour has it that in GW1 an Army Polo team sent to the island for squad training received medals! No idea if it's true but nothing surprises me.
Anyways, there is a difficult decsion to be made here with regard to eligibility. A distinction between those who went there just for Telic and did nothing else but support the op (e.g Reservist medics taking care of casualties and escorting them home), and those who were posted there anyway and did their normal duties is perhaps the easiest.
That said many of those posted did work damn hard. Take for example the armourers who had to deal with the numerous US Navy diversions. They had to offload live munitions off unfamiliar aircraft types at all hours. Are they less entitled than an admin clerk aboard the Ark Royal? Maybe, maybe not.
I will not forget however the attitude of some on Cyprus who saw Telic as an unecessary interruption to their sunshine tour, who whinged because they had to move out of their en-suite mess accomodation so that four people deployed on Telic could move into bunks instead, who took holiday safe in the knowledge that deployed personnel would be keeping their seat warm.....
I guess it was ever thus.
