We probably should have a new thread on medals but while the debate is raging on this thread my favourite medal anecdote (goes back some years) is:
Troopship on its way from Blighty to somewhere well to the East taking a battalion of the Welsh Guards to an exercise. Stops in Suez - some lads get laid and catch a dose. Dose only becomes apparent as ship nears Singapore so squaddies are off-loaded into the local British Medical Hospital for treatment. Rest of Battalion complete exercise and collect the now fully recovered squaddies on the return trip. Now at the time the Malayan insurgency campaign was in full flow and - you guessed it - the squaddies qualified for the GSM Malaya medal during their enforced lay-over. The rest of the battalion did not and were distinctly unimpressed!