The fact that Elaine might not have a campaign medal is, frankly, completely and utterly irrelevant. She has made it to AVM at quite a young age purely through her own talent and ability.
There is an increasingly corrosive attitude around these days, which can be described as "You ain't done sand = you ain't done $hit"; such a blinkered attitude needs to be restrained. I first came across the very same attitude some 31 years ago, when I encountered some poisonous little thruster of a Sqn Ldr who was desperate for a posting to the South Atlantic - for no other reason than "If you haven't been to the Falklands, you're no-one in London"......
