The change in the character of our operations means that using risk and rigour as the sole criteria for recognition will always be unsatisfactory. Risk to life comes in many forms, not just from incoming fire and rigour is a fairly subjective criterion anyway. At the risk of being controversial I would argue that in comparison with recent operations in Afghanistan - in themselves 'policing' rather than 'traditional full on warlike' operations - SHADER has been largely low level risk for most participants other than those few embedded with Opposition and Iraqi forces. We didn't send thousands of troops to go toe-to-toe closing with the enemy, and we weren't facing a credible air defence or Air Force which posed a threat to our ability to operate. And the politicians liked it that way as there is little appetite amongst either them or the public for high risk kinetic operations. So is risk and rigour even appropriate as a benchmark here in comparison with 1982, 91, 03 etc?
That doesn't mean what has been achieved to date isn't important or worthy of recognition. But until those running the medals and honours processes come to terms with the new operational dynamic, I sense there will be little change and we will continue to have a process bogged down by delays as they try to match outdated concepts with reality and divisiveness amongst those deployed trying to outcompete each other for who had the worst time on tour rather than acknowledging what has been achieved.