2011: New Year's Honours for Service personnel and Defence civilian
 

Please find the link to the 2011: New Year's Honours for Service personnel and Defence civilians

Happy New Year

FNS

New Years Honours List 2010/11
 

The list is out. Nice to see some due recognition for some familiar names.
Congratulations to all those involved.
Ministry of Defence | Defence News | History and Honour | 2011: New Year's Honours for Service personnel and Defence civilians

Full RAF list here

Great to see one of mine on the list, well done mate well deserved, shame the hierarchy didn’t inform you before the list was published (I guess they don’t make Senior Officers like they used to).

Congratulations to all recipients.

A Professor Porter from RCDM Birmingham has received a Knighthood for his service in helping severly wounded service personel on their return from Afghanistan etc
A Huge congratulations, after watching the flying hospital programme on TV a few weeks ago it is good to see that people who do this kind of work are honoured.

I was as much pleased to see who hadn't got a gong, I think the new goverment may be trying to make sure that gongs go to the right people rather than the new 'Celebrity Culture' which has cropped up in recent years.

As usual, it is extremely top heavy in senior officers, the RAF appears to be the worst culprit for patting each other on the back for someone else`s effort.

1771 - nominate many Junior Airmen or Cpls did you?

Bring Back the BEM
 

Alf

Very hard to get a nomination thro' the mill for cpls and below since the demise of the BEM. (I know, I've tried and never won). A daft move by John Major to get rid of it.

Also the order of award (which are severely rationed for the Services) STILL related to rank: (Usually) Sqn Ldrs & below: MBE; Wg Cdrs; OBE; Gp Capt Air Cdres: CBE; 2 * and above: what they can scrounge. At that level there is still a pecking order. KCB trumps the KBE etc.

Huge congrats to all who did that bit extra (and not just their job) to gain a national honour. It used to be that once 3* star rank was attained a "K" came with the rations.

About time this daft 6 monthly fest was binned for civil servants, sports "stars" and singers getting an award for just doing their job. Awards for bravery only. About time a woman won the VC, with more in combat it'll happen.

Rant selected off!

HNY by the way.

Time?
 

Moderator

Time of posts a bit suspect. What time zone? Not Zulu that's for sure.

Not really. They were openly available on the the RAF and MOD websites on 31 Dec.

I was impressed by an actress on the radio the other day who had turned down an honour for services to the theatre because she said acting was her job, for which she got paid, and didn't see why she should get a medal for it as well. Awards for bravery only is a bit harsh maybe - charity work is one field that deserves recognition. Re the Victoria Cross, looking at the amazing citations for the girls who have won the MC so far I think you are right, it's just a matter of time

If you don't understand that the likelihood of an award is more a function of the written influencing skills of the nominator than the deeds of the nominee than you really haven't been paying attention. That said, why not let these individuals have their "moment", especially the usual smattering of lolipop ladies and cat wardens. Bravery awards are fully recognised under a different system to the New Years honours list so comparing the two is a specious exercise.

The apparent disproportion of Officers to Enlisted in these awards is also transparently obvious - if you are in a command position or position of ultimate responsibility you are more likely to be making the kinds of decisions that get you noticed and recognised. Of course it's the team that does the graft and executes the real work, but somebody somewhere takes the resposibility for that. If you don't understand this then somewhere along the way the principles of military leadership have passed you by.

It's nothing new of course, ever since I remember first reading these lists, X years ago, people have been complaining that Nobby from the MT got nothing, whereas that useless Officer in HQ got an MBE. I suspect that those who object so vociferously to Officers getting awards are all closet republicans anyway. When there's an Armed Forces Union we can all get an award and feel special, until then, those with the ultimate responsibility of command will probably continue to get the majority.

Well...as I recall, being the Nobby in question, I made more effective decisions every day than the totally useless commissioned moron in charge. who, in over two years, never deigned to meet me, but did get a BEM I believe. Not being a closet republican, and one who has his commission parchment framed and on full display in my hall, I can't say I felt anything other than complete indifference to his award. He could clearly bend a lot lower than I could!

Not if he was commissioned, he didn't! Maybe an MBE though?

Well he was [commissioned], a Flt Lt no less, and in two years of endorsing my annual assessments never actually got around to meeting me, and that was the stuff of an MBE, as you correctly pointed out! :ok:

Maybe someone should draw up a "bravery award" vs "rank" graph. You could also do a distance from Whitehall vs award graph and another plotting public financed staff vs private financed award. A pound vs a pinch if poo says that publicly paid, high status staff situated close to Whitehall are braver and more worthy of awards than anyone else.

PM

PM I commented on another thread (can't remember the link) about a photo of some 4* admiral recently appointed, who apart from his KCB, Jubilee etc didnt have a gallantry/campaign medal of any description on display. I said at the time that things haven't changed since Gilbert said "stick close to your desks and never go to sea, and you all may be leaders of the Queen's navee"!

There is little that is particularly "honourable" about a system that was demeaned by being allowed to be bought by certain individuals recognised more for their contribution to Party funds than anything else.

In New Zealand, PM Helen Clark gave such honours and awards the big heave-ho and instituted a new, national system of awards. It seemed to me to be a good move given that the UK had discarded the old Dominions of NZ and Australia in 1975 in favour of Europe, making such awards as MBE etc utterly pointless. The current government, however, has reinstated knighthoods, so I'm looking to the future with some trepidation!

Ascot5999.

Re time zone and posted times. A very sore point. We try to get the owners in the US to act on this but we never seem to get it resolved.

This post time is: 22:16 I would not be surprised if it isn't correct.

I can and do guarantee I hit the submit button as above.

Alfred
As you may be aware, working on a squadron, i had no responsibility for the reporting of the junior ranks.
Two`s In
You incorrectly guess at my politics which has nothing to do with my dislike for the way the honours system is handled. It still is a case of getting an honour if you reach a certain rank and don`t say no to superiors when that is obvioulsy the correct response. No wonder many of the senior officers are so spineless, when their honour might just go missing in the post.
PPrune Mod
Being over this side of the pond and looking at the timings, my system displays local times for each entry, which obviously does not look like the correct chronological order.