Whopee! Medals for all!
 

The LS&GCM is now to be given to officers - maybe we're not expected to be well behaved anymore and so deserve a gong when we are.

15 years service for the medal and then clasps for every 10 years after that. Sorry Beagle, not available to those who left before 29 Jul 14.

Good news for Stn tailors everywhere!

This is, I assume, 2014? :)

Oh, well, my conduct was usually good, so I'll have to settle for that!

I've often thought it strange that RAuxAF Officers got the Air Efficiency award, RAFVR(T) Officers get the Cadet Forces Medal, and ORs get the LS&GCM, whereas RAF Officers get jack.

What ever happened to the "Cold War Medal" that was being talked about a couple of years ago? Dismissed on cost grounds I would imagine!

I staffed a paper on the Officers' LS&GC when at MoD back in the early 90s.

Consensus then was that it was quite un-necessary, as an officer's Good Conduct was implicit. If it had not been, then the lack of the medal would show he/she had been a bad boy/girl, and advertise the fact to everyone ... not good for respect from subordinates, especially in an in-command appointment.

As for Long Service, what's special about staying in to earn a [relatively] decent pension?

I see it as a very different scenario to those officers in the Voluntary areas.

The thing that always got me was that time served under 18 never counted.

I am with MPN11 on this - and entirely without self interest, I have been "out" (in the Service sense) longer than I was "in". Officer's good conduct - goes with the parchment IMHO

I have done over 30 years and accumulated 8 medals in the process. They are, however, all round ones. I'd quite like a medal with a clasp, but that would cost a mint (geddit?) to get mounted and I'm no longer in the q-wearing business. But I think it's a good idea and long overdue.

Possibly beacuse tehre are realtively few occasions to dish out medals any more?

if our brass have to stand - up with officers from other countries they need a reasonable display of medals I guess

now for photos of N korean SO's..................

Or possibly good sense prevailed!

TTN (Cold War Warrior!)

Has this been formally announced then? I know the intent to introduce an new Long Service award to include Regular Officers has been discussed for a couple of years, but I wasn't aware that anything had been formally announced about it e.g. as a DIN.

Ghastly idea, insulting and completely meaningless. How about a medal for passing staff college? Or for serving in MoD? Or for never having had a desk job? Smacks of half baked ideas from a minister or senior civil serpent who has never served in the military.

It will be interesting to note what 'disqualifying' criteria will apply to this pointless bauble.

Stay schtum for 15 years, don't rock the boat, don't get caught speaking your mind and make sure you behave like a good little North Korean towards your boss, no matter how much of an orifice he might be?

I wonder how many future aircrew will actually stay in for 15 years?

Nutty,
The good news was that Boy Entrant/Apprentice conduct sheets were deleted on passing out!

It was just too easy to get put on jankers, almost a ritual of passage.

The really odd time was the 6 months between 17½ and 18th birthday. It counted for some thing but not others.

If you stayed in till pension, it counted as pensionable service. I didn't and it is in my discharge book as 'previous service'.

BEagle,


Genuinely interested as to why you consider this a "pointless bauble". My own view is would fill an obvious gap in the contemporary system of medallic recognition.


MB

Well, Mahogany Bomber, whilst it does as you say 'fill a gap', is it one that actually needs filling? Somehow I never felt the need for a medal saying I've not been Court Martialled (or some other criterion) and that I'd been in for 15+ years. Neither proved difficult for me to achieve, so why should I be given a medal for so doing?

MPN11, 30 years and no medals. :)

It was amusing for me to see at least one ex- NCO, commissioned fairly late in his career, not then putting up his LSGCM ribbon so as not to betray his origins (he thought).

B***er. I was hoping for another medal to show how jolly brave I am....

Ian, I think it was the other way round. LS&GCM from 17.5 and pension from 18. Still confusing though.

Haraka ... or indeed a fellow ATCO in the 70s who stopped wearing his 2 WW2 medal ribbons after we teased him for being old!!

In my experience 1987-2009, an Integrity Medal would be a rare sight amongst many a chisseler aiming at the next rank, with no thought for the wake left behind. LS&GCM for officers? Who comes up with this cr@p?

I recall Maj Bob Pomeroy the USAF member of the War Studies Team at the Towers, who had about 3 or 4 rows of medal ribbons, being teased at a dining-in night by the UK Military member (the then) Maj David Thorne, on the basis one medal was for chasing girls and another for catching them

Where would you wear it anyway? I don't wear medals on my civilian clothes or uniform (although I have worked with some who did).

I always thought a good conduct stripe was a better idea, add them for being a good boy / girl and remove one when you are not.

When the 'Specialist Aircrew' scheme was first mooted, apparently consideration was given to some form of distinguishing insignia - so those about to be able to opt for Spec Aircrew terms were consulted.

Once the discussion dropped to the level of 'secret handshakes', the sponsor sneaked back into his hole in the Air Box and nothing became of it all.

Perhaps there should also be a 'brown nose' medal for those chiselling thrusters amongst aircrew with 5 or more years in staff appointments shuffling paper rather than flying?

Staff appointments interspesed with operational ones are an essential ingredient to career progression. If all you want to do is fly, go Spec Aircrew and forget about high rank ;)

Now, what do I get for c. 16 years in Staff appointments? The Ignoble Order of the Shiny Trouser?

Pity? Plus a lifetime supply of Penguin bars....;)

The Oberon

Its worse than I thought!
I've just dug out my Certificate of Service. My 'Previous Service' is listed as my time as a Boy Entrant.

Being one of the youngest Boys, I joined at 15 years and 66 days, I passed out still under 17½. There are 11 months from when I passed out of Boy's service to when my engagement started on my 18th birthday that are simply not recorded in my Certificate of Service.
In that period I was promoted twice from B/E to LAC to SAC!
How could that happen when I wasn't in the Service?

And it wouldn't show or count towards your pension, if any, even though you were contributing.

Pension?

Had to do 22 to get a pension in them days.

I did have one pleasant surprise, the day I was demobbed I received £50 that I wasn't expecting.

This was apparently a 'gratuity' for completing 10 years service. When I actually did almost 13.

NL - what do you get for being a VERY good girl? ....hat, coat...........

Sorry Beagle, not available to those who left before 29 Jul 14. - RLE

So not exactly "Whopee! Medals for all!" then.:rolleyes:

Incidentally, does "Whopee" mean that there will be a whip-round to pay for them....:D

Jack

Depends on whether a whipping makes you "whoopee"

What a bunch of bloody misery guts we have on here. Quelle surprise.

The government wants to give people who have devoted a fair portion of their life to public service a visible token of their appreciation and all some folks can do is whine about it.

We all know it's not a medal for being a hero and for some of us it might be all we have to show for a few years in the mob.

From what was discussed on this forum a few months back it'll be a long service medal without the good conduct portion being associated with it.

Regardless of that this should be embraced as a good news story. Until someone can categorically prove to me that squaddies are going without body armour or the VSOs have had to resort to Tesco value sausages for their lunch.

Lighten up, for the love of God.

BV

I cant see the point of degrading a perfectly legitimate award for airman service to assuage "bare chest" officer sensibilities. Since 2002 any serving officer will accrue one gizzit gong for service every ten years of Her Maj's Glorious Reign with the next one due in 2022. Then happy non combatant officers can sport a row of three like any police/fire/ambulanceman.

For me it's not about assuaging anyone's sensibilities. It's about a little bit of credit where it's due. In our country we are so hard over on avoiding the US style bling that we turn our noses up at anything short of a gallantry award.

I can't say it's going to change my life to have one and if it wasn't awarded I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep but I don't see it as a bad thing.

I guess we shall have to just agree to disagree.

BV

Having heard a bit about the drivers for this, the fact that regular officers are alone in not getting a long service medal among regular other ranks, and reservists at all ranks, was seen as an anonaly that rightly needed correcting. The driver for this was military and not civil servants, as some here seem to think.

Actually there are far more occasions than heretofore. The jubilee and South Atlantic medals were the only common medals after the Korean War besides the GSM and LSGC Then came the Bosnian, Gulf etc etc and now 10 or so is not uncommon.

Assuming the same for all three services, time from 17 1/2 is reckonable service towards the award of LS&GC.

“The object of giving medals, stars and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them. At the same time a distinction is something which everybody does not possess. If all have it, it is of less value. There must, therefore, be heart-burnings and disappointments on the borderline. A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow. The task of drawing up regulations for such awards is one which does not admit of a perfect solution. It is not possible to satisfy everybody without running the risk of satisfying nobody. All that is possible is to give the greatest satisfaction to the greatest number and to hurt the feelings of the fewest.”

Winston Churchill – 22nd March 1944