A medal for the rest of us

by **Alpha** Wed 30 May 2018, 4:15 pm

A medal for the rest of us

May 30, 2018

A medal for the rest of us Volunteer_service_medal3_p3314276

Regardless of when you served in a military uniform or the RCMP, if you were never posted to a NATO or UN deployment and served less than 12 years, you will have nothing to show for it.

To a lot of us veterans, this is wrong – you should be able to pin a medal on your chest, a volunteer service medal, and stand by the rest of us during the Remembrance Day festivities. How would I recognize you as a veteran unless you told me?

Dave Palmer has for approximately 11 years dealt with two governments to bring about change, but to date even after registering 20,000 names on a petition, has been ignored.

There are those who say the Canadian Forces Decoration serves this purpose. It does not, and the reason is you must serve for 12-plus years of good conduct to be awarded the CD. It has nothing to do with volunteering.

Also, there are those who will tell you the Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP are just jobs. You still volunteered to join and serve.

A bunch of us veterans got together, decided if government would not produce a medal, we would produce our own. With the OK of Dave Palmer and with Joe Drouin, who has for years sold accouterments to veterans, we came up with a military-grade medal, inexpensive to purchase (about $14 each), and from now on you can wear this medal as you see fit. Not in uniform unless the government OK's it, however.

The medal is available to all who served in cadet officer status, the militia, reserves, regular forces and RCMP. Dont forget, cadets have a host of medals they can earn, but you as a less than a 12-year regular force veteran have nothing.

Dale Dirks

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-227544-10-.htm