Wearing Medals

Military medals have been a source of fascination by Australians for generations, with many thousands of ex-service people (and many civilians) turned collector, despite medals not being freely available for wear by all of us. How did the practice of awarding a medal start? In ancient times, Roman Legions awarded the first legionnaire to go "over the wall" a laurel of oak leaves which was later amended to a gold button. Napoleon rewarded his bravest soldiers the Legion of Honour, which became an enduring symbol of excellence in France to this day, to the extent where holders of the Ordre Royale de la Legion D'Honneur to give it it's full title, are saluted by gendarmes and traffic is halted for them to cross a street. Decorations, awards, campaign, and service medals are a token of esteem awarded by a country to it's most distinguished citizens (and often citizens of other countries).

Medals are worn with the obverse side showing. Medals conferred by the Australian government are impressed or more latterly engraved on the rim (or in the case of stars and some more recent medals, engraved on the reverse) with the service number, name and initials of the recipient and worn on the left breast. If you are wearing medals of a relative, then in accordance with accepted ex-service organisation protocols, you would wear them on your right breast. For more information about the order in which you should wear specific medals, see the Order of Precedence link at the bottom of the page. Riband (often erroneously called ribbon) bars generally are worn with each riband between 10mm to 13mm high and usually 30mm wide (some gallantry and older medals have wider riband than the standard 32mm), again mounted invisibly with a brooch or clutch pin fitting. Riband bars are worn only whilst in uniform and the length by protocol is restricted to roes of ribands with a maximum of four ribands wide.

Riband or ribbon bars, are worn only whilst in uniform.

It must be stated; there are no laws relating to how medals should be worn other than those applicable to serving personnel, and these are defined in the relevant orders and instructions like ASOD (Army Standing Orders for Dress) relating to each branch of the service and enforced by the Defence Force Discipline Act.

There are however, accepted standards called protocols which have been developed by ex-service organisations like the RSL for retired or ex-service personnel that relate to the wearing of medals with civilian dress. For example; medal entitlements are worn on the left breast, and generally court or swing mounted on an invisible mounting brooch affixed to a jacket or coat. Often there is a requirement to wear medals only on a shirt (particularly in the case of currently serving military, fire, emergency services and police service personnel to name a few) in uniform.

The Defence Act 1903 (as amended) does however have penalties for those who misrepresent themselves as returned service men or women, and those penalties have been stiffened considerably. S80B of the Act states;

Improper Use of Service Decorations

(1) Subject to this section, a person shall not wear a service decoration unless he is the person upon whom the decoration was conferred.

(2) Where the person upon whom a service decoration was conferred has died, it is not an offence against subsection (1) for a member of the family of that person to wear the service decoration if the member of the family does not represent himself as being the person upon whom the decoration was conferred.

(3) It is not an offence against subsection (1) for a person to wear a service decoration in the course of a dramatic or other visual representation (including such a representation to be televised) or in the making of a cinematograph film.

(4) A person shall not falsely represent himself as being the person upon whom a service decoration has been conferred.

(5) A person shall not deface or destroy, by melting or otherwise, a service decoration.

Penalty: $3,300.

Service Decoration is defined under the Act as; Service Decoration — means any order, medal, badge, clasp, bar or other insignia that was or may be conferred for valour, distinguished conduct or service, long service, good conduct, devotion to duty, efficiency, participation in a campaign or other warlike operation or for any other reason on a member of the Defence Force or of any armed force of any part of the Queen's dominions or of any Power allied or associated with Australia in any war or warlike operations in which Australia is or has been engaged, and includes the ribbon of any such order, medal, badge, clasp or other decoration and any colourable imitation, representation or miniature of any such order, medal, badge, clasp or other decoration. This therefore refers to any award.

Official medals then are only to be worn by those to whom the medal has been conferred, generally by the Australian or British government, or those of Australia's allies. The major exception to this ruling occurs on commemmorative occasions like Remembrance Day (November 11), Viet Nam Veterans' (Long Tan) Day (August 18) and Anzac Day (April 25). On these occasions, descendants wear the medals of deceased recipients but usually acceptably only on the right breast.

Medals are worn in specific order, called the Order of Precedence, and the award of some medals preclude the wearing of others. For example a Viet Nam Logistics medal is not awarded (or worn) in addition to an Australian Viet Nam medal, or in the granting of both the ASM (Australian Service Medal 1945-1975), and the current ASM (1975+) to a long-serving career soldier, sailor or airman/woman, the latter would fall second as the first recognises prior service. The accepted protocol of wearing medals on the left breast of the awardee can be traced back to the time of the crusades in the 13th century, when knights of the realm wore their badge of honour close to their heart. The left side was generally the side that was covered by the shield which was held on the left arm protecting both the heart and the badge of honour.

Miniature medals should only be worn at formal dress functions, after dark.

Controversial Issues

Now that the long-promised Australian Defence Medal (and its eligibility finalised for something like 1.3 million awardees) is being issued, as a result of campaigns being underway for many years by organisations like the RSL, The Australian Veterans and Defence Service Council, the RAAFA, the VVFA and others (and whilst many regular and reservists are entitled to wear the RFD, RFM, DFSM, National Medal (Gough's Gong) and now the DLSM after 15 years of service to their country), there is finally recognition for those who served for lesser periods than 15 years (unlike police and other civil service agencies who have awards for shorter terms of commitment).

Many still say that this is an inadequate acknowledgement for the voluntary service and sacrifice of service personnel to their country; whether called to serve overseas or not (ex-service people are quick to point out they had no control whatsover when it came to where they would serve; at home or abroad).

Particularly since 2001, when the Australian government recognised National Servicemen with an official commemorative medal to recognise service as short as three months (after much lobbying, this group is also now included as recipients of the ADM - originally promoted as a medal for volunteer service). Or in the case of later National Servicemen who elected to 'do their time' as part-time service in the reserve (then CMF).

Many ex-regular and current and ex-reserve personnel who voluntarily served in times of peace when no campaign medals were on offer (or through no fault of their own in times of war, they were not deployed overseas) want to be given the opportunity to be recognised by wearing suitable service medals on ANZAC Day, Reserve Forces Day, Remembrance Day and other commemorative and unit/association occasions where otherwise they say, they appear to be merely civilians in civilian dress, or could be confused as 'nashos' from the 1950s who served in many cases for just a few months. There are others, who simply want to complete their collection of military memorabilia or have their family commitment honoured in a plaque or framed presentation of their service.

A popular view is that governments are slow to respond to recognise service. Many from the Viet Nam era say they are entitled to foreign awards and have never been granted permission to wear them, officially. The whole Viet Nam war was under a quota system which it has been said, saw an under-represented air force receive an over-representative collection of awards whilst those on the ground struggled for recognition for decades. Look how long it took nashos to gain recognition they say. Comments like; "How long has it taken for FESR and SE Asia (with the ASM) to surface, 30 years?" No wonder associations and some commercial firms often at the behest of ex-service people and associations take it upon themselves to produce a medal that fills a demand - if there was no demand there simply would be no commemorative medals.

In his book, Medals Will Be Worn:
Wearing Medals Past and Present 1844-1999
Token Publishing ISBN 1 870 192 23 0
Lieutenant Colonel Ashley Tinson (Retd.) says;
"There is every reason to regularise matters, accept foreign awards and even consider accepting some of the unofficial commercial ones to reduce the harm done by being unable to prevent discontented people wearing something to represent service which they consider deserved recognition."

Private (and some government-owned) mints around the country (and around the world) that strike medals have recognised this shortcoming and have made available for some time a range of commemorative medals including those for regular service, national service, and a reserve forces commemorative medal that has gained wide acceptance among, and wearing by, many past and currently serving reserve personnel and also their associations, some of which themselves have commissioned medals in the absence of government action.

Many unit, ship and squadron associations around the world have sponsored the manufacture and award of medals to commemorate service and/or action. In addition, medals have been struck to recognise service by police officers who have served less than the prescribed time for the award of long service medals and members of emergency services organisations including ambulance, fire and rescue services. Some commemoratives readily seen by the ex-service fraternity are the Regular Forces and CMF/Reserve Forces medals, Front Line medal, The Rats of Tobruk medal, the FESR (Far East Strategic Reserve) Medal, the Occupation of Japan (British Commonwealth Occupation Forces) Medal and HMAS Perth Medal to name just a few.

Several commemorative medals are official. Issued and recognised by government, a recent example is the Australian National Service Medal, the 80th Anniversary of the Armistice Medal which the Prime Minister personally presented to all surviving WW1 veterans and which has been in huge demand by the families of WW1 veterans in recognition of the service of the veterans, the Centennary Medal of Federation and the Australian Sports Medal.

When it comes to the somewhat controversial subject of wearing commemorative medals in Australia, The Military Historical Society of Australia based in Canberra in its journal of April 1978, wrote;

From the number of inquires, there is obviously misunderstanding or lack of knowledge presently causing confusion, about what awards, private individuals may wear. In a nutshell, an individual, other than in uniform, may wear any award, foreign, private (ie; club or association) etc, that he or she has been awarded; there is no law on what may be worn, except of course for falsely wearing awards or medals, although there is a suggested order of procedure of wearing awards. A private citizen is not even bound by these rules of precedence and could wear his VC at the end of his service medals, without breaking the law.

The Reserve Forces Day Council offers this advice in its Ceremonial Manual:

Medals such as commemorative or souvenir medals must not be worn in such a way as to be confused in the public eye with officially issued campaign and service medals. The protocol ruling is that such medals should NOT be worn at all, and therefore on Reserve Forces Day Parades members should conform. Their wearing by members of Banner Parties is unacceptable and will be viewed as detrimental to the assessment process when judging Associations for annual Parade awards.

We are often asked for our view, and it is this:

Commemorative medals are struck and sold all over the free world, and have been for decades - as a matter of fact longer than that. The first medals were commemorative; struck and awarded for service by private commanders in individual Roman Legions, not by the government of Rome or even the Roman Army.

We sell several commemorative medals and in fact we encourage the use of commemorative medals to be included in framed collections along with other service memorabilia as a token of service. More particularly when there is no formal official recognition available.

We have supplied commemorative medals for presentations (as a mark of service and respect when no other official recognition is available) to widows and relatives of injured and deceased service people, and framed Community Service Medals for a raft of reasons, and we continue to do so.

Having stated that, we cannot and do not, encourage the wearing of unofficial commemorative medals with official ones. Wearing unofficial commemoratives with issued medals we believe, destroys the integrity of Australia's honours and awards system, and demeans the genuine service of the wearer.

Those who are determined to wear them however (remembering there is no law precluding the wearing of commemorative medals), should be wearing them on a separate rack from official medals and wearers should abide by the guidelines laid down by the various ex-service organisation peak bodies.

Order of Wearing Medals in Australia