My initial thought was there is no way no one in Korea was awarded a VC. I looked it up and it’s true. The last British VC awarded to a Canadian is in August 1945.
How is it possible that no one at Kapyong was awarded a VC? Hell the entire unit received a US Presidential Unit Citation.
It is entirely possible that there was no action at Kapyong that merited a VC. Two Privates were awarded a DCM and MM, so it’s not as if people weren’t being written up for their valour at all.
I like that our medals are either for deployments or valour, with the CD being the only one for time in.
Passing Basic back in the GWOT days with two medals (both for happening to enlist in the US Military during a time of crisis) really cheapens the medal. My US colleagues actually forgot the reasons for some of the medals / ribbons they were awarded.
Should we have ones for SAR, NORAD, and Dom Ops? Definitely. But the award for finishing Basic should be…the ability to wear the uniform.
I slightly disagree with this take, in particular to Basic qualification ribbons. It's worth acknowledging the difference between someone signing up in times of peace, vs knowing they're signing up in time of war.
My ship was in San Diego years ago. The officers from our US Navy host ship were invited over for lunch in the Wardroom. One of them was a brand new baby-faced Ensign who already had a line or two of ribbons. Our Supply Officer pointed at one of the ribbons and asked "What's that ribbon - the "I watched the Gulf War on CNN Medal?" Even the American officers laughed at that one.
20 years of bouncing between SAR Sqn's and Hornet's, outcan half-dozen times and deployed on numerous major searches with countless local ones. Nothing but a CD to my name, along with faux-recognition coins and Commendations that never get written up high enough to come with a bar.
The recognition we have for people is atrocious. Seeing SAR Techs with nothing but a CD with a Valor gong shows how little we care.
Yep, recognizing those who go above and beyond so "others may live" should be a high priority but unfortunately the priority will be some higher rank organizing something to make their rack bigger
Everyone knows it’s the G37-9-2 secondary duty as the FmnDivH&ARepPRes OPI that’s the choke point, because nobody cares about the FDHAARPROPI so why should they care back?
Take a look at the most recent CANFORGEN about honours and awards. Mentioned is a MWO extracted a trapped driver from a burning vehicle, contributing directly to saving the members life. They were not given an MB, and it happened 7 years ago. The proper award and timelines are terrible.
We had a warrant at our unit whom we nominated a high level award recognition. Rejected even at the unit level. Argument from the HQ leadership “He was only doing his job”.
Granted this Warrant ran courses that impacted not only the trade but the CAF as a whole by being a SME. Did the extra duties to ensure members got deployed. Worked weekends long nights just to ensure exercises and operations were taken care of in the background.
Well Lo and behold guess who awards themselves the fucking gimme medal the next year. Same shitty leaders.
(To add insult to injury, I heard they want to charge the warrant because somebody broke a piece of equipment on exercise while the same leadership ran indoors because of the increment weather)
The whole honours and awards system is pretty much broken when you have self nominating committees and when the bar to receive simple acknowledgement is set to a standard where nobody gets anything.
I assisted with a nomination for an OMM once. The person had previously been nominated by an Admiral, and rejected. In his reply to the rejection, the Admiral basically said "If this person doesn't deserve the OMM, then who the fuck does?"
We do an extreme disservice to our people when we don't recognize their accomplishments.
I agree with everyone mentioning the standards for awarding honours (the idea that we haven’t had a single member worthy of the Victoria Cross since it was repatriated is insane), but also want to emphasize the timing.
We give a medal for 12 years of service and it regularly gets awarded 12 months+ after reaching 12 years. Same goes for deployment medals often given well after the member has come home. Timely recognition is also important, and we’re dogshit at it.
Lost in the story of Aug 3rd is Mark Bedard. He was part of the C6 team alongside Bryce Keller that crossed open terrain under withering fire to reinforce 9 Pl. MacDonald wrote both of them up for the MMV. Keller was awarded it posthumously. Bedard’s nomination was rejected because it required two witnesses. Besides MacDonald, witnesses to his actions were KIA on that day.
From what I remember of that tour if you were an ncm you had to do something incredibly "heroic" to get higher than an mid. At least old mountain bear got some recognition
I’ve met him, good dude. I remember seeing him pretty active in advocating for the proper taking care of veterans, his leadership continued after service.
It’s horrible that we’ve never awarded the medal. It’s also very awkward to see groups advocating for people by name for the award. Not everyone in that supposed list of 25 members is going to get awarded a CVC, and advocating for them by name makes it much harder on any committee/decision maker to award even one of them.
When mentioning by name you can compare to previous medal winners in ww1/ww2 directly because you have an actual event/citation to compare. Which makes it much easier for the layman to understand.
Mentioning them by name during the nomination process - sure. Publicizing nominations is an awkward thing. Laymen aren’t involved in the process of awarding medals.
On Sept. 3, 2006, he found himself in the midst of what would be later called the Battle of Panjwaii, attached to a platoon at the last minute as a part of Operation Medusa, one of the deadliest operations in recent Canadian military history.
Operation Medusa began on Sep 2nd.
Are you saying the incident happened on August 3rd?
Regardless, it seems nitpicky and detracting from the spirit of the message, which is "we need to give our soldiers the proper recognition they deserve." If you're focused on dates and not that, you're looking at the wrong thing.
It's criminal that Canada is so fucking stingy when it comes to recognizing the bravery of our people.
Why even have a medal if it's not going to be awarded? The last VC was awarded to a Canadian for action in 1945 ffs.
My initial thought was there is no way no one in Korea was awarded a VC. I looked it up and it’s true. The last British VC awarded to a Canadian is in August 1945.
How is it possible that no one at Kapyong was awarded a VC? Hell the entire unit received a US Presidential Unit Citation.
It is entirely possible that there was no action at Kapyong that merited a VC. Two Privates were awarded a DCM and MM, so it’s not as if people weren’t being written up for their valour at all.
If I was American I would have like 37 ribbons. But I have three medals and a bar lol.
I like that our medals are either for deployments or valour, with the CD being the only one for time in.
Passing Basic back in the GWOT days with two medals (both for happening to enlist in the US Military during a time of crisis) really cheapens the medal. My US colleagues actually forgot the reasons for some of the medals / ribbons they were awarded.
Should we have ones for SAR, NORAD, and Dom Ops? Definitely. But the award for finishing Basic should be…the ability to wear the uniform.
I slightly disagree with this take, in particular to Basic qualification ribbons. It's worth acknowledging the difference between someone signing up in times of peace, vs knowing they're signing up in time of war.
My ship was in San Diego years ago. The officers from our US Navy host ship were invited over for lunch in the Wardroom. One of them was a brand new baby-faced Ensign who already had a line or two of ribbons. Our Supply Officer pointed at one of the ribbons and asked "What's that ribbon - the "I watched the Gulf War on CNN Medal?" Even the American officers laughed at that one.
Agreed.
But also recognition in general. I swear staff weenies in the ivory towers love nothing more than rejecting nominations.
if i can't have it, they can't have it...
That’s exactly it. There’s a bunch of dudes that didn’t even get a tour medal on that roto, and rotation bars hasn’t been invented yet.
20 years of bouncing between SAR Sqn's and Hornet's, outcan half-dozen times and deployed on numerous major searches with countless local ones. Nothing but a CD to my name, along with faux-recognition coins and Commendations that never get written up high enough to come with a bar.
The recognition we have for people is atrocious. Seeing SAR Techs with nothing but a CD with a Valor gong shows how little we care.
Yep, recognizing those who go above and beyond so "others may live" should be a high priority but unfortunately the priority will be some higher rank organizing something to make their rack bigger
You think military staff officers make these decisions?
Everyone knows it’s the G37-9-2 secondary duty as the FmnDivH&ARepPRes OPI that’s the choke point, because nobody cares about the FDHAARPROPI so why should they care back?
Take a look at the most recent CANFORGEN about honours and awards. Mentioned is a MWO extracted a trapped driver from a burning vehicle, contributing directly to saving the members life. They were not given an MB, and it happened 7 years ago. The proper award and timelines are terrible.
We had a warrant at our unit whom we nominated a high level award recognition. Rejected even at the unit level. Argument from the HQ leadership “He was only doing his job”.
Granted this Warrant ran courses that impacted not only the trade but the CAF as a whole by being a SME. Did the extra duties to ensure members got deployed. Worked weekends long nights just to ensure exercises and operations were taken care of in the background.
Well Lo and behold guess who awards themselves the fucking gimme medal the next year. Same shitty leaders.
(To add insult to injury, I heard they want to charge the warrant because somebody broke a piece of equipment on exercise while the same leadership ran indoors because of the increment weather)
The whole honours and awards system is pretty much broken when you have self nominating committees and when the bar to receive simple acknowledgement is set to a standard where nobody gets anything.
The whole honours system needs a re write.
I assisted with a nomination for an OMM once. The person had previously been nominated by an Admiral, and rejected. In his reply to the rejection, the Admiral basically said "If this person doesn't deserve the OMM, then who the fuck does?"
We do an extreme disservice to our people when we don't recognize their accomplishments.
I agree with everyone mentioning the standards for awarding honours (the idea that we haven’t had a single member worthy of the Victoria Cross since it was repatriated is insane), but also want to emphasize the timing.
We give a medal for 12 years of service and it regularly gets awarded 12 months+ after reaching 12 years. Same goes for deployment medals often given well after the member has come home. Timely recognition is also important, and we’re dogshit at it.
Lost in the story of Aug 3rd is Mark Bedard. He was part of the C6 team alongside Bryce Keller that crossed open terrain under withering fire to reinforce 9 Pl. MacDonald wrote both of them up for the MMV. Keller was awarded it posthumously. Bedard’s nomination was rejected because it required two witnesses. Besides MacDonald, witnesses to his actions were KIA on that day.
From what I remember of that tour if you were an ncm you had to do something incredibly "heroic" to get higher than an mid. At least old mountain bear got some recognition
I’ve met him, good dude. I remember seeing him pretty active in advocating for the proper taking care of veterans, his leadership continued after service.
It’s horrible that we’ve never awarded the medal. It’s also very awkward to see groups advocating for people by name for the award. Not everyone in that supposed list of 25 members is going to get awarded a CVC, and advocating for them by name makes it much harder on any committee/decision maker to award even one of them.
They need to be mentioned by name.
When mentioning by name you can compare to previous medal winners in ww1/ww2 directly because you have an actual event/citation to compare. Which makes it much easier for the layman to understand.
Mentioning them by name during the nomination process - sure. Publicizing nominations is an awkward thing. Laymen aren’t involved in the process of awarding medals.
Public support is the only way to get these people awarded the medals they deserve.
Hmmm there’s a few things wrong with that article. Just say’n.
What is wrong? Amplify your point
Article says Sept 3rd and part of Op Medusa which is incorrect. It was Aug 3rd and medusa hadn’t started yet.
Operation Medusa began on Sep 2nd.
Are you saying the incident happened on August 3rd?
Regardless, it seems nitpicky and detracting from the spirit of the message, which is "we need to give our soldiers the proper recognition they deserve." If you're focused on dates and not that, you're looking at the wrong thing.
Medusa was a reaction to what happened on August 3rd. This article is about Willy MacDonald, not Jess Larochelle.
The events took place on Aug 3rd, the article has wrong info for whatever reason.