One Soldier said
My point is that non-combat Occupation Area Ribbons and their times awarded are pretty-much meaningless,...except for qualifying veterans for The American Legion or VFW.
Just think it downright insulting to about 5 MILLION or so Honorable Veterans deemed: "Cold War Warriors" to be quite biasedly and quite superiorily excluded memberships and even HONOR ROLL STATUS (due Dates of Service), by both The American Legion and VFW. Truly an organizational nonsense.
I think you might add what the context of this thread is all about and how it got started. I think some others may be interested in hearing the background and why this person said what he said in regards to the occupation medals.
Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter 'Monday' Poniedzialek
540th Combat Engineer - H&S Company
This is the way this started. I was in advance occupation force into Taegu,Korea.
I found out about occupation medal and posted it to help anyone who was in these operations.
It was awarded for 30 consecutive days at anormal post of duty while assigned to any of the following:Army of occupation of Germany: 9 May 45- 5 May 55Army of occupation of Austria: 9 May 45-27 July 55Army of occupation of Berlin: 9 May 45- 2 Oct 1990Army of occupation of Italy: 9 May 45-15 Sept. 47Army of occupation of Japan: 3 sept. 45-27 April 1952Army of occupation of Korea: 3 Sept 45-29 June 49
The reply was this
Besides, COMBAT-EARNED ribbons or medals (whether on Sea, Land or Air) and CIBs are the only decorations THAT ACTUALLY MATTER & MEAN SOMETHING HONORABLE & WORTHWHILE.
Dates of Service or Area Ribbons prove absolutely nothing about ones Honorable Service to Country.
Well,...apparently except to The American Legion and VFW.