Image of the PJM Medal
Banner Text = Fight For the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal
Reply to topic Page 1 of 1
The ELIZABETH CROSS and the Five year Rule
Author Message
Reply with quote
Post The ELIZABETH CROSS and the Five year Rule 
Spotted this on MSN news this morning:->>>>

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149227016

While I agree with it in principle, does it not break, in some cases, the "5 YEAR RULE" we keep getting thrown at us.

Phredd



Last edited by phredd on Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile Send private message
Reply with quote
Post Re: ELIZABETH CROSS and the Five year Rule 
phredd wrote:
Spotted this on MSN news this morning:->>>>

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149227016

While I agree with it in principle, does it not break, in some cases, the "5 YEAR RULE" we keep getting thrown at us.

Phredd


Like you, Phredd, I would suppport any such recognition.

It is the rule that is wrong - not the medal. And that is what we have been telling these people for over 4 years about the PJM.

I am told that their argument (to counter our claim that the rule is inapropriately and inconsistently applied by incompetent civil servants) will be that the medal cannot be worn by the person who 'earned' it. How bl**dy cynical can you get!

Barry


_________________
BarryF, who fought for the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Reply with quote
Post Elizabeth Cross. 
This is a most honourable award to the relatives of sevice personnel who have been killed on active service. It is a British award and as far as I know the five year rule only applies to foreign awards.
This means that relatives of those killed on active service in Malaysia/Borneo, who up till now have been prohibited from wearing the honourable PJM will now be able to get the Elizabeth Cross.
Wouldn't it be most appropriate for these relatives to be allowed the honour of also wearing the PJM in memory and pride of the sacrifice made by their loved ones on behalf of Queen and country.
Refusing this is just mean and petty and its time someone had a word in our Sovereign's ear.

View user's profile Send private message
Reply with quote
Post  
Eligibility - Elizabeth Cross

It will be seen that those families who lost serving members who served in Malaysia post 1957 to 1966, particularly those servicemen who fell between 1960 - 62 when no GSM was awarded but who are eligible for the PJM will not be eligible for the Elizabeth Cross because the PJM has not been accepted for wear.

The Cabinet, Foreign Office, MoD DS Sec and Home Office Ceremonial Officers and others who also constitute the HD Committee have, by their initial decision and consequent cover-ups, punished those families who have lost members who died in the Service of their Country. Is this really what Her Majesty desired? Perhaps the current Private Secretary could draw Her Majesty's attention to a situation created by the Ceremonial Officers of those Departments of State given above, and responsible for communicating questionable advice based on unsound argument to the HD Committee who forwarded this advice, via her former Private Secretary, to Her Majesty. He might wish to consult our General Secretary, who would, I'm sure be glad to be of assistance

This could also affect some families members who were, possibly, posthumously awarded Kuwaiti, Saudi and Afghanistan medals who were allowed to accept but that they would not as a matter of princple, have been normally given permission to wear them.

As for the 5 year rule - NONESENSE! THEIR ELIGIBILITY rules state that they begin in those [above circumstances] from the 1st January 1948. Mind you, now watch out for a revision of those rules; even if they 'climb down' over the five year rules we all know how simple it is for them to 'manufacture' another effective exclusion rule having briefed some employee to author, in their own name, the new set of rules for placing in the Library of the House of Commons, hiding the identity of the perpretrators (so they think) behind the 'skirts' of the author, and subsequently Her Majesty, in fraudently using the Royal Prerogative.

On what basis does one define what constitutes 'a subsequent and premature death'? Now there's some scope for exclusion clauses!

Remember how Honours 1 MoD DS Sec called the PJM a campaign medal as did others, although they have been informed many times that PJM is a Service to Malaysia Medal they still twist things about to suit their agenda which is to preclude the PJM from being worn.


ELIGIBILITY [for the award of the Elizabeth Cross]

Eligible personnel to be remembered in this way are those who were serving with, or former members of, the Regular and Reserve Armed Forces or the Royal Fleet Auxiliary when deployed in direct support of a designated operation.
The Next of Kin of eligible personnel whose deaths fall into the following categories are to be recognised:
• Those who died from whatever cause whilst serving on a medal earning operation. Medal earning operations are those in which deployed personnel received a Campaign Medal, General Service Medal or Operational Service Medal which demonstrated the risk and rigour involved. Operations where a UN, NATO or other international body or other nations’ campaign medal was accepted for wear, in the absence of a UK medal also qualify.
• Those who died as a result of an act of terrorism where the available evidence suggests that the Service person, whether on or off duty, was targeted because of his or her membership of the UK Armed Forces.
• Those who died on a non-medal earning operational task where death has been caused by the inherent high risk of the task.
• Those who died a subsequent and premature death as a result of an injury or illness attributed to the circumstances outlined above.
In addition to recognising future operational deaths in this way, deaths in the circumstances outlined above that occurred after 1 January 1948, or as a result of service in Palestine since 27 September 1945 will be recognised retrospectively. These dates reflect the fact that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission attributed deaths up to 1 January 1948 to World War II service (with the exception of Palestine).



Last edited by GLOman on Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile Send private message
Reply with quote
Post  
GLOman wrote:
Eligibility - Elizabeth Cross

It will be seen that those families who lost serving members who served in Malaysia post 1957 to 1966, particularly those servicemen who fell between 1960 - 62 when no GSM was awarded but who are eligible for the PJM will not be eligible for the Elizabeth Cross because the PJM has not been accepted for wear.


Good to hear from you David. As always, you have posted a telling message.

Some time ago in 2006, the (recently retired) Richard Coney, erstwhile uncivil servant int the MOD Honours Unit, said that the PJM was never considered seriously for wear because it would not pass the Risk and Rigour test for a British Campaign medal. In other words, he was inferring that we did not spill enough blood! He later told me that that statement of mine was "off the wall".

The fact of the matter is, though, that I was right. You quote the eligibility rules:

"Those who died from whatever cause whilst serving on a medal earning operation. Medal earning operations are those in which deployed personnel received a Campaign Medal, General Service Medal or Operational Service Medal which demonstrated the risk and rigour involved. Operations where a UN, NATO or other international body or other nations’ campaign medal was accepted for wear, in the absence of a UK medal also qualify."

Thus, the PJM did not demonstrate 'risk and rigour'! I know what I was involved in in the Far East ... and I know what I was involved in in Cyprus in 1969 ... by comparison with the Far East it was a six months mediterranean holiday paid for by HMG and the UN. I earned a wearable UN gong while on that 'holiday' on that wonderful island and, if I had popped my clogs for whatever reason while doing so, my next of kin could claim an Elizabeth Cross.

And they cannot claim that all PJMers received a British Medal ... most did not.

The problem is that the civil servants who make up these incongruous rules have no idea what went on out there - it was, after all, the 'forgotten war' - the war they want to forget.


_________________
BarryF, who fought for the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Reply with quote
Post  
"RISK and RIGOUR" I certainly understand, and like most who served on 'active service,' had to face my own mortality from the age of just 19 years until almost my majority. What I do not understand is why I fought in a "FORGOTTEN WAR," and what or whom caused it to be forgotten.....and WHY? I got the GSM and bar for serving in Malaya as a National Service conscript, but have so far faught for twice the length of my service there to gain the right to wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia given to me by a grateful Commonwealth nation when it celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence; an independence only made certain by the presence of Commonwealth forces experiencing, RISK and RIGOUR for many more years after my time.

I can read and understand all the whys and wherefores put forward on this site by people much better informed than myself, but would like to think that I represent the ordinary soldier, airman and sailor who wonders why, having sworn an oath to our Queen, now sees her giving her name to a cross bearing her name for the widows of the fallen, including our our own, but still with no clear indication of its validity. Who, in the Halls of Westminster, will have the balls to get this mess sorted? Is there one of you Civil Ser(p/v)ants who surf this site man or woman enough to try to put things right?



Last edited by MB on Wed Aug 19, 2009 8:48 am; edited 1 time in total

_________________
Mike Barton
View user's profile Send private message
Reply with quote
Post Exclusions 
Mike, me auld M8

I think this issue of the "Elizabeth Cross" is likely to bring contempt upon the HD Committee as well as those who advise them, mostly the same people, and of course this will reflect badly on her Majesty and the Government who are also advised by these Ceremonial Officers from the various Departments of State who believe that the information given to them by their civil servants is true and without bias.

The exclusion of people who having served their Country from wearing medals is disgraceful; the exclusion of families who's members have given their lives, were not neccessarily awarded a GSM but were awarded a PJM by a gratefull Commonwealth state but under the same principle, that it would be accepted but permission to formally wear it would not be given is unfeeling and appaling and a grave disappointment to those families who would otherwise have qualified. One recently retired (phoney?) civil servant was stated by our General Secretary on this very site to have confessed the he felt that we should be allowed to wear the PJM, but that directions not to permit the wearing came from 'higher up' and he was powerless (or gutless?) to change anything. The Cabinet Ceremonial Officer, a Mr Denis Brennan, was reported in a newspaper article covering the Glasgow Airport terrorist attack has having defined the ultimate criteria for the award of a medal to a civilian who had bravely intervened, as an act which had to be thought out and the risks assessed before acting, rather than a knee jerk or impulsive reaction; the latter appeared to be the case for this particular brave civilian who was denied an award.

Another example, not the first, of rigour and risk being defined from the comfort of a well appointed Whitehall Office, the occupant of which would have to face the rigour and risk of a daily tube train/bus ride to work travelling with the proles! In the absence of an officil paid for parking space of course or an official pool limousine..

View user's profile Send private message
Reply with quote
Post The Elizabeth Cross 
Here we go again, another total banjollax by the powers that be.

I now place a charge against those who slither the halls of Whitehall, that of placing their cowardly lives, higher than they are worth.

Those who died in action, or in any war theatre, made no such value of their lives. They knew the risk and rigour of the operation, but still went ahead and did what was required of them.

As Roy Follows stated, regarding the police officer who was killed by the CTs. He knew the risk and danger of the situation, but still did what was required of him.

I can just see it know, some total dickhead in Whitehall, applying the lack of risk and rigour rule to that one.

I somehow think that getting killed in action, however derived, carries a certain of risk, [size=18]but certainly no risk to some brain dead backside in London.[/size]

How can such allegedly educated people be so stupid.

Answers on a postcard please to No 10 Downing Street.

Yours Aye

Arthur R-S

View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:
Reply to topic Page 1 of 1
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum