One of the guests at yesterday's luncheon was the Editor of the RAF News. I bent his ear a bit and he asked me to drop him a line. Here's what is going off in tomorrow's post.
Dear Mr Wise

Hopefully you will recall that we met briefly during the pre-lunch drinks at the VSC yesterday. I hope that you enjoyed the day as much as I did. As I touched upon yesterday, the way in which British veterans of the Borneo Campaign have been treated with respect to the Pingat Jasa Malaysia, is causing a lot of anger and disappointment amongst those who served so loyally.
Field Marshal the Lord Bramall made this point quite strongly in his after lunch speech and I’m sure that you must have been aware of the strength of feeling that pervaded the hall when he held aloft his own PJM and declared that ban or no ban, he would wear his medal with the pride that it deserves.
British veterans alone from all the Commonwealth personnel who served in Borneo, have been denied the right to wear the medal. We have been given misleading and contradictory reasons why we should not be permitted to wear the PJM. WE have petitioned Her Majesty and also circulated a Rebuttal to the cases presented by the unaccountable Honours and Decorations Committee.
Those veterans who qualify are now way past the age at which they will ever wear the uniform of any of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces and so no uniform code is breached. What the ban does, however, is to deprive these elderly, loyal ex Service people a little bit of pride in their twilight years.
You met many of them yesterday. Could you identify in those wrinkled, grey-haired visages any threat posed by their wearing a medal honourably gained and honourably offered? I think not. The successful outcome of the Campaign, the methods adopted to achieve that success being more than adequately described by the noble Lord, remains the only successful war against insurgency waged by a western backed force. And this was at a time when France, and then the US, was getting a bloody nose in Viet Nam. Had Malaysia fallen to the Communists at that time, today’s world would be decidedly different – and not for the better.
I urge you to visit www.fight4the pjm.org where you will see what has been, and continues to be, done to get the decision reversed. We have powerful support. We need more. We have a just case. Please add you voice to the many who have spoken up so far.
Yours Sincerely


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Gerald Law (ex RAF Borneo Veteran)