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50+ Concerns about the PJM Decision
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Well done George we need questions like this placed before these CS, I hope they reply


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Barry & MB.
I had two uncles at El Alemain, one on each side. Uncle Karl was taken prisoner and was put in a camp near Birmingham. He stayed here after WWII married an English girl and his son, my cousin joined the Guards.
Funny old world, in it!

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sandy428 wrote:
Can you please confirm when we may hear about our Petition to the Queen? This is a quite different issue to the consideration being given to the Rebuttal.


George,

Methinks you have asked a very pertinent question there! I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they try and address it.

Thanks for your continuing support.

Barry


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Just received this answer from Chris Edge to my e.mail, not a lot of help.


Dear Mr Chris Edge.

I am sure you are aware of the fact that ex-service personnel who are veterans of the Malay Emergency and Confrontation and who are eligible for the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM) are trying to get the decision made by the HD Committee changed so that they may be given permission to wear the medal they earned,to this end a copy of a document, "The Rebuttal to the Ministerial Statement" was sent to yourself and other members of H.M.G, and as by now you have had time to read this document please could you answer one question for me,

If the Rebuttal is dismissed will it mean that the F.O.C will have asked Her Majesty the Queen to disregard the petition sent to her on behalf of her British Veterans ?. I do not believe that Her Majesty would wish to do that in light of the fact that her other Commonwealth Veterans were given the right to wear the PJM.

An early responce to this communication would be greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

George Sanderson.
Ex R.A.F. Regiment.


Dear Mr Sanderson
Thank you for your e-mail. It is the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals, rather than the FCO which is considering the matter of the PJM and which will make any recommendations relating to the medal. As I think you know, the matter is currently being considered.
Yours sincerely.
Chris Edge

Oh well will have to try again.
Sandy

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sandy428 wrote:
Dear Mr Sanderson
Thank you for your e-mail. It is the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals, rather than the FCO which is considering the matter of the PJM and which will make any recommendations relating to the medal.


This is very interesting, Sandy. You've elicited words that are fundamental - however they express it, if the Hd Committee is considering the PJM, then a 'review' is in progress ... something they have taken great pains to avoid stating.

This doesn't mean we shall get a result, but I have greater confidence in that Committee than I do in some of the civil servants who brief them.

Thanks for your continuing support.

Barry


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Post Letter to the following. 
I sent the following to..
denis.brennan@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk,
chris.edge@fco.gov.uk
Richard.Coney506@mod.uk,
Ian.Keith798@mod.uk

Gentlemen.
Please bear with me and I ask you NOT discard or delete this e.mail without reading it in its entirety first.
The courtesy of a personal reply would be nice and not a mass mail out such as I have most recently been subjected to from Mr Edge's office.

I was posted and sent to join my Regiment, The Life Guards, in Seremban, Malaysia in Late June of 1966.
This being the case, my service was carried out on the mainland and I, like many others in my old regiment were not stationed in Borneo and thus not qualified to receive the GSM 1962, Bar for Borneo.

HOWEVER, according to the rules and guidelines set out by the Malaysian government and confirmed in the fine print of the Veterans site details, myself and countless others of my regiment and those attached to us, and other regiments and Corps are entitled to the PJM.


NOW the question is: >.
"Despite what has been stated in your Ministerial Statements and the many negative responses and offerings from countless other government offices and departments, each one of you have to realize that I have no British medal to show for my service and time in theatre.
This can be said for many others who served in the same time frame.

So gentlemen, on WHAT basis do ANY of you contend or think, that I should not have Her Majesty's approval to wear my only medal.
That medal being the one the government of Malaysia feels myself and many thousands of others richly deserve and have been awarded?"

I know the rebuttal is on the table for re consideration and we await the answer to that set of documents, however my question is more of a personal one and for those who will only have this one medal.
THE Pingat Jasa Malaysia...


Many thanks and I hope to hear from each and every one of you as expeditiously as possible.



Guess what I got back from Mr Edge? The others remain SILENT (Cat got their tongues perhaps).

"The question in your e-mail of 31 October is really hypotherical, and so I do not think it appropriate to answer. Any recommendations relating to the PJM will be made by the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals, rather than by the FCO."

________
HAWAII MEDICAL MARIJUANA



Last edited by KJF on Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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I replied and pointed out that there is NOTHING Hypothetical about my position, that of being awarded the PJM, the ONLY medal for my service in Malaysia and not being given permission to wear it.

I also pointed out that some research had to have been carried out in order to advise Her Majesty and perhaps someone in the FCO office may have participated!!!

Could that have been possible? Hmm, I wonder...


Keith.
________
Xt350



Last edited by KJF on Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
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KJF wrote:
NOW the question is: on WHAT basis do ANY of you contend or think, that I should not have Her Majesty's approval to wear my only medal.
That medal being the one the government of Malaysia feels myself and many thousands of others richly deserve and have been awarded?"

.... Guess what I got back from Mr Edge?

"The question in your e-mail of 31 October is really hypotherical, and so I do not think it appropriate to answer.


My dad was a WWI veteran who went to war in 1914 an unquestioning, loyal, volunteer, and came back in 1919 a bitter veteran.

He used to explain to his children why he thought so many deprived people landed up in prison - and why so many of them ought not to have been there. One reason was, he thought, the inability, arising from poor education, to use their language effectively. Many such people could not adequately defend themselves or properly explain their case. It was also why he encouraged his family to sharpen the most vital weapon in their armoury of life ... their understanding of words. He may have failed with me, but I understand what he meant!

"If you can't say what you mean" he'd say, "you can't mean what you say."

For me that is a fundamental truism.

And why I am I prattling on? Because ...

Chris Edge can say what he means. He is a well educated person. Words are his craft. He may not be able to spell the word 'hypothetical', but he knows what it means. So whatever he writes can be taken as what he means.

And what he says is a clear indication that you have the Queen's approval to wear the PJM … but some barstool is withholding formal permission.

And that raises critical questions. Questions we have been seeking answers to for a long time, like: “Did the Queen sign (and thereby approve) the HD Committee Recommendation that ‘Permission to wear the PJM will not, however, formally be given’”?

We have it in writing that she approved the acceptance of the PJM on condition that it is not worn (by British citizens).

So, to another outstanding question ... "If the Queen has not approved the withholding of permission, who the hell is doing so without her approval?"

You, and others, may wish to ask Chris Edge to explain "hypotherical" (sic) ... maybe it's just a case of too many "r's" involved in spelling things out.

Barry


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Barry

I am awaiting a positive answer on the Queens signature on that document Yes/No. I do not think she signed it, they know she didn't sign it. That is why Andy and myself are having probs in getting info through the FoIA and Paul is not having success with his files, they have ba££sed it up big time


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John Cooper wrote:
I am awaiting a positive answer on the Queens signature on that document Yes/No. I do not think she signed it, they know she didn't sign it. That is why Andy and myself are having probs in getting info through the FoIA and Paul is not having success with his files, they have ba££sed it up big time


I think they will hide behind Honours in Confidence that gets them 'Out of Jail' when the Freedom of Information Act is raised but what they cannot hide from is answering the issues in the Rebuttal and Update to the Rebuttal and all the letters and emails we have written. I have just re-read the Rebuttals and now see why they are taking so long answering them. They are damning. Did I read somewhere that a second Rebuttal Update will be on the way if it is needed? The two documents I read are http://www.fight4thepjm.org/documents/Rebuttal_of_PJM_Ministerial_Statement_31012006.pdf and http://www.fight4thepjm.org/Rebuttal_Update/Rebuttal_Update_Addenda_v4_complete2b.pdf.

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Post Chairman's response to Richard Dean. 
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Did I read somewhere that a second Rebuttal Update will be on the way if it is needed?


Richard...

Thank you very much for your insightful post requesting information regarding the rumoured 'Second Update to the Rebuttal'....you may be aware that I do not don my 'Chairman's Hat' very often, but your question deserves an 'official' answer and I'd like to provide you with that herewith.

Work on assembling the 'Second Update to the Rebuttal' has been proactively in progress for some weeks now and it is in fact, broadly established in draft form. On 6th November we informed the FCO, MoD, Cabinet Office and all members of the HD Committee that our work on the Second Update was being held up because those administering the PJM were not supplying answers to our questions, see http://www.fight4thepjm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=921.

The 'Second Update to the Rebuttal' is a wide ranging document which introduces many, as yet, unexplained discrepancies. The new document, while in it's finishing stages can, of course, still be expanded to include any additional topic of significant interest to members...we would request that any who feel they have something to contribute should do so by sending a message to update2@fight4thepjm.org.

We hope, of course, that it will not prove necessary to issue this third formal document. This is a single issue for the Fight4thePJM and the 'Second Update' will be rendered redundant if the HD Committee recommends, this month, that formal permission to wear the PJM no longer be withheld from British citizens.

I would add, as a caveat, that the aforementioned suggestions should be forwarded ASAP, as we have no desire to delay the anticipated result and wish to be adequately prepared in advance....I might also add that an appropriate 'Preamble' designed to precede the 'Second Rebuttal' also currently exists in draft format.

I trust that this will answer the question entirely to your satisfaction?

Many thanks for your continuing support,

John 'Jock' Fenton
Chairman Fight4thePJM Association
"Pingat Kami - Hak Kami"


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'Jock' Fenton wrote:


We hope, of course, that it will not prove necessary to issue this third formal document. This is a single issue for the Fight4thePJM and the 'Second Update' will be rendered redundant if the HD Committee recommends, this month, that formal permission to wear the PJM no longer be withheld from British citizens.


Jock, thanks for the explanation about the forthcoming Second Update to the Rebuttal. While it is to be hoped that you do not have to produce more evidence it is reassuring to us that you still have plenty of ammo in the magazine. I hope that Whitehall will not be quite as reassured.

It is abundantly clear to me from what this campaign has stated in Rebuttals and on the website that the Ministerial Statement was a cock-up of some proportion from start to finish and should be repealed. You have produced page after page of reasons to back up your case but I cannot remember seeing anything from them backing up theirs except two hackneyed rules that do not fit the PJM and even then they had to rewrite those rules after the event to try and make their story sound plausible.

I do not think many people in Whitehall understand a fundamental point that you have raised elsewhere. It is one thing to accept or reject a medal. It is quite another to accept a medal and then convert it into an unwerable souvenir, which is what they did. That is degrading in more ways than one, particularly as it is only the Brits who are affected.

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I agree with Richard that the actions of HMG have degraded the PJM on a official level. Some civil servants and some of the HD committee behave like ostriches with their heads stuck in the sand ( or perhaps up their own orifices)dreaming of an Imperial past. They just don't realise how ludicrous they appear to the rest of the world and to those in the UK who have adapted to the 21st centuary. As someone with dual nationality I have the blessing of the Queen of Australia to wear my PJM but have been told by the madarins in Whitehall that it would be discourteous to wear my medal in the UK

If it does become necessary to send in a 'Second Update' are there any other actions
we can take?

Hamish
Borneo veteran
A two finger salute from Aussie land to the senior public servants who gave incorrect advice

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Post Apologies for omission... 
Quote:
hamishw wrote
If it does become necessary to send in a 'Second Update' are there any other actions we can take?


Thank you for the question Hamish.
Self evidently I neglected to incude this salient piece of information in my original answer to Richard Dean (mea culpa!)

Quote:
'Jock' Fenton wrote
This is a single issue for the Fight4thePJM and the 'Second Update' will be rendered redundant if the HD Committee recommends, this month, that formal permission to wear the PJM no longer be withheld from British citizens.


....the rider to that clear statement, of course, is that if the Second Update is required then so may other fundamental initiatives that already exist on the planning board.


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Post Re: Apologies for omission... 
'Jock' Fenton wrote:

....the rider to that clear statement, of course, is that if the Second Update is required then so may other fundamental initiatives that already exist on the planning board.


Jock, So what you are saying is that this fight will go on if our just case is rejected. That is very good news. I have therefore added my name to those will to put their hand in their pocket if we need a fighting fund. There is a topic about this at http://www.fight4thepjm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7238#7238.

I know you have never called for financial support and I don't think you, being the Fight4thePJM campaign leaders, have ever asked for such support. Let's hope it's never needed but if it is I don't think it will be in short supply.

I understand you will not wish to divulge your plans yet, but is there anything we can do in advance? Richard.

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