Redcapfred wrote:
... however only the Media would draw comparison whith the victory parade held for those returning from the Falklands War.
Read the article again Fred. The Independent is making a very important point - and it has little to do with parades. They are championing a cause much more fundamental, much more important, than parades. Here are a couple of other quotes:
"He didn't want tickertape or garlands, he just wanted normality and a degree of empathy from uncomprehending civvies."
"Many, however, could do without a parade, and the bother of polishing boots and buffing up the buttons on their uniform."
"What they would prefer [as opposed to overt parades - my assessment not a quote] is an acknowledgement of the trials they have been through by the public; and that the Military Covenant, which says that in return for risking their lives soldiers are well-treated and – in the event of their deaths – their families looked after, is honoured."
PJMers can relate to all this. When I returned to the UK I felt like an intruder. Nobody understood. Nobody cared. Why should they? HMG had kept it all very quiet.
One of the reasons the PJM is so undervalued by Government and civil servants is that PJM service constituted a part of of one of Britain's Forgotten Wars. They have little understanding of what went on. HMG had encouraged silence about those operations in the Far East. It certainly didn't suit the Government to allow it to be known that we had been fighting - and dying - on the wrong side of the border ... in Indonesia.
And if those operations had been officially labelled as a War rather than an Emergency/Confrontation, the London Insurance market might have had something to say about the claims they were paying out on.
Thus, on the one hand, those FE operations were officially never a "War" (for the reasons meantioned above) yet on the other you are not allowed to wear your PJM because it is, allegedly (according to the Cabinet Office), a "Commemorative
WAR Medal"!
In my view, we need the media (and campaigns such as ours) to raise these issues ... we can be questionning and cynical, of course. That is healthy. But we still need the issues placed in the public domain so that they can be debated. HMG won't - unless it suits them - as we PJMers know only too well.
Barry
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BarryF, who fought for the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia