Hi there ONE UNDER GOD...

Talking of Honours and Awards; How does this sound ?

Sir Johan, 'Purveyor of Quality Topics and Threads' - for OLO and The Forum ? That's got a nice sound to it, don't you agree Johan ?

Take care my friend.

Fortunately Lord O sung, not many in Oz really care.

I had an art who was into all the bull dust. She reckoned she could trace our heritage back to a Lord Aldred, who she said was king Arthur's sea lord.

It was a source continual frustration to her that no one else in the family gave a damn, whether it was true or not.

Hi there HASBEEN...

I would have thought you of all people would've permitted me to indulge in a little fantasy in this funny ol' world of ours ?

Without being super critical, I was examining my gongs in preparation for ANZAC Day, and I (again) noticed both my CSM (Malay/Borneo clasps) and the Vietnam Medal, were manufactured out of proper Sterling Silver (.9250F). The others of course were of Bronze and Cupro-Nickel, which compared to the two former gongs, look cheap and quite dull ?

I dunno HASBEEN, am I being too critical or too precious, or what...do you think ? Our younger Veterans post Vietnam, all their awards are manufactured from the cheaper materials ? That is, those of the Silver colour, are rendered from Cupro-Nickel, and the others, are of Bronze, therefore they're are quite OK ?

Don't all our Veterans DESERVE their campaign awards to be made of proper quality, .9250F, Sterling Silver ? The Bronze designs are quite OK, as they were officially designed to be rendered in Bronze.

It's my firm belief that Campaign Medals should be rendered in the material that was of the official design. These men and women were prepared to place their lives in extreme peril, therefore they deserve their Campaign Medals to be rendered in the original precious metals that reflect that extreme danger !

HASBEEN, do you reckon I'm taking things too far ? Or what ? I recall CHRISGAFF1000 and one or two others are also Veterans, I'd like to hear of their views too ? I guess I'm off Topic, for that I apologise.

It is an Australian tradition that Tony is reviving and as one who has
15 Kings of England in the old family hedge along with 3 from Scotland, 3 from Ireland and 1 each from France, Italy, Ossory, Russia, Denmark and Sweden; a couple of Emperors numerous Princes, Dukes etc., and Knights by the dozens as well as a few Saints, I'm all for a bit of pagentry and titles.

I have one myself but have never used it but having all those rellos does make history a more interesting subject even though some of the ancestors were regicides, patricides, matricides and fratricides, although none seems to have murdered their sisters, they did go in for a lot of common murder as well.

Fortunately there were a lot of relatively nice people amongst them, particularly as the family got poorer, which possibly proves something.

Here's something I read on the web that
some might enjoy. It was suggested that
perhaps Mr Abbott is hoping for a title
later on down the track. One suggestion was:

Sir Pository of Wisdom.

O sung, I was back at Uni, finishing my engineering, [at my own expense too], when Vietnam was on. We were one of the few faculties which almost to a student, were disgusted by those marches other students put on.

We had a competition using our training to develop the best distance egg throwing unit, so we could egg the marchers as they left the campus. Most of the marchers were just fools playing a game, but you might be surprised at how many really hated everything about our men, our army, the country & probably themselves.

These radical lefties were really hate filled. Some took up donations to aid the enemy you were fighting.

More than a few of those became Labor politicians, & bureaucrats, & carried that hate to Canberra. If they had had their way, your medals would have been made of poison ivy. Even cheap metal was too good for you lot as far as they were concerned, they would have locked you up, not decorated you.

I definitely don't think it was worth the lives we lost, particularly in Malay. It is very hard to find any gratitude for stopping the communist take over there.

I once had that Queen & country thing, but when you see so many of the posters here, you have to decide they are not worth anyone risking their life to defend.

We are treating our people worse than ever, since Julia ripped a billion dollars a year out of defense. I am expecting my son to be ex navy in the very near future, he is finding it just too hard to find any satisfaction in it these days.