By Pepper Parr
December 30th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
It was the one picture that caught my eye during the year.
All that “bling”?
I thought it was the Russians who did this kind of thing; the Americans are pretty good at it.
Pictured here are:Gen. Jennie Carignan, left, assumes command of the Canadian Armed Forces, with Gov. Gen. Mary Simon and outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre taking part in the ceremony on July 18, 2024. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Seeing medals always reminds me, that I’m gonna have to find my sadly departed Dad’s medals along with the photographs from his service in WW2, they’re here in the house somewhere, Campaign medals awarded for all the theatres of war he was politely asked to attend, probably the same as the ones worn by those Generals; At 18 my father was assigned to crew MTB fast boats for ‘Coastal Forces’ what might be of interest is that his last deployment before his demobilization was in Palestine, ‘Peace Keeping’ I don’t think they handed out medals for that back then.
Don’t forget that our armed forces participated in a big way in Afghanistan…..and other places along with various “Peace Keeping” roles. Our air force was active too.
Carignan and Eyre both served in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Not sure about the woman in the middle.
The first medal on Gov Gen Mary Simons chest is the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada. The one around her neck is the Order of Canada. The two Generals have the Commander of the Order of military merit. You can probably find the rest here: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/medals/medals-chart-index.html
Maybe they’re all medals from classroom experience. Participation medals is also a good bet.
I have always wondered the same .Perhaps medals are for “good behaviour “-attendance” “shine on shoes” etc etc