France has a "national defense medal" with bronze, silver and gold class , plus gold class with star or palm for a citation for good conduct in operation, commemorative medal for overseas deployment on which you can add bar of the country( Extreme orient, Tchad, Liban, cambodge, république de cote d'ivoire, cente Afrique, etc..), French commemorative medal for other deployments than overseas (with bar ex-yougoslavie, Afghanistan, etc..). War cross, military valor cross depending the engagement, with stars and palm for the citations.
Each soldier knows what he done and what value to accord to his medals. Main soldiers of the French army turned somewhere in the balkans, in Africa or Afghanistan, so anybody knows what are the value of these medals, but a soldier without commemorative medals is just looked as the martian: what he has done ? Where he served ? I think that far over the value of the medal it is a testimony of an experience, mor or less stressing depending the unit and the current situation. And It is nice on the uniform when parading...and what did we collect if governments had the same opinion as you ?