Dave Danner

The combination of an Austrian Silberne Ehrenmedaille vom Roten Kreuz mit Kriegsdekoration and a Goldenes Verdienstkreuz mit Krone points to a Feldwebel/Wachtmeister type, so the lack of a long-service medal is odd.

The only problem with that is that those are really low-ranking medals. They would come well after any war medals or campaign crosses. So if there were a missing second row with those, a green Chamber of Commerce Medal would come afterwards.

The longer White Lion is a Commander 1st Class.

I looked in all the likely suspect places (FR 40, 2GDR, 1GRzF, General Staff, applicable brigade and division staffs, etc.) and found no matches in the 1883, 1888, 1892, 1893 and 1896 ranklists. I don't have any earlier ones, except 1823, 1824, 1843, 1844 and 1846. I can get the 1870s ones from the NY Public Library, though.

From here, it looks like blue with a silver center stripe and yellowish edge stripes. So the WW2-era war ribbon.

Glenn, Can you get the whole book? I don't know how MGFA works in terms of loaning things. If not, I can.

Some more hits:

"Rohr" gets tons of hits on at least 30 pages. Samples attached.

Check page 183. The book is keyword searchable (though not very well) and I found Eiserne Kreuz at least 3 times on that page. Since it's 188 pages, there might be a list of awards near the end (or maybe numbers).

1st two are as Rick said - Medal of Liberty 1st Class (1. luokan Vapaudenmitali) and 2nd Class (2. luokan Vapaudenmitali). Your last thought on the 3rd seems correct. A Vasa. I don't know of any Finnish commemoratives that are all-green. The construction is not Finnish, nor do the ribbons have the normal ratio of height to width of standard Finnish ribbon bars. It may be Swedish-made, which would fit with (1) a Vasa and (2) the lack of campaign and commemorative medals. There could also be a missing second row. Standard Finnish height/width:

Swords on German Decorations: http://home.att.net/~ordersandmedals/germa...word_Styles.htm A bit wordy and quickly thrown together, but a start. Also, I think there's at least one more type. I think Mecklenburg used a regular Roman sword, rather than a cross-hilted sword. But I've only seen the Wendian Crown Order with Swords in pictures in Nimmergut.

Grainy photo, but the second SEHO looks like it has Roman hilts. So I think Rick's right that the second SEHO was also replaced like the SA3a. As to the duchy-by-duchy question, I don't see a pattern. Looking not at SEHOs, but at other decorations specific to the three duchies, I see the following: Saxe-Altenburg: Duke Ernst Medal, 1st Class with Swords had Roman hilts. The examples of the swords clasp to Merit Medal of the SEHO for Saxe-Altenburg that I've seen, for 1870/1, also had Roman hilts.Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: all examples I have seen of the swords clasp to the Merit Medal of the SEHO for Saxe-Coburg-Gotha have Roman hilts. Same goes for the Oval Silver Duke Carl Eduard Medal with Crown and Sword Clasp.Saxe-Meiningen: the examples of the swords clasp to Merit Medal of the SEHO for Saxe-Meiningen that I have seen, from 1870/1 and China, have Roman hilts."S" hilts may be specific to particular makers, and those makers might have been located in particular duchies, making the S-type more common in one than the other two, but there doesn't appear to be a specific bias by any duchy. From what I've seen, there are at least seven distinct hilt styles for German decorations, maybe more. Maybe we should have a separate thread for that topic.

Technically, "verliehen durch" I suppose could mean "awarded through [on behalf of the Kaiser/King]", and the regulations would say "verliehen von" if they really meant purely "awarded by...", but given the clarification that it was a badge and not a decoration, I think docs could go either way.

I'm not sure about Prussia (though I suspect Bavarian regulations mirrored Prussian ones), but Bavarian 1918 regulations state that the Wound Badge was an Abzeichen, not an Auszeichnung; thus, it wouldn't be an imperial or royal prerogative to award the badge. The regulations state that for soldiers in combat units, the award is to be made by the next highest superior with the disciplinary authority of at least a regimental commander:

Volume II of Erzherzog Carl von ?sterreich als Feldherr und Heeresorganisator by Moritz Edler von Angeli, which covers 1799, does not mention any specific action on that date.

The reverse means, I believe, "by [or through] valor and wisdom". Virtus, of which virtute is a declined form, can also be translated simply as "through virtue", but valor, bravery, courage, manliness/manhood (its literal meaning), and excellence are also acceptable. Whether that means military is hard to say. 9 April 1799 was during the War of the Second Coalition, when Erzherzog Karl was leading coalition forces along the Rhine against Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. There might have been a victory that day, but I can't find a mention of a specific battle. 9 April 1799 was also the birthdate of Erzherzog Josef Franz Leopold, but if this had to do with him, I think his name would be on there.

I served in the Army from 1992 to 1997, initially with a Special Forces Group, and then after being commissioned, as an infantry officer.

September 11 was my first day of work in New York after law school and taking the bar exam. I left work and went to Ground Zero. There were a bunch of us who were military and were caught in the city - regulars on leave, reservists and National Guard, from every service and ranging from privates to colonels. We formed teams and joined with the police and fire and other rescue workers. It was initially search and rescue, but pretty quickly came to be search and recovery as there wasn't anyone alive to find. As sad as that was, that is actually a testament to those first responders who gave their lives, because they managed to get out of the area most of the people who could get out before the towers collapsed. Otherwise there could easily have been over 20,000 dead as initially feared.

I got tired of missing Wikipedia articles and vague references, so over the past couple of days, I created a few new pages for Military Merit Crosses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Merit_Cross - a disambiguation page to separate Bavarian from Mecklenburg from Austrian, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Meri...tria-Hungary%29 - Austro-Hungarian MVK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Meri...urg-Schwerin%29 - Mecklenburg-Schwerin MVK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Meri...oss_%Bavaria%29 - Bavarian MVK Since the Austro-Hungarian and Mecklenburg-Schwerin MVKs were awarded to officers, there wasn't much difficulty in throwing together a "Notable recipients" section with a number of persons who already have Wikipedia entries or otherwise qualify as "notable" (these lists could grow, of course; the Austro-Hungarian MVK list needs more Austro-Hungarians). However, for the Bavarian MVK, an enlisted award, I am at an impasse. I can only think of a few "notable" recipients: two aviators who are somewhat well-known to WW1 historians, Kissenberth and Ritter von M?ller, and two Nazis: Hitler and Sepp Dietrich. And possibly Theodor Eicke. And maybe another Nazi, Gestapo M?ller, who was commissioned fairly late in the war, and probably got an MVK in some grade and then an MVO4X (there are a bunch of Lt. Heinrich M?llers in the Beilagen to the 1918 Verordnungs-blatt). And then Reichsleiter Wilhelm Grimm (MVK1XmKr), Obergruppenf?hrer Karl-Maria Demelhuber (MVK3X), Obergruppenf?hrer Max Amann, and maybe Julius Streicher. Two vaguely known pilots and a bunch of Nazis isn't the best list. Can anyone think of any others? Also, if anyone has any corrections to the articles I wrote, you may make the changes in Wikipedia or just let me know.

But inside, a Z?hringen Lion cub rather than the full-grown big cat:

I have this, which looks a lot like yours but in different material:

From the late Neal O'Connor's last volume, here is the Appendix listing the 25 recipients of the "F?r Tapferkeit" version of the MStK2:

Obviously, that should be Sept. 11, not Sept. 4. However, Tower 4 did not collapse on Sept. 11. It and Tower 5 were badly damaged by debris, but were still standing on Sept. 12. I know this because I was in Tower 4 on Sept. 12, as we were performing search and rescue (which became search and recovery) and were looking for ways down into the labyrinth of tunnels, mall concourses, etc. under the WTC complex. We were working in the area between 4 and 5, pulling out debris and climbing and rapelling down underground, when there was a warning that the Millennium Hotel behind us, a tall narrow building, might collapse. My team went back to the other side, between Tower 1 and Tower 2, where the main effort was still concentrated. The hotel never fell, and still looks out over Ground Zero, but 4 and 5 did. IIRC, they were demolished as part of the cleanup.

Thanks to the able assistance of Paul C, the PDF is now right-side-up. Same link as before: http://home.att.net/~dave.danner/militaria...enburg_FR90.pdf

My understanding is that that particular coat of arms was only in use between 1978 and 1980. Several German states had civil Lifesaving Medals with the motto "F?r Rettung aus Gefahr" or "for rescue from danger". That seems like it might be close.