Mike Smith

At present I am spending time building up an excel file of all of the New Zealanders in WW1 about 110,000 in all with many actually not having been issued a number at all. So far I am 10% through the file

Australian Defence Medal

It is rather better looking when you have one in your hand. I already have mine with the REGULAR bar on. I like the bronze look for a change as all the other awards in NZ are that tacky anodized silver plated. Each of these NZDSMs is engraved with the recipients details which is a very good idea. Australia have the equiv which is the Australian Defence Medal (ADM) for, I think, three years of service in the military. There are no bars to that one though, unlike us

It isn't such a problem for those in society who are retired and generally have a bit more time or can make time. That said, there in lies the problem of today, young blood is required to rejuvinate most voluntary organisations, but if the members who have the time are the oldies then an organisation will look antiquated

Member of he Artillery units in NZ had almost any number that could be imagined. Numbers were issued in a sequence as people enlisted and then later the serviceman would be passed off to other units, Artly, Infantry, Medical etc etc. All medals to NZers were engraved as "NZEF" regardless. To find a person one would have to trawl the rolls. If you have a particular person let us know what details you have.

Since April 2011 more than 24,800 New Zealand Defence Service Medals (NZDSM) have been issued. That was the figure at mid March 2012.

NZDSM with the Territorial bar

The NZDSM with National Service bar

The NZDSM with Compulsory Military Training (CMT) bar

Here is the NZDSM with Regular bar

At the time of inception and probably tight up to the end of the 80s society was very much different in that people worked the 40 hour week and had the weekends free to do other things. The usual was that Saturday was the day to potter in the garden or the like and Sunday was always the day of rest. Some took it upon themselves to use their weekends to volunteer into groups like the legion and be active in their community. In todays world the employer rules and the average wage worker has no choice as to what happens to their life. They are tied to working all sorts of odd shifts and many end up working six of seven days a week and often more than the 40 hours, all in the name of the mighty dollar so that their employer can begger off and be a lazy sod in some foreign land or on his yacht in the Med. The idea of having a weekend free is no longer. the result is that organisations, and I would say that nearly all organisations of a voluntary nature, all have a problem with recruiting, and then recruiting the right sort of people to serve the need. You cannot just accept all-comers just to boost the 'bums on seats' mentality. In the past a potential enlistee would be asking what they could do for the community whereas today one finds the first thing an enlistee will ask is "HOW MUCH DO I GET PAID" This is a mentality that now needs to be removed so that the level playing field can be established

Found these three images that might be of interest to you and as well an image of the ribbon, not sure if this ribbon is a current or older style ribbon

Check out http://honours.homestead.com/us.html as there are many images of the awards there. There are often civil awards for sale on Ebay as well, I've picked up many on there

For those with any real interest in the awards of the Frontiersmen I do have a quite large archive of images of their awards. Not too many images of medal groups though, so if others have group images I would be pleased to see them Over the past century of their existance such a lot of their early history has been lost which is a very great pity, even any complete records of early members do not exist. I realise that people keep using the old line that the Legion is a rather outmoded and dated group and that there appears no real use for them in society. Problem is that society has changed so much over the years and especially the past twenty or so. Originally, in the Days of Empire there was a use for this type of organisation in could be called intell gathering, but in todays world people are so intent on capitalism and this includes the fact that in most parts of the world there is no such thing as a weekend anymore as everyone is working all sorts of odd hours. eople do not have the time to take an active part in a group like this. In todays world there seems to be every sort of wonderful group of near-do-wells that purport to want to assist this person and that person for this disorder or that mindset etc. There are groups for nearly everything today. Computers are a large part of the lives of many these days and in many ways intell gathering can be done from ones armchair without a nead to 'go into the field' anymore In saying this it has been found that the Legion has to reorganise so as to go ahead into an uncertain future, a future that is moving at such a fast pace that it may soon be impossible for people to keep up with let alone develop a group of people to have a common goal

I do hope that this GMIC threat will NOT turn into another episode of the arse forum's 200+ pages of sick, mindless, one sided drop kicks at the LOF. Remember this is a GENTLEMAN'S group

I note that the ribbon on this Campaign Medal is almost the same as the US GWOT Expeditionary Medal. Interesting

Thank you for that as I hadn't seen him wearing it at all before

I located this image of the King from about Coronation time. Note he is now sporting the medal of the French legion of Honour

the Sacrifice Medal The Sacrifice Medal was created to recognize a member of the Canadian Forces, a member of an allied force, or a Canadian civilian under the authority of the Canadian Forces who, as of October 7, 2001, died or was wounded under honourable circumstances as a direct result of hostile action. http://gg.ca/honours/medals/hon04-sm_e.asp