Prince Phillip earned most of his, in WW2.
And Andrew in the Falklands.
Some royals sometimes have certainly served in war or even in peacetime and been awarded for doing things that would’ve gotten a commoner of similar military rank the same award in the same circumstances. I don’t mean to minimize any of those awards or the actions that led to them.
But as Charles said, some of those are more indicia of status than indicia of merit. Sort of an award for participation in the rarified game of being royal. By its own lights, that’s fine too. They’re just different lights.
Just FYI, it’s Chelsea Manning. Even when referring to her before she changed her name.
ETA: And it looks like she had five ribbons. No criticism, genuinely curious – is that a particularly large amount, or a large amount for her rank or experience?
I might also note that many of them are afforded opportunities to serve with distinction by virtue of their status at birth, which for me undermines things a bit. They might have displayed some merit from the positions they were placed in, but they did not arrive in such positions purely by merit. Their success, then, no matter how great, can never be seen as a product of meritocracy.
This is not to say that I am for rigid meritocracy, only that anyone who would point to a Royal as an example of meritocracy in action must be under some degree of delusion.
Also, another term (seeing that someone already mentioned fruit salad): chest candy.
ETA:
Fair question. The answer is a pretty definitive no. None of them were for meritorious or heroic service (and even by that pay grade, particularly in the Army, some low level awards for merit would not be uncommon, but she had none).
I also seem to recall some of her ribbons were out of order in some early photos, but that could be as much due to the guards doing a shitty job of throwing her uniform together as anything (I honestly don’t know who assembles the dress uniform for someone in pre-trial confinement).
ETA2:
This one, for example:
ETA: Ninja’d by @ASL_v2.0’s ETA above. That pic was earlier during his first period in Iraq; he doesn’t yet have the start denoting the second tour.
In the picture of them as a male in the army in the wiki article the ribbons are, from greatest to least:
- National Defense Service Medal
- Iraq Campaign medal with one star
- Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
- Army Service Ribbon
- Army Overseas Service Ribbon
Which you can translate as:
- Served in the military during the gulf war (1990-1995) and/or the war on Terrorism (2001-2022)
- Served in Iraq during the war there for 30 consecutive days. Twice.
- Served overseas in support of one of the many Operation Whatevers that have pursued Islamic Terrorists of one sort or another.
- Successfully graduated from newbie school in the Army
- Served outside the USA for a 2-year+ tour.
Which collectively amounts to: Served in the US Army during the 2000s and did deploy into Iraq for awhile. May have simply been washing dishes while there, but was there.
So overall, totally typical for a non-combat soldier of their era. Nothing meritorious, just evidence they mostly showed up for work. Unfortunately for us.
I’d never heard the word gong used in this way before. TIL.
Purely Brit / Commonwealth slang. Not US slang.
Actually, very common mistake that I see all the time: the Iraq Campaign Medal, and the Afghanistan Campaign Medal too, should never be awarded without a service star. Anytime you see someone wearing a slick Iraq or Afghanistan Campaign Medal without a star, technically they are wrong.
By contrast, the GWOT Expeditionary Medal, which has campaign stars instead of service stars, may be awarded absent a star.
Cool. All that was after my time.
Don’t feel too bad. It’s all before the time of anyone joining the military today. They haven’t awarded the Iraq Campaign Medal for over a decade, and so now I get to feel old too!
Me neither. Now I’m thinking of a cowardice cowbell.
Don’t be ridiculous. Cowbells are for heroes. The courageous cowbell they call it. It’s white feathers for the cowards. Is there alliteration in it? No. But cowards don’t rate such flourishes. That’s kinda the point.
Considering what is topical in Australia I’m guessing the answer is “what you get for shooting unarmed civilians and pushing them over cliffs”.
That could be a thread on its own, but it reminds me of the quotation from Brecht’s Galileo:
“Unhappy the land that has no heroes!”
“No - unhappy the land that needs heroes”
There is this thread already is that’s what you were referring to: