Terry, your post raises some interesting points. *To begin, there was the case of a man who saved the lives of American mariners about 55 years past, and a Coast Guard officer wrote him a letter of thanks. *In the year 2000 the man's son found the letter and began lobbying Canada and the US for a medal for his father. *The US gave one - Canada did not. *Son then went to newspapers to praise the Americans and bad-mouth Canada as a mean-spirited place that does not know how to recognize its heros. *All of which I think is pretty rotten because
(a) one good deed should get one medal - and if the Americans chose to hand out one then no more were needed.
(b) awards should be given out as close as possible to the event on the basis of contemporary recommendations, assessments and evidence. *They should NOT be awarded because the "recipient" happens to have lived longer than most and has a descendant pushy enough to go through this lobbying. *Who lobbies on behalf of the man who is childless or just not that loud ?
Canadian awards - I recommend you visit the website for Canadian Honours -
http://www.gg.ca/honour_e.html - for fuller descriptions. *John Blatherwick is about to bring out the 5th edition of his book on the subject so you may wish to write him at 59 Courtney Crescent, New Westminster, British Columbia, V3L 4M1.
AIRFORCE magazine published a letter in Volume 25 No.2 (Summer 2001) with a lengthy complaint about awards (or lack thereof) to Canadian Air Force personnel for Kosovo operations; Volume 25 No.3 carried a guest editorial which took a look at those complaints (some of which were justified and some not). *If you do not subscribe to AIRFORCE, it costs $ 35.00 (Canadian) per year ($ 30.00 for Americans, $ 39.50 everywhere else) and single issues may be purchased for $ 6.00 (mailings to Canadian addresses) or $ 6.00 (U.S. addresses) or $ 10.00 (all other countries). Write to AIRFORCE, Box 2460, Station D, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5W6