This week, Dh gets a new medal. It’s one every soldier gets, just for showing up for 12 years. Dh has 15.5 years in, but I just assumed it was like high school, it just takes some people a little longer to get there. Okay, no it’s actually just the army who occasionally forgets about things. Especially if no one reminds them…. but it’s more fun to explain it the other way. Now, if I was to give you a detailed list of the people who care about Dh’s medals, it would look like this: 1. Me. …. I know. It’s extensive. The truth is, Dh doesn’t much concern himself with what medals he has. It doesn’t bother him that with 4 deployments, he has a total of 2 medals on his chest. It doesn’t bother him that he’s less than 2 weeks from that 2nd bar on his Afghanistan medal, so he will forever look like he’s done less time there than he has. Or that he’s been home months from his 4th deployment and isn’t holding his breath that he’ll see that medal anytime soon. And when he stands on Remembrance Day next to a soldier who commands all the civilian attention due to a rack of medals that actually points to much less experience than Dh has, instead of bitter he’s mostly just happy he’s deflected any attention. In fact, he completely laughed it off when on his 3rd deployment to Afghanistan they gave him a camera to take pictures of the medals ceremony, because he already had the medal and they had…
In Canada, when a soldier serves 12 years of Service (you know, without getting in too much trouble or breaking any laws….) they get a medal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Decoration It is called the CD. Canadian Forces Decoration. You don’t have to do anything beside be a soldier for 12 years to get it (which, don’t get me wrong, is a pretty important!). Once you recieve it, you even get to put a C.D. after your name on important documents. Pretty fancy shmancy. Needless to say (or this post would have no point but to bore you with military medal trivia), DH reached his 12 years last weekend. That doesn’t mean he has the medal now, that will take however many months of paperwork and the like. But, it means he is eligible. 12 years ago he walked into the Recruiting Center with his mom and dad, having completed his enlistment process while he was still in highschool and stood there just after his 18th birthday to make the final step… Swearing his Oath to the Queen and Country before shipping off to Basic Training. October 8, 1999 And I remember it then, because I remember him then. I didn’t get to go to the Swearing In. It was for family only and I was just a girlfriend. A highschool girlfriend, no less, I am sure that it was assumed the relationship would be short lived once he was actually out the door. But I was there for everything else. I was there the night before he got on the plane, sitting in a park by ourselves when he asked if I was going to wait for him and I cried. Oh, how long 12 weeks…
