Awards Comparison - US vs The Commonwealth

Let’s compare America to British, Canada, and Australia when it comes to military medals for combat valor and performance. The British system was used in Commonwealth countries (including Canada) up to and through World War II. This began to change as countries such as Canada, Australian, and New Zealand started to create their own systems of honors in the 1960’s. 

The year 1993 saw a major change in all Commonwealth countries’ honors. The formerly overseas territories, such as Canada and Australia, fully created their own system of military awards separate from that used by Britain. Further, in Britain, the military awards system there removed distinctions of rank within the awards. Now enlisted and officers would receive the same award for the same performances. Previously, there were separate awards for officers and enlisted. 

COMPARATIVE AWARDS

British and Continental countries have long, complicated histories. This can make it hard for Americans (such as myself) to know what I’m looking at. Many countries award knighthoods to military members, sometimes for combat bravery or performance, as well as have civil and military orders of chivalry. Since those are usually awarded for long and faithful service, I won’t get into those and will show just purely military decorations. I’m also not going to examine awards for purely meritorious service outside of a combat zone. 


To complicate things, some of the British and Canadian decorations (in particular the non-combat bravery awards) can be given to all citizens, not just members of the military.

Hopefully this chart and article can help someone else make heads or tails of another country's medals for bravery and wartime service. If nothing else, it'll help me keep track of things as I write more articles about my brothers and sisters from across the pond.

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