This post is posted here because it's in English. It was triggered by a request by Guillaume in the Petites Annonces - Recherches section.
Link to thread

First a very short summary:

Instituted in 1991 to comply with the rising needs for the Danish forces to be deployed abroad.
Reverse of the medal describes the reason for the award (engraved if only a few was awarded).
It is mainly an award for 'being there' - no 'above and beyond' action is required and no shots have to have been fired to get it.

If you are looking to buy this medal, I have 2 advices:

1)
I spoke to the man who manufactures the medal (and also puts the description on the back), and he told me they are awarded in large numbers. So if you wait a few years there should be plenty on the market when the recipients get tired of holding on to them.

2)
Beware of fakes! Generally, Danish medals are not faked much, but this medal is!
If you have never had this medal in your hand, you could be fooled, but once you have seen the real thing you realize how bad the copies are.
The picture below is not the best, but notice how the lions lack any details on the copy (sometimes one of the 9 hearts are missing as on this one). Same lack of detail goes for the wreath on the reverse. Furthermore the font size on the copies are generally too large and note also the 'rough' groove close to the rim on the copy - on the original it is smooth.




/Mike

Dear Mike

Thanks for this nice topic, its intersting to know that copies existe of this medal

Guy

Thank you for sharing, Mike ! :thanks:

One question, the dates on the reverse seems to be those of "being there", therefore they could be different according to the duty tour? Am I right ?

Regards
Bison

Well, yes and no...

There are cases where only one medal was awarded - which would make the inscription on the reverse unique, but if more than one medal was awarded at the same time they would all have the same inscription (i.e. no 'personalized' inscription).

At least that is how it has been so far... the use of this medal still seems to be a bit undetermined with a lot of 'what if..' questions.

Example: Since this medal is given for 'just' being there and with the more and more often deployment of Danish forces to tasks abroad, what happens if a person earns the award, say, 5 times (which could easily happen)? Current regulation says, that additional inscriptions should be put on the rim (!), but how can you fit more than a couple?

Last week the crew on a Danish naval vessel received the medal for patrolling a couple of weeks off Africa to protect supply ships from pirates. They never saw any pirates and never encountered any hostile activities. With this award rate, you could easily earn this medal several times...

/Mike

Yes, Mike, this was my question.

You know that on the NATO or UN medals you can wear a number bar standing for the number of duty tours you made in a same operation. And you are right in saying that if you get it in some weeks, the numbers could by very high ! Especially if you never heard a shot fire.

But in the case of the Danish Defence Medal, and as far as I understand, you can award several times this medal, but you can wear only one ? And the only way is to engrave the reverse with all the duty tours, limited to the size of the medal?
It is funny... and very difficult to perform...Why the system of "bars" on the ribbon have not been adopted ?? This could solve the problem of multiple awards with a unique medal...

Yours
Bison

It is correct that you can only wear one of these medals (also on ribbon bars) even if it has been awarded to you several times.
The inscription for subsequent awards are not engraved on the reverse (only the first inscription), but on the rim. So you may fit 1-2 additional descriptions there...

At the moment, the problem of what to do if more than 2-3 of these medals are awarded to the same person is still unsolved (I guess noone has received it 4 times yet). I know a guy who was awarded the medal 3 times, and the rim is full!

Yes, why not bars? That's a good question... my personal belief is, that the medal was initially intended to be a reward for 'above and beyond' actions and thus only occasionally awarded, but pressure from the public (and the soldiers) turned it into a 'been there' award with the problems described above...

/Mike