I have not received any real medals in my life, but I got one medal when I was in the military. I had said some bad things to sergeants and I came out of the situation quite well and my fellow military person gave me a Soviet medal. Today you buy these medals at 5 euros at flea markets. Maybe all medals are meaningless.
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Hello Mjseu
I have a drawer full of medals, I served in desert storm and received military medals and also many medals in sports in high school. I am always one thought from throwing the whole mess in the garbage but I have yet to do it. Perhaps I will let them go some day as they are not who I am anymore.
Powessy
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My daughter has a tonne of medals. The ones she won at 4-H for speaking competitions, or the merit awards are quite important to her. The participation trophies that were given to everyone … she tosses. Winning medals motivates her to work harder, so I’d say that is their true meaning – they encourage excellence.
Pixel.
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Of course they’re not meaningless. They represent accomplishments that are above and beyond the normal human achievements. They stand for something. Maybe not to everybody but in the military for example a highly decorated soldier is respected by people in his world for his accomplishments shown by medals.
the medal that you had earned,gives you memory that no amount of money can give you…
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It is funny that when the governments and systems have fallen and crashed as happened to the Soviet Union the value of medals and other items is rapidly fallen and have become meaningless. Nowadays you can buy these medals very cheaply at flea markets in my part of the world. A Soviet navy officer visor hat was just 10 euros years ago. But maybe so that I have never accomplished anything superior so I think that these medals and other items are meaningless. Maybe in the long lasting nations such as USA these medals have more value although one Cherokee Indian thought differently after he had received all kinds of medals in Vietnam war, there he lived on the beach of Key West with other homeless people.
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I bet a soviet medal purchased at a garage sale or flea market is more valuable in the U.S. and means more here than it does in Russia.
I doubt that, these Soviet medals are without any significant monetary value unless a medal is a very special one. Some can be expensive because these are rare.
I don’t really know for sure. But some people collect stuff like that.
When the Soviet Union fell all kinds of military items such as medals came to markets of the neighboring nations such as Talllin in Estonia, Finland and elsewhere, I was at the time in the USA but I have heard stories how they purchased very cheaply all kinds of items such as Soviet officer visor hats and medals and other items. Basically these items had no value any longer in the fallen Soviet Union as it happens often when nations fall.
The area of the former Soviet Union has been quite turbulent in the past 100 years. First there was Czar and the Imperial Russia fell after Communists took the power and then there were periods of different governments under the Soviet Union and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed and then there was a chaotic period of Boris Yeltsin with all kinds of economical problems and then Vladimir Putin came to the power in 1999 and has been there these past 16 years with all kinds of conflicts in Caucasus and now of course as we know in Ukraine. The area of this is quite turbulent as the past century has proven and there are many discontinuties which makes it so different from America.
Medals aren’t meaningless to those who have earned them.
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Maybe that is then it, I have never earned any medals, not even in sports, so I think medals are meaningless. My father got many medals in skiing and other sports when he was young. Now I have all his medals that I am keeping, the monetary value of these sports medals is meaningless, but I suppose these meant a lot to him when he was still capable of thinking by himself.
My dad earned a “Purple Heart” medal for his role in the Korean conflict, although for some reason it took them (?) 30 years to award it to everyone on his ship.
That never deterred my dad"s pride, and I will always remember the look on his face the day he received it.
I too have most of my dad’s metals after he passed away in 2013, an American Flag presented to us at his funeral service is in my living room, and it reminds me of how proud I’m to be his daughter.
There is a group of veterans who ride motorcycles with the American flag who escort the hearse to the cemetery when invited (requested) by the family. There is no charge for this (donations are welcome, but they never ask) and they do it to show respect for those who served our country.
It was amazing the sight of those motorcycles flying the American flag off the back of their bike, the riders donning their service metals and patches, and knowing this was all for my father’s honor.
I know he would have been proud,
and I swear I caught a glimpse of him up there grinning ear to ear and saying "Holy Shat, was that for ME?!
They are called the
“Patriot Guard Riders”
You can buy brand new replicas of many medals that look pretty good to me.
But don’t be caught wearing one you did not earn, especially military.