Doing a paper on military medals for my psych class...need some help

[eliminator]

I'm doing a paper for one of my fourth year classes at RMC and decided to do it on something relating to the awarding of military awards (medals/decorations/orders/etc).

I'm thinking of writing about the "medal culture" differences between countries, such as our and the US for example and look at how society views such awards.

Could someone out there direct me towards some possible sources. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with a paper like this.

I defiantly want to have a Canadian theme to it, with some historical attributes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4243092/

any help or imput would be greatly appreciated

 

[Elisha]

Hey,

Here is a site that I found by just typing Canadian military medals into a google search. 

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/cmdp/mainmenu

Veteran Affairs will have a ton of information and make sure to check out the library at RMC i am sure they will have a few books avaliable too!

Hope this helps and good luck on the paper.

Elisha

 

[Roger]

There is also the DND sight.....

http://www.dnd.ca/hr/dhh/honours_awards/engraph/med1_e.asp?cat=3

 

[larry Strong]

Are you confining your self to just Canada and the US, or globaly?

 

[Roger]

I also failed to mention the Governor General sight

http://www.gg.ca/honours/medals/index_e.asp

 

[George Wallace]

Here are a couple of sites:

http://www.tokenpublishing.com/

http://www.medaltracker.com/

 

[eliminator]

Thanx for the replies thus far.

This paper will be for my "Cross Cultural Psychology" class. I'm pretty familiar with the honour systems of both the US and Canada because Ive been collecting medals for a few years now.

I guess what I'm looking for would be academic papers and books already written on such a topic. I'm still collecting sources and info to see where I'm going with this. 

 

[Old Sweat]

Eliminator,

The basic difference in medal's philosophy reflects the conflict between republican and monarchist roots. A few years back when I was researching the Queen's Scarves, I found that one of the recipients had also won the Medal of Honor while serving as a seaman in the United States Navy in the Spanish-American War. He had been a member of a boat crew of vounteers who dredged up and cut the underseas cable to Spain at Cienfuegos, Cuba. This was done close to shore under heavy fire and all 32 (I think) of the volunteers were awarded the Medal. In the British, and hence, the Canadian system, the officer in command probably would have received the Victoria Cross, or, as laid out in the charter for the VC, in a case where everyone was said to have acted in such a way that would merit a VC, one each would have been allotted to the officers, petty officers and ratings, to be decided by secret ballot by each group. (Note-that is how it worked for the army and I am going out on a limb to surmise that the same practice would have been followed by the navy.)

If you are interested, pm me and I will get you a reference for the incident at Cienfuegos.