SILVER WAR BADGE

Waikato Times, Volume 90, Issue 14024, 29 March 1919, Page 5

SILVER WAR BADGE

NOT A MILITARY MEDAu. (By Telegraph.—Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Friday. A good deal of misapprehension lias arisen over the round silver war badge which many New Zealanders are wearing. Returning soldiers, who will in due course get -he official commemorative war medal after peace is signed ask why they should have to wait for their medal when others are already wearing a distinction. But the im_ portant fact is that this round medal is in no sense a military distinction, but, more properly, a badge of exemption, an improvement upon the arm badges which were once worn in the Dominion.

The principle underlying the issue of the silver war badge is that this award is for those only who have been compelled to relinquish their appointments with the armed forces of the Crown on account of old age, wounds, or sickness, the disability * being such as to render them permanently and totally disabled for further military service. These men have placed themselves at the disposal of the military authorities; they have not been able to continue to render service in the fighting line, and they were entitled to something which would distinguish them, when in civilian clothes during war time and the operation of compulsory military service, from those civilians who had not rendered service. Now the war is over .the real value of the badge has ceased, though the owner continues to wear it as an indication that they, at any rate, tried to do what they could for the defence of their country.