Vietnam Military Merit Medal
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Image (c) 1997; RWD PLOESSL & USAIHP This graphic is a scan from the author's personal collection; therfor, not a US decoration, nor public domain. This graphic can be viewed on the Foreign Medals pages of the United States Army Insignia Home Page site, http://webpages.charter.net/usaihp/formed3.html
The Vietnam Military Merit Medal was the highest military decoration of South Vietnam during the years of the Vietnam War. Created in 1950, the Military Merit Medal was modelled after the French Médaille militaire, and was the Vietnamese equivalent to the United States Medal of Honor and was authorized to those soldiers who had performed extreme acts of bravery or had given their lives in armed combat with enemy forces of Vietnam.
A stipulation of the Vietnam Military Merit Medal was that it could only be bestowed upon enlisted personnel. For military officers, the National Order of Vietnam was considered an equivalent decoration.
The United States military authorized the Vietnam Military Merit Medal as a foreign decoration and permitted the medal to be worn on U.S. uniforms. A high number of bestowals, however, were made posthumously as the medal was most often awarded to United States enlisted personnel who had been killed in action fighting the forces of North Vietnam or the guerrilla forces of the Viet Cong.
The Vietnam Military Merit Medal was last issued to U.S. personnel in 1973 and was discontinued after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. The decoration is now only available through private dealers in military insignia.
