Headed to the Navy Ball again

[macwilkin]

The main reason I wouldn't wear medals to a Burn's Dinner is at a Military ball I am there representing the military but at a Burn's Dinner while sometimes may have a military air about it I wouldn't be representing the military. I do take a little bit of pride in my sevice I try not to turn it into a "HEY LOOK AT ME" sort of thing. Just my personal feeling but that seems to demean or cheapen what the medals mean.

Jim

We'll agree to disagree then. As I mentioned, Burns himself was a soldier, and the traditions of the Burns Supper have followed Scottish soldiers to many a battlefield, the most recent being Iraq. I don't see where a function honouring the national poet of Scotland, who volunteered to defend his country from possible invasion "demeans or cheapens" the meaning of medals. My friends who are ex-servicemen, btw, do not wear their medals at our Burns Suppers as a "hey, look at me!" thing -- they wear them to honour Pte. Burns of the Dumfries Volunteers, and the many Jocks who have stood beside us in a common cause of freedom. Burns even honoured our first C-in-C, General Washington, with a poem.

Not to mention that one of the first Burns Suppers was held by NCOs and other ranks of the Argyll Militia in 1801, giving the Burns Supper tradition a military origin.

T.