Civilians copy cat challenge coins
At the Washington Post is an article today about the civilian world copy catting the military challenge coin tradition. Yeah, I don’t understand the value of the Ag Department or EPA handing out challenge coins, but apparently hoping to appear to have a semblance of military bearing, the Starbuck-guzzling, sandal-wearing hippies have taken up the practice;
[I]n recent years, many outside the military have adopted the tradition, turning a sacrosanct ritual, some say, into a form of military chic that is now part of the Washington power game. The coin craze extends into almost every nook of the federal government. The secretaries of education, transportation and agriculture have coins. So does the EPA administrator, and even the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Information Technology.
Of course, as with anything that has to do with government, the challenge coins cost the taxpayers for this bit of bureaucratic vanity.
The Army doesn’t appropriate funds specifically for coins, making it difficult to come up with a total cost. But the headquarters of its Training and Doctrine Command, which has 44,000 soldiers and civilians assigned to it, spent $27,000 on coins last fiscal year.
The Transportation Department spent $3,320 on coins last year. The Education Department spent $1,385. The Agriculture Department said it could not determine the cost of its coins, but said that, as with the other agencies, they are often handed out to military and law enforcement personnel as a thank-you.
In my family, we have a grand total of two – both from different Army Chiefs of Staff. My wife got one when she was a civilian nurse at Walter Reed and I got the other one during 10th Mountain Division’s preparation for deployment to Somalia. I had to buy my own regimental coin (325th AIR) at Fort Bragg’s 82d Division museum. Somehow, I missed out on the whole challenge coin thing. I guess I spent too much time in the line units.
But, it’s a total waste of time and money for the Ed Department and the EPA to have Challenge Coins – do they answer the challenge with doobies instead of beer? If all of these fuckers want to play soldier, let them join the military instead of puffing out their chests with our traditions.
Category: I hate hippies
I also have never understood the need for all these hippes and leftists to wear articles of military uniform at their anti-American rallies and other protests.
Boonie hats, field jackets, etc seem to still be en vogue with different groups, and that’s NOT talking about the alleged veterans in their midst.
Reminds me of the old saying “Hell hath no fury like a pacifist”.
I guess this whole coin deal, like the uniforms, is right up their with the Stolen Valor poseurs. They are jealous and want a part of something that they could never belong to in real life.
V/R
Some civilian police departments started handing out the “coins”. But when I explained what they were for and how if somebody is challanged, and they don’t have their coin—they have to buy a drink for the other person.
Oppps…that’s not politically correct….oh well. WTF?
I have to admit that I was the instigator of a challenge coin program here where I work as a method of recognizing exemplary work on our project teams. We used it to build confidence and encourage teamwork where many of these teams were demoralized and plagued with poor morale. In short order the coins became a source of pride. The end result was huge uptick in productivity and people truly interested in being recognized for their efforts. It caught on and was eventually adopted outside of our group where it ran afoul of HR people and the dreaded “customer service committee” who had no clue what the point of the coin was…soon everyone had one and it lost its meaning. Now, they’re a memory left collecting dust among paper clips and pens inside people’s desk drawer. For a time, it had a great effect on our team. I still think it was a good idea especially considering how well it worked.
glad to know that my busting my ass is vogue for all the bureaucrats.
“do they answer the challenge with doobies instead of beer?”
Does anybody actually do this?
Jonn,
As I have never earned a challenge coin, but have seen them given, I don’t like the idea of civilians doing it,either.
It will always have something to do with the military being a cut above the rest for me because most of us are or were. Just my two.
Oops that was me, the anon poster…at work I forget I gotta re-enter my i.d.!
I have a couple of challenge coins, JSA Korea, and 1st Cav which reside in a picture frame display my wife put together when I retired so they really are of little use to me in a social setting anyway. My wife got one from the CG of Ft Benning for her work with Family Support Groups. This is just more attempts by civilians to be like the kewl kids. They make up for their lack of originality by imitation or mockery so I guess we should be glad they chose the former and not the latter.
In our case, most of the development team were former military (Navy, Air Force and Army).
I’ve been kinda lucky when it comes to coins: got my company coin from C 3/187 after Iraq, Division “Excellence in Combat” coin from then-MG Petraeus and two CSM 101st, Regimental coin from TOG (actually a couple as I received a personalized one for being honor grad of ROP) as well as company and Colors Team (R.I.P. WO1 McCotter) coins from A Co TOG. Then there are the coins I got during missions in DC and at Dover–a bunch of G.O., SecArmy, SMA, etc. As a matter of fact I was thinking of building a case for them.
Anyone outside of military (or perhaps elite para-military units like SWAT) has no idea what challenge coins mean. Even in the military many coins are little more than “gimmes”. Of my collection, the Rakkasan company, “Excellence in Combat”, and TOG Regimental coins mean the most, while McCotter’s Colors coin has new meaning.
Let them fuckers Take “The Oath”, grab a rifle, stand a post, walk point, take fire, and engage the enemy. Until then they are just a POS wannabe posers.
I have a coin from ADM Mullen (CJCS) which I’m SURE I’ll never have to buy another beer at a Dining In, three deployment coins, 1 Bde, and one Division CSM coin, 2 Hospital coins (Darnell CSM/Commander) one Division Surgen coin from 1st ID, a Bn coin from 1/27 In, a DISCOM 1st ID (deployment) coin which i got in lieu of an award (Thanks a lot MG Batiste) and a Nurses Week coin that was a bit silly but it was the Hospital so there you go. I got the ADM Mullen coin here at WVU. When he came to speak to us, I got up and told him how horrified I was to see gunship footage from a mission I was on called “collateral murder”. I asked what would be done to protect soldiers in the future. He had his security detail pull me aside, and here a 4 star ADMIRAL sat and talked to me, thanked me for what I did, and expressed knowledge that its a hard mission, and often thankless, but still appreciated. For all that I will give ADM Mullen a lot of respect for even talking to me about it (if not in private than at least out of mic range) The Div CSM coin I got from 1st Cav CSM on the 4th of July 2005. It was pouring in Ft Hood, and i saw a woman trying to push a wheel chair through mud I ran out to help and offered to let her stay in the aid station we had set up until the rain had past. She said her husband was driving up to a nearby gate, so I offered instead to put the little girl (who had MS) on a gator, and drive her over. I held an umbrella over the kid while driving. I offered to help the father put the girl in the car, but he said he had it, so I helped the older daughter put the wheel chair in the back of their SUV. I just saw it as doing my job, and didn’t… Read more »
I have a few coins. Some are just for showing up, like my 344th MI BN coin from the Army Ball in 2006. Our joint task force had a coin from the deployment in 2006 that one of the sailors had designed. I have a coin from a former battalion commander that I value not at all, which is slightly more than I valued him.
My most valued coin is probably from the battalion commander of some of the special friends we supported in 2006; our Nasty Guard/Navy team filled in to provide support when one of their organic teams was wiped out by an IED. We had about 6 weeks of terrifying/brilliant direct support operations, and he gave us all coins on our way back to Bagram at the end of the op. I’m sure he never gave it another thought and probably wasn’t entirely certain what we had been doing, but it’s a concrete reminder that once upon a time we were a lot closer to the pointy end than any Guard MI puke has any right to be, and we managed not to disgrace ourselves.
Honestly, my OTHER favorite coin is a wooden nickel that I had custom done up for our annual training exercise a few years ago. I designed it myself and bought 250 of them (for about $80; the “single income E6 with kids” budget only goes so far) as a surprise for my company (and as sort of a “screw you” to the rest of the battalion). The rarity makes it a prized possession for many; somewhere, the DA G2 CSM has one, too (he visited us in the field).
I got the idea from my team leader in Afghanistan, who proposed getting “SFC [his name]” coins that he could issue to LTCs and COLs and BGs that he thought were doing a good job.
Sig
Got several over the years, but my favorite ones are, in no particular order:
From my tenure in the 96th CA Bn (ABN); the OLD school coin that is bronze…no enamel on it. My rank, name and dates on the reverse.
From the Re-enlistment NCO, 7th ATC. My MP company’s enlistment rate put him “over the top” for his “mission”, and he was so excited, I thought he’d pee himself…he gave me and my 1SG coins, instead.
From MILGRP, Bolivia, it’s made from genuine Bolivian tin, and inscribed “Highest Military Mission in the World”, and at about 16K feet, I don’t doubt it.
Finally, one I received from the late GEN Wayne Downing when working as one of his staff guys at USSOCOM. He was the one GO I respected above all others for his humanity, sense of humor and the fact that I never, ever saw him embarrass someone in public, regardless of how badly they had fucked up the briefing, a tasker, or whatever.
And I forgot to add this one point–if the weenies at the Depts of Ed, Ag, Justice, Ass-clownery, whatever…have decided to hand out their weak sauce version of challenge coins…well, all I can say is none of them will ever mean as much or hold the same type of worth as that one coin I received from a young SSG at 7th ATC so many, many years ago.
It’s just not the same, and it don’t mean the same…
#14 Spigot,
Speaking of GO’s embarassing people…
Most of us were not thrilled by the retirement speech of a certain Chief of Engineers (won’t name names but there haven’t been many in recent years). After rambling on for a loooong time, including recommending to the Chief of Staff that his replacement pretty much be himself (he summed up his career path when describing the ideal person for the position), we had a young Soldier fall out of another company. The LTG then proceeded to point him out in the form of “praise” along the lines of, “To the Soldier in the second element, third rank, etc, etc, etc, who hung in there as long as he could…”
Too bad I can’t find a transcript of the speech. The General had a long and great career, but our only experience with him left us unimpressed at best.
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The only Civilian Challenge Coin that I own I got from Glenn Beck. It is the prize of my collevtion, right next to the one Rumsfeld gave me in when I was in Walter Reed.
As for civvie organizations having challenge coins, I wonder if those are like the tokens you get for killing off some enemies in FPS games? We should find out. Also, how many do you need for the free beer?
I have several coins, to include 5 from my tour in Afghanistan. 2 are from winning MWR poker games at the USO, 1 is from BG French (she was over part of Army Material Command), 1 is from some full bird who was over the 18th CSSB, and 1 is from the 401st AFSBn Bn Cdr.
The only coins I even care about from that deployment are from the USO. The rest of them can be melted down for scrap for all I care.