War is the ultimate team spectator sport. If you have ever witnessed over active hyper sports fans then you may have an idea as to how ugly noncombatants can get. The worst example is the sport of soccer were fans have routinely invaded the field, and attacked sometimes fatally, the opposition team, officials and other fans. As Americans we can’t feel too smug either. Being as ethnically diverse as the United States is has not prevented irrational hatred and paranoia from blemishing our history. The persecution of German-American citizens during the First World War and the forced relocation of our Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps during the Second World War are just two examples. On the other hand war and the threat of war has brought out many positive reactions from the civilian population as well including some really neat medals like this one issued by the National Society For Adequate Defense.

Sorting through some boxes the other day I rediscovered a full box of my Wisconsin’s Military And Civil Medals And Decorations book which I published back in 1987. Those truly were “the good old days” when Chet Krause ran the company with a velvet gloved iron hand. Most of the editorial staff back then were actively involved in the hobby fields that they were publishing in and the company was very concerned about potential problems with conflicts of interest. Established collectors as we all know are always buying and selling and being in a hobby publishing company we often found out about things before most of our readers did. Many of us just quietly ignored the rules and discretely went about our collecting ways. I had been at KP for ten years by then; had learned the basics of book publishing and had always wanted to do a book about Wisconsin Military Medals. I had also just gotten engaged that year which increased the value of my job to me. On the other hand I always found that authority encroaching on my rights  felt quite chafing. What could I do? Well first of all Chet was the ultimate collector in my book. He has a Wisconsin Paper Money collection that defies comprehension. He had token collections which were probably second to none, many military vehicles including his own Sherman tank  plus a vast knowledge of local, state and military history. Surely he would jump at my idea of a Wisc. Military Medals book.

Taking no chances and protecting my independence I wrote out a scratch copy of the book in long hand and had my medals privately photographed at my expense. Then I walked in to Chet’s office, told him that I was writing a book on Wisconsin Military Medals and asked him if he would be interested in publishing it. If he was not interested I told him that any advice would be appreciated. Thirty days later with no reply from Chet, I took the book to my friend and former KP co-worker, Joe Jones of Jones Publishing. I paid to have one of his staff do the type setting and Joe kindly let me use his equipment after hours to do the page layouts. Dave Heise designed the front cover and Joe made the arrangements with the printer for me. One month later I was able to present Chet with an inscribed copy.

The book is illustrated below. If you want a copy go to: http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=2611076

It didn’t get me fired but I hope it will inspire some of you to consider publishing your own books.

Well the Iola coin show last month was a good one. As a medal collector prowling the aisles however as with most coin shows I did not find a lot but what I did find is worth mentioning here. My only medal purchase at the show was this Ralston Purina Hero medal. The obverse has a woman bestowing a wreath on a kneeling man. The reverse is named to a “Jimmy Easton” and dated July 4, 1921. I have never heard of this medal so I contacted the Ralston Purina company via e-mail asking about it and still await a reply. Checking “Google”, my favorite internet search engine, I found two mentions of the medal being awarded in 1915 to children for life saving. This makes sense since the company was big in children’s breakfast foods at the time. Next I Googled the name Jimmy Easton and found that he was a big name professional soccer play in 1921. His obituary has no mention of his being awarded this medal so I still can not confirm that the name on the medal was also the famous soccer player. Therefore the search continues. Not all of the interesting medals are military.

Medals That Bug Me

After WWI a group of veterans with a sense of humor founded a veterans society that they named “The Order Of The Cootie.” “Cooties’ as most of us know are lice and the WWI trenches were infested with them. Anyone who had to spend any time in the trenches was soon a living host to hoards of them. It is not hard to understand the reasoning behind this group name or the design of their logo and medal featuring a big fat louse or “cootie.”

Not to be out done by the Americans, in 1926 the Prussian Guard Fusiliers Regiment veterans issued a medal honoring the unit’s centennial featuring a big fat cockroach!

Why a roach? Roaches are; hard to kill, prolific and do their best work at night.

I am not sure why, but maybe someone with an even stranger sense of humor thought that these were military virtues which had served them well from battlefield to bar room.

If you know the true story behind this one please share it with us.

The Ubiquitous GAR Medal

Unlike modern times there was a time when the US government did not issue military service medals. Veterans of the Revolutionary War through the Civil War had to join veterans societies to get wearable membership medals denoting their military service. It wasn’t until 1905, forty years after the end of the Civil War that the Federal government issued the first Civil War service medal. Until that time the only medallic recognition that could be worn were a few state issued medals and the very popular Grand Army of the Republic membership medal, similar in design the Medal of Honor. (Confederate veterans only had the privately issued and funded Southern Cross of Honor.) Look through any of the pre-1900 state blue books and look at the pictures of the elected state senators and assembly men; almost every one of them is sporting a GAR member medal or lapel button. Even though it is just a veterans group medal one can not over estimate it’s importance as the semi-official campaign medal of it‘s era.