Chest of Medals: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|The officers were all wearing so many decorations a sniper wouldn't have known who to aim at first.|''[[Saga of Tanya the Evil|Saga of Tanya the Evil (LN)]]''}}
A military (or police) officer wears on his person an improbably large number of medals and other decorations for their age/rank/duration of service. Forms this trope can take include...
# An officer that has so many medals nailed to his uniform that one would expect him to be a ranking general-grade officer, but he turns out to be only a field- or junior-grade officer. And yes, he earned them all ''the hard way''. In other words, someone who is [[Colonel Badass]] / [[Majorly Awesome]] / [[The Captain]] that refuses to be promoted off the field, and has the medals as proof of his numerous [[Badass]] achievements.
# An actual general who has more medals than a normal general could ever earn in a lifetime
# A [[Miles Gloriosus]] who habitually takes undeserved credit or enjoys nepotism can superficially come across as a either of the above.
# A [[Phony Veteran]] who collects "chest candy" that he never earned and just wants to look impressive.
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Often found on [[The Generalissimo]]. See also [[Bling of War]].
{{examples
== Films ==
* In ''[[Seven Days in May]]'' (though it's worth mentioning that the amount of real estate on his chest isn't ludicrous, and is probably a reasonable amount for someone of his rank):
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*** In the ''Memory'' example, Miles had two major medals... from both governments that were involved in previous war. He usually wears one or other, but at one event he wore both at once among lot of other medals. People were shocked as he's really fragile midget due to development problems by poison while his mother was pregnant with him. He even has a Cetagandan Order Of Merit, for service to his planet's (Barrayar's) ''former enemy'', an award which a Cetegandan would literally kill for, and which seems a bit weird considering Miles's ancestors quite notably defeated Cetaganda bloodily.
* The Supreme Custodian in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'' is depicted as this.
* Early in Helen MacInnes' ''Decision at Delphi'', the main character is debriefed by Greek intelligence officials ca. 1960. One of them is a colonel with "four rows of close-packed ribbons on his solid chest." All of which, someone mentions the next day, were earned the hard way. In an irony, it turns out these particular officials were brought into the matter by a traitor who thought the Colonel Badass was a has-been, not clever enough to pose any threat. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]].
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[The Benny Hill Show]]'': in a sketch about a wheelchair race we see one of the participants pre-race talking with someone, shot from below. He's got a chest full of medals. He crosses his legs, at which time we see he's even got medals on the soles of his shoes.
* The British DJ/comedian [[Kenny Everett]] used to have a character on his TV show who was a fire-breathing American [[General Ripper]], frequently crashing into the sketch through a wall. He had massive shoulder pads on his uniform to allow him to show off the ludicrous number of medals he wore.
* ''[[Star Trek: The
* This is repeated in the ''[[Star Trek: The
** For your information, images of Kirk and Data's awards (among others) can be found [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Starfleet_decorations here].
* ''[['Allo 'Allo!|Allo Allo]]'' has Captain Bertorelli (a type 3) who has three rows of large, showy, medals (and loads of gold braid):
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** There's also the confusion between ''medals'' awarded for merit, and ''service ribbons'' which are literally just a record of what campaigns or operations you've served in. Generals have lots of stuff on their chests because they're older and have long resumes. A low-ranking officer with lots of chest bling is either incredibly heroic or gets transferred a lot.
** Gen. Patton was an interesting aversion in that he had a huge quantity of medals from his service with Gen. Pershing's expedition to Mexico, and his service in WWI and WWII, but he hated putting all of them on at once. There's supposedly only one picture, taken in his own backyard at the insistence of his wife, showing Patton with all his medals.
** A legitimate American Type 1 from WWII is [[Audie Murphy]], who earned every decoration for valor that America could grant, and was often described as America's most decorated soldier of that war. He was uncomfortable with the fame this brought him, but did believe that the Army was entitled to use him for promotional and recruiting purposes, so unlike Patton there's a fair number of pictures of him wearing his
* NYC police officers have a huge number of various medals attached a bar that holds their badge on their chest. It's kind of ridiculous that you have trouble finding the badge among the giant square on their chest.
* The typical Liberator-Father Of The Nation-Great Leader of a [[Banana Republic]] does this.
* This was a very common trait of Soviet-era generals. Most of the Soviet high brass until the late [[The Eighties|Eighties]] were WWII veterans, and often held at least some small command, leading to significant level of them being already decorated back then. Add to it the Soviet practice to award decorations on the anniversaries (until the late [[The Sixties|Sixties]] ''battle'' decorations were used, later they've switched to the special "breathing" medals), and the regulation that the soldier must wear ''all'' his decorations, including campaign medals, service ribbons, qualification badges etc., on his formal parade uniform, and by the end of the [[Old Soldier|third decade of service]] you'll end up with a [[Bling of War|walking jewelery store]].
** Most spectacular of them was Marshal Georgy Zhukov (currently the article image), said to be the most decorated officer in all Russian history, who did earn all his medals due to [[Four-Star Badass]]-worthy accomplishments not only against [[Nazi Germany|the Wehrmacht]] in the [[Great Patriotic War]], but also against Japanese forces during the 1930s invasion of Mongolia.
* Then their Idi Amin who has dozens of medals that cover his chest, it would seem as though he awarded those to himself.
* In the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the punchline of countless [[Russian Humour|Soviet jokes]] ridiculing his love for medals, due to him being perhaps the [[Miles Gloriosus|most notorious Type 3 in the Soviet Union]]. He even awarded himself with the Order of Victory that should only be given to great WWII military leaders, despite his own modest WWII record — he was a regimental commissar, and later, when [[Political Officer
{{quote|What would happen if a crocodile ate Brezhnev? The poor thing would be crapping medals for two weeks straight.
Yesterday, Moscow was devastated by an earthquake caused by Brezhnev's jacket with all his medals falling off a chair.
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