Chest of Medals: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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# 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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** 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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