United Nations Medal

United Nations Medal
United Nations Medal awarded for service with UNMEE
Awarded by The United Nations
Type	Service medal
Awarded for	Service with a designated United Nations peacekeeping mission
Status	Currently awarded

A United Nations Medal is an international decoration awarded by the United Nations (U.N.) to the various world countries militaries for participation in joint international military and police operations such as peacekeeping, humanitarian efforts, and disaster relief. The medal is ranked in militaries and police forces as a service medal. The United Nations awarded its first medal during the Korean War (1950-53). Since 1955, many additional United Nations medals have been created and awarded for participation in various United Nations missions and actions around the world.

The most common United Nations medal is the standard U.N. decoration known simply as the United Nations Medal. Most countries bestow this award for any action in which a member of the military participated in a joint U.N. activity.

In situations where a service member participated in multiple U.N. operations, service stars,campaign clasps, or award numbers are authorized as attachments to the United Nations Medal. These devices vary depending on the regulations of the various armed forces.

The UN has authorised the award of numerals to be attached to the medal ribbon. The qualification for these numerals is not to indicate the number of campaigns served in, but rather the number of qualifying periods of service, which are counted as 180 consecutive days after the initial qualifying period of ninety days.

The first United Nations medal to be created was the United Nations Service Medal, also known as the United Nations Service Medal Korea, was awarded to any military service member, of an Armed Force allied with South Korea, who participated in the defense of South Korea from North Korea between the dates of 27 June 1950 and 27 July 1953. The military forces of the Netherlands are awarded the medal for service to January 1, 1955, while the armed forces of Thailand and Sweden grant the award to July 27, 1955.

In 1956, to maintain the peace which brought the end of the Suez Crisis the United Nations Emergency Force was established. This was the first Peacekeeping operation of the United Nations. To reward the service of troops from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, India, Norway, Sweden and Yugoslavia those troops who completed ninety days of service with the UNEF were awarded the United Nations Emergency Force Medal. The mission lasted from November 1956 until June 1967. It is unique from other United Nations Medals in that instead of saying UN on the obverse, it says UNEF. Subsequent missions did not use the missions abbreviation on its medals.