The Australian Operational Service Medal is a campaign medal established on 22 May 2012 to recognise service by Australian Defence Force personnel on designated hazardous operations. It may also be awarded to civilians who serve alongside the ADF on designated operations under specific conditions. It replaces the Australian Active Service Medal and Australian Service Medal for future ADF operations. The medal is issued to military personnel with a different ribbon for each designated operation. When issued to civilians, a standard ribbon is issued with clasps issued for each designated operation.
Overview
The Australian Operational Service Medal is a campaign medal established by Royal Letters Patent on 22 May 2012. This campaign medal was instituted as a replacement for future issues of the Australian Active Service Medal and Australian Service Medal and operational campaign medals for the Australian Defence Force, as well as to recognise the service of Defence civilians in declared operational areas. It is awarded as either a military or civilian variant.
Military version
The military version of the medal has a standard medal design, but ribbons vary by operation. An accumulated service device will be awarded for subsequent qualifying service by ADF members where they undertake further service on an operation for which they have already been awarded the Australian Operational Service Medal.
Ribbons
To date, three ribbons for ADF service have been announced:
Civilian version
The Australian Operational Service Medal was established to allow for recognition of Defence civilians, who had agreed to be subject to the and were employed overseas to support the operations of a deployed military force in a declared area of operations. The civilian version uses the same medal design as the military version, but is awarded with a unique civilian ribbon and a clasp denoting the declared operation. Subsequent qualifying service for civilians will be denoted by clasps.
Clasps
Clasps announced to date are listed below.
Variants for declared operations – Military version
Australian Operational Service Medal – Border Protection (AOSM-BP)
The variant for border protection operations was announced on 19 July 2012. This variant will be awarded to Australian Defence Force personnel who have served on border protection operations since 1997. The ribbon for the medal is 32 mm wide with a central stripe of ochre flanked by one blue stripe and one green stripe of equal width. The declared operations are:
Operation
From
To
Notes
II
ongoing
Personnel who served on naval vessels, maritime patrol aircraft or Regional Force Surveillance Unit patrols whilst assigned to any of these operations may be eligible. Members of the Australian Defence Force must have served either an aggregate of 30 days either deployed or force assigned as a member of one of the declared operations, or were deployed or force assigned to a declared operation and completed 30 sorties from a unit assigned to the operation, so long as the sorties were conducted over a period of not less than 30 aggregate days with no more than one sortie counted per day. Members must also have been:
Deployed at sea directly supporting a declared operation
Deployed on land or in the air, dedicated in support of a declared operation
Deployed forward to exclusively support a declared operation.
Exclusions
Members are not eligible for an award of the AOSM-BP where an entitlement exists to another Australian medal for the same deployment. Members are not eligible for an award of the AOSM-BP where the member was part of:
On 12 December 2012, the Governor-General declared, for the purposes of the Australian Operational Service Medal Regulation 2012, a number of declared operations, and determined the conditions for award of Clasps. ;General conditions for all Clasps include:
awarded to a civilian who was employed for duty on the declared operation for a period of not less than an aggregate of 30 days;
