Military Coin Etiquette
If you are in the US armed forces you know better to go out with out your unit coin as well as how that coin needs to be treated. The military unit coins are used as a morale builder and as such are treated with a certain amount of reverence. If you are “challenged”, there are certain things that will disqualify you from being able to use it to meet the challenge. One of the worst things that can be done to a coin carried by a service man that is still active in the unit is to have it mounted into a belt buckle.This will disqualify them from using the coin. Also, drilling a hole in it to wear it like a medallion has the same effect.
Why is this important? It is because if a member of your unit “challenges” you at a bar you have to show your coin. If you can not, you buy the next round. If you can, however, the person who issued the challenge must buy.
Besides unit coins, there are also custom made coins in the military. These can mean a number of things. It could be a particularly hard bit of training or skill. It is more likely, however, that they are made to commemorate a campaign or battle that was hard fought.
The use of US military coins have been such an effective way of building morale and unit cohesion that the Canadian military has started using them as well. That is impressive when one considers that the use of these coins in the US has been going on for less than one hundred years.
There is one more rule that is generally followed for all military coins and that is in the way it is carried. As mention, mounted in belt buckles or worn as a necklaces is frowned upon but there is another guideline as well, they are not to be carried in a wallet. That is for 2 reasons, one is for decency and the other for safety. In a wallet they will imprint their shape and that shape has a strong resemblance to a condom. That is the first. The second is that it marks you as being in the military. While in the US that is a good thing but that is not always the case in other countries. Sometimes it is best to keep a low profile.