Arctic sailors excluded from medals and veteran status

Soldiers serving aboard Denmark’s Arctic ships are not invited to Flag Day, do not receive medals and do not qualify for veteran status, DR reports. The sailors operate in waters around Greenland, enforcing the sovereignty of the Kingdom, rescuing people in distress and recovering bodies from the freezing sea.

“We are deployed for just as long, but we receive nothing at all,” said Emil Blom, a marine specialist and deckhand who has served in the armed forces for more than seven years.

Jesper Korsgaard Hansen, chairman of the Central Association of Military Personnel, the armed forces’ largest trade union, supports the sailors’ criticism.

By comparison, soldiers deployed to Camp Valdemar in Latvia receive a medal, an invitation to Flag Day and veteran status.

“It makes no sense. If it can be explained, it can be defended. Here, it cannot be explained, because there are no good arguments,” Korsgaard Hansen said.

Traumatic rescue operations

The feeling of being overlooked is widespread across the naval unit, according to shop steward Niels Pihlblad. Employees have pressed for veteran status for years, partly because it would give them access to psychological support through the Veterans Centre.

“We work in one of the most dangerous places in the world. During a rescue operation, our young people may have to pull dead people from the water. That can be a very significant and traumatic experience for the individual,” Pihlblad said.

Several of Blom’s colleagues have recovered bodies from the sea. He has not done so himself, but he has taken part in a search for a person that lasted up to 18 hours without finding them.

He has also fainted aboard ship twice. Blom believes stress was the cause. After the episodes, he was sent ashore for more than six months and said he did not feel supported by the system or the armed forces.

“It was a long, difficult period when I was left in uncertainty. It was not an easy subject to talk about. Having a psychologist to speak to would have made it easier,” he said.

Rules based on international operations

A veteran is defined as someone who has been deployed on at least one international operation. Veteran status provides lifelong support for service members and their families through the Veterans Centre, including psychological counselling, career guidance, a veteran card and support for relatives.

In May, DR reported on an internal survey showing that soldiers in the 1st Squadron were under significant physical and psychological pressure. Sixty per cent of employees on the Arctic ships said they were considering leaving the Navy within the next two years.

One of the main reasons was a feeling of inadequate recognition and unequal treatment compared with crews on Danish frigates. Frigate personnel deployed on NATO missions qualify for veteran status and are invited to Flag Day. The same applies to Navy personnel participating in the European Union’s joint border and coast guard operation, Frontex.

The difference is that service around Greenland is classified as a national operation. As a result, the sailors miss out on a number of benefits.

The rules are politically determined and should be changed, Korsgaard Hansen said. He acknowledged that veteran status and medals cannot be awarded to everyone without weakening their significance, but argued that the rules should be reviewed because the armed forces’ tasks have changed since they were introduced during Denmark’s deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.