In the short story "In Another Country," by Ernest Hemingway, the narrator describes how he and his companions all had "the same medals," except for one soldier who had not been at the front for sufficient time to receive a medal, and another who had been a lieutenant and who had three medals "of the sort we each only had one of." This suggests that the medals are campaign medals, given to soldiers for their participation in (effectively, presence during) specific campaigns. As the narrator himself explains it to the local boys, he "had been given the medals because I was an American." Other armies do not award medals in the same way that the American army does, and this confession changes the attitude of the boys toward him, as they had "done very different things to get their medals." (That is, the boys' medals were presumably for specific acts of valor.) The narrator recognizes that he was wounded in service, but says this was really "an accident." Though he is not ashamed of his own medal, he cannot imagine having done the things the others have done to receive theirs.
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