Updated: 10 November, 2001
Order of Military Merit - A sixteen-point 48mm silver star with points of alternating length and a dark blue center inscribed in Tai script, Muong-Ta (Tai Federation) surrounded by a silver beaded ring. The reverse is blank. The medal was awarded in one class, but the recipient was graded on the award document. The Tai were autonomous tribal people living in the rugged hill country of northwest Vietnam along the border of China during the French Colonial period. General Giap and his People’s Army of Vietnam drove them from their ancestral lands during the early 1950s. (Ref: Ed Emmering)
