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Distinguished Service Medal (Australia)

Field	Value
name	Distinguished Service Medal
image	[[Image:Distinguished Service Medal Australia.png	110px]]
[[File:DSM (Australia) ribbon.png	90px]]
caption	Obverse of medal and ribbon
presenter	Governor-General of Australia
type	Medal
eligibility	Members of the Australian Defence Force
awarded_for	Distinguished leadership in warlike operations.
status	Currently awarded
post-nominals	DSM
established	15 January 1991
firstawarded	1993
lastawarded	2025 Australia Day Honours
total_awarded	360
total_awarded_posthumously	2
total_recipients	362
precedence_label	Order of Wear
higher	Bravery Medal
lower	Public Service Medal
related	Distinguished Service Cross
Commendation for Distinguished Service
image2	[[File:AUS Distinguished Service Medal & Bar ribbon.png	90px]]
[[File:AUS Distinguished Service Medal & Two Bars ribbon.png	90px]]
caption2	Undress ribbons with one and two bars

| post-nominals = DSM Commendation for Distinguished Service

The Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the Australian Defence Force for distinguished leadership in warlike operations. The DSM was introduced in 1991 and is the second highest distinguished service decoration in the Australian Honours System. Awards are made by the governor-general of Australia on the advice of the minister for Defence. Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal are entitled to use the post-nominal letters "DSM". Since its inception 362 awards have been made—which includes nine bars and one second bar—with the most recent being announced in the 2025 Australia Day Honours.

Government allowance

The Government of Australia may grant an allowance to veterans or serving members of the Australian Defence Force who have been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, or other awards for gallantry. At November 2007, this allowance was A$2.10 per fortnight.

Description

The Distinguished Service Medal is ensigned with the Crown of St Edward in nickel-silver. The obverse has a Federation star superimposed on a circle of flames.
The medal has a nickel-silver suspender bar.
The medal ribbon has alternating vertical stripes: four silver-blue and three ochre-red.

References

"Distinguished Service Medal". Australian Government.
"Veteran's Entitlements Act 1986 – Sect 102". Australasian Legal Information Institute.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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