“East is East and West is West…

and ne’er the twain shall meet” famous lines and a fairly good description of the worlds of military medal collectors and badge collectors. Simply put military medals are honors that one earns the right to wear on a military uniform while badges which are usually thought of as civilian or nonmilitary items, are part of a uniform usually police. There is an overlap however between both fields of collecting. There are military badges which are usually police like in nature and usually go unnoticed by most military medal collectors. There are many badge types in this area, none of which I would call common. That means that a collector will run into such badges frequently but if a specific type of badge is being sought the seeker must be prepared for a long search. Illustrated below is just one example, a Wisconsin Air National Guard Security Badge.