History Main / ChestOfMedals

* The standard in the Soviet military and political structure; if you wanted to be recognized within the high command or local Party chapter, then having more medals on your chest than a Christmas Tree has ornaments was ''essential''. Only became more common with the USSR's expanded influence after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, as best shown by the North Korea shot above. This was exacerbated by the Soviet uniform regulations that ''insisted'' [[ButThouMust that you must]] wear all your decorations at once, this making the "less is more" approach practically impossible (so you have people whose uniforms are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Kulikov more medal than fabric]]) — you're allowed to wear only ribbons, but still only all at once. For an ideology that deplores personal glory in the wake of collective effort, the communists sure loved their medals; although communist ideology, at least in its Soviet version, had absolutely nothing against personal glory, it was against [[SmallNameBigEgo putting oneself above the community]], which a lot of people ''did'' get away even with [[LoopholeAbuse through clever manipulation]]. It was also a result of the fact that most Soviet orders had no classes (officially being a classless society and all that), so instead you could be awarded the same order or medal several times.

* Zigzagged in ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'', as part of his plan to create a disguise as a wounded veteran, Jackal buys a large number of pawned medals. But then he looks up what they all mean and only keeps a subset of them, enough to support the identity he's creating without being so highly decorated as to draw attention to himself. Most of the decorations he keeps are campaign medals (which are given to everyone who fought in a given battle or campaign).

** In the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet leader UsefulNotes/LeonidBrezhnev was the punchline of countless [[RussianHumour Soviet jokes]] ridiculing his love for medals, due to him being perhaps the [[MilesGloriosus most notorious Type 3 in the Soviet Union]]. He even awarded himself with the Order of Victory that was only given to the greatest WWII military leaders,[[note]]That's a platinum star covered with diamonds and five TreasureIsBiggerInFiction sized rubies which, by law, was only to be awarded for strategic scale critical victories. It was awarded -- legitimately -- only 19 times, 14 of those times to Soviet figures (Zhukov, Vasilevski, and Stalin himself were given two awards of the medal) and 5 times to other Allied generals (specifically Montgomery, Eisenhower, King Michael I of Romania -- he was the last living recipient, dying in 2017 --, Michał Rola-Żymierski, and Josip Broz Tito). All of these awards occurred in the summer and early fall of 1945. Brezhnev awarded himself the Order, making the number of awards an even 20, in 1978.[[/note]] despite his own modest WWII record.[[note]]Despite gemostrating genuine bravery, he served the whole war as a PoliticalOfficer, not a field commander, and was discharged at the end of the war as a Major General, certainly not entitled to such a lofty award.[[/note]] Like Georgy Zhukov, he had four Hero of the Soviet Union stars and a star of the Hero of Socialist Labour, as well as dozens upon dozens of other decorations that he, to put it mildly, [[BlingOfWar didn't entirely deserve and wore very prominently]]. After he died, [[ObviousRulePatch the rules were changed so you couldn't get awards for things like birthdays]], and his Order of Victory was specially posthumously revoked from him. In spite of all this, he's still well-regarded today. Some of the jokes include:

# An officer who has so many medals nailed to their uniform that one would expect them to be a ranking general-grade officer, but they turn out to be only a field- or junior-grade officer. And yes, they earned them all ''the hard way''. In other words, someone who is ColonelBadass / MajorlyAwesome / TheCaptain that refuses to be promoted off the field, and has the medals as proof of their numerous badass achievements.

# A MilesGloriosus who habitually takes undeserved credit or enjoys nepotism can superficially come across as a either of the above. (Frequently, alas, a GloryHound.)
# A PhonyVeteran who collects "chest candy" that they never earned and just wants to look impressive.
# It's not that the person hasn't earned all those medals or that they are fake. It's just that on closer inspection they are for the military equivalent of being [[http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/milk-monitor.2766768/ Milk Monitor]] or for ordering other people to do heroic things. These are often found on TheGeneralissimo, which likely has something to do with real-life examples sometimes being described in American slang with the not-very-politically-correct term "Mexican General."[[note]]Likely in reference to General Santa Anna or President Porfirio Diaz, both who almost always had chests of medals in public appearances.[[/note]]

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--->"In the accessible part of your records, you have medals at five times the density of the next most decorated courier in [=ImpSec=] history... You were never a bloody Courier, Lieutenant Vorkosigan."

* North Korean generals (as pictured above) are rather infamous for handing out medals to themselves, even when the closest they are to leading actual battles is watching films and maybe staring at a prisoner being bayoneted. The lower ranked soldiers, on the other hand, tend to earn their medals the traditional way as the KPA, despite what many would believe, ''has'' participated actively in a number of outside wars throughout its existence, from the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict Arab-Israeli Wars]] to different conflicts in Africa and the larger Middle East. Being a communist nation, both points are more or less standard practice.

[[caption-width-right:320:Georgy Zhukov's party salad offers better protection than a [[TankGoodness T-34 glacis]]." [[note]]The real Georgy Zhukov actually ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic had even more medals than this]]'', but they wouldn't all fit on Creator/JasonIsaacs' chest![[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Georgy Zhukov's party salad offers better protection than a [[TankGoodness T-34 glacis]]." [[note]]The real Georgy Zhukov actually ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic had even more medals than this]]'', but they wouldn't all fit on Creator/JasonIsaacs' chest![[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-=right:350:Georgy Zhukov's party salad offers better protection than a [[TankGoodness T-34 glacis]]." [[note]]The real Georgy Zhukov actually ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic had even more medals than this]]'', but they wouldn't all fit on Creator/JasonIsaacs' chest![[/note]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[UsefulNotes/NorthKorea https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nk_generalstaff.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The General Staff of North Korea shall be defeated with a giant magnet!]]

** Reichsmarschall Göring embraced this trope, though. While he did earn a few Iron Crosses and the very prestiguous ''Pour le Mérite'' during the First World War, his later medals had little to no merit behind them. Much like Leonid Brezhnev, the Reichsmarschall eventually became the butt of many jokes about this.

** Reichsmarschall Göring embraced this trope, though. While he did earn a few Iron Crosses and the very prestiguous ''Pour le Mérite'' during the First World War, his later medals had little to no merit. Much like Leonid Brezhnev, the Reichsmarschall eventually became the butt of many jokes about this.

** Reichsmarschall Göring embraced this trope, though. Much like Leonid Brezhnev, the Reichsmarschall eventually became the butt of many jokes about this.

* In a {{Subversion}} Tanya in ''LightNovel/SagaOfTanyaTheEvil'' qualifies for this by her third year in service (having qualified for numerous decorations including the Field Aviation Medal) but only routinely wears one, the Silver Wing Assault Medal. Considering that it is the equivalent of a Medal of Honor, Victoria Cross or Knight's Cross, that is unsurprising. However due to her small physical stature, the decoration covers half of her chest.

->''"New portraits of [[UsefulNotes/LeonidBrezhnev Brezhnev]] have appeared. He didn't spare himself when it came to medals. He is ruining his own prestige, in my opinion, with all his pomp. So many gold stars! There is no room on his chest."''

* The novel ''Glory'' by Noviolet Bulawayo (not to be confused with the [[ComicBook/{{Glory}} comic)]] is set in a [[{{Bulungi}} post-colonial African dictatorship]] inhabited by animals à la ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. Naturally, a lot of the military leaders show up, and they're described as having "shiny constellations of medals glistening on solid chests".

* The novel ''Glory'' by Noviolet Bulawayo (not to be confused with the [[ComicBook/{{Glory}} comic) is set in a [[{{Bulungi}} post-colonial African dictatorship]] inhabited by animals à la ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. Naturally, a lot of the military leaders show up, and they're described as having "shiny constellations of medals glistening on solid chests".

* In the old ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "Little Beau Porky" (1936), set in the [[LegionOfLostSouls French Foreign Legion]], the fort commandant has so many medals on his chest they jingle loudly as he walks, and the bars holding them are wider than he is.

** Tom Brady of the New England Patriots/Tampa Bay Buccaneers can claim to have a fist of medals, since of his retirement in 2022, he is the only person to ever have seven Super Bowl Champion rings, along with nine AFC Champion rings, one NFC Champion ring and ''sixteen'' division championships (including winning ten in a row, making the Patriots the first NFL team and only second American professional sports team to pull that off - the first was the Atlanta Braves in baseball).

->''Just look at Rear Admiral Woodward RN, right prior to taking his task force to retake the Falkland Islands. Who is the real professional warrior - the Brit with one ribbon or the North Korean gangsters?''
-->-- '''Cdr Salamander''', [[http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/it-is-official-we-are-north-korean-boy.html here.]]

* In ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'', Field Marshal Zhukov's ''torso'' is plastered with various medals, of which he's evidently extremely proud. This was actually not all the medals Zhukov was entitled to wear in RealLife, as he [[https://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_06_2012/post-6141-0-28366300-1339777603.jpg actually wore]] nearly twice as many. His actor noted in an interview that they were going to put even more on him, but he simply wasn't as broad up top as the real Zhukov and they ran out of room.

** The InUniverse MemeticBadass [[Film/RamboII Sly Marbo]] has received countless medals for his accomplishments and multiple Stars of Terra, but he doesn't keep a single one on him, instead his commanding officer holds onto them for him.

* The typical [[TheGeneralissimo caudillo]] of a BananaRepublic does this. One of the most famous examples in Latin America is Porfirio Díaz, the authoritarian PresidentForLife of Mexico prior to UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution, wore his medals very often, and sometimes combined it with an [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Porfirio_diaz.jpg/1200px-Porfirio_diaz.jpg equally fancy]] nice hat.