Local soldiers who gathered for a 50-year reunion in Peebles earlier this year were urged by retired senior officers to fight for the right to wear the PJM – the Pingat Jasa Malaysian Medal.
Old-timers from Australia and New Zealand are allowed to wear the medal but the Foreign Office has so far stood its ground on a British ban.
But they're looking at a retreat as pressure mounts. The issue has been raised at Westminster by Tweeddale's Conservative MP David Mundell, who tabled an Early Day Motion seeking cross-party support for the ban to be lifted.
And he wants the review to be accelerated.
He told TheSouthern this week: "Veterans in New Zealand and Australia are allowed to accept the PJM medal, so it makes no sense for around 300 former King's Own Scottish Borderers not to be allowed to do the same.
"For too long their brave contribution to the emergency in Malaya and Borneo
has gone unrecognised because of the bizarre Foreign Office rulebook.
"I'll be keeping up the pressure so that this review is concluded as soon as
possible and leads to a permanent rule-change which will allow these veterans
to legitimately display this medal."
Mr Mundell's Westminster motion reads: "That this House urges the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office to conclude positively as soon as possible its review of
the current ruling which prohibits veterans from British forces, including the
King's Own Scottish Borderers, from displaying a medal from the Malaysian
Government which was awarded in recognition of their brave service in Malaya
and Borneo during the communist-instigated emergency in the late 1940s and
throughout the 1950s."
During the conflict, British Commonwealth and Malayan troops fought Chinese
communists in the humid heat of the jungle. More than 2,500 died and most of
the UK troops were on compulsory National Service.