Tomorrow, 27th January at 2pm in his constituency office on Alloa, Veterans Minister, Keith Brown, MSP for Clackmannanshire and Dunblane will complete a story in which he has already played a key role.
He will present Iraq veteran, John, Gardner, with the medal he was awarded for his service in Iraq between 2004 and 2007.
The Ministry of Defence [MoD] however, posted his medal to the wrong address and it was never reunited with the man who had earned it.
The MoD – unforgivably, refused to reissue a medal to Mr Gardner, despite his repeated and varied efforts over the years to get them to do so.
When Keith Brown, Mr Gardner’s MSP, got to hear of the matter, he contacted Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Mark Francois MP, whom he had met in person at Loch Ewe in May 2013, at the ceremony where both had presented the new Arctic Star medal to surviving veterans of the fearsome World War II Arctic Convoys.
Mr Francois agreed to have the medal reinstated and so, tomorrow, Mr Gardner will have it in his possession it for the first time.
It could hardly be more appropriate that it will be presented to him by Keith Brown.