Australian Operational Service Medal The Australian Operational Service Medal is a campaign medal established on 22 May 2012 to recognise service by Australian Defence Force ( ADF ) personnel on designated hazardous operations . It may also be awarded to civilians who serve alongside the ADF on designated operations under specific conditions . It replaces the Australian Active Service Medal and Australian Service Medal for future ADF operations . The medal is issued to military personnel with a different ribbon for each designated operation . When issued to civilians , a standard ribbon is issued with clasps issued for each designated operation . Overview . The Australian Operational Service Medal is a campaign medal established by Royal Letters Patent on 22 May 2012 . The medal is intended to supersede future awards of the Australian Active Service Medal and Australian Service Medal for future Defence operations . It will be awarded in an Australian Defence Force and civilian variant . Military version . The ADF version of the medal will be a standard medal design , but the ribbons will vary by operation . An accumulated service device will be awarded for subsequent qualifying service by ADF members where they undertake further service on an operation for which they have already been awarded the Australian Operational Service Medal . The ribbon for the OSM - BP has three equal stripes of dark blue , ochre and dark green which denote the seas and sky , the deserts and the forests and grasslands . Civilian version . Civilians who serve alongside the ADF and are subject to the Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 may be awarded a civilian variant of the medal . The civilian version will use the same medal design as the ADF version , but will be awarded with a standard civilian ribbon and a clasp denoting the declared operation . Subsequent qualifying service for civilians will be denoted by clasps . The ribbon is green with central stripes of gold and purple . The purple represents Defence and the green and gold are Australia ' s national colours . Variants for declared operations - Military version . Operational Service Medal - Border Protection ( OSM - BP ) . The variant for border protection operations was announced on 19 July 2012 . This variant will be awarded to Australian Defence Force personnel who have served on border protection operations since 1997 . The ribbon for the medal is 32 mm wide with a central stripe of ochre flanked by one blue stripe and one green stripe of equal width . The declared Operations are : Personnel who served on naval vessels , maritime patrol aircraft or Regional Force Surveillance Unit patrols whilst assigned to any of these operations may be eligible . Members of the Australian Defence Force must have served either an aggregate of 30 days either deployed or force assigned as a member of one of the declared operations , or were deployed or force assigned to a declared operation and completed 30 sorties from a unit assigned to the operation , so long as the sorties were conducted over a period of not less than 30 aggregate days with no more than one sortie counted per day . Members must also have been : Clasps for declared operations - Civilian version . On 12 December 2012 , the Governor - General declared , for the purposes of the Australian Operational Service Medal Regulation 2012 , a number of " declared operations " , and determined the conditions for award of Clasps .