The Medals:

In deliberate contrast to the extreme regimentation of Democratic Kampuchea, the Heng Samrin government and the Vietnamese allowed the people to return to a more normal life, including the wear once again of bright colored sarongs. The military also followed a more orthodox style. With the green fatigue uniform, there were worn peaked and billed caps of Vietnamese style with a badge of a yellow Angkor Wat on a red field inside yellow sheaves of grain.

The flag of the Kampuchean People's Republic was close to that of Democratic Kampuchea, red with a yellow Angkor Wat, but this time with the five towers in a stylized, pointed shape. In 1991, as part of the evolving peace process, the flag of the new State of Cambodia was changed to a horizontally divided one, half red above, half blue below, with a yellow Angkor Wat in the center. Officially, however, from June 24, 1991, to June 30, 1993, the national flag of Cambodia under the United Nations administered program of reconciliation was one of U.N. blue with a white silhouette map of Cambodia and the name "Cambodia" on it in Khmer script. After the elections, the former flag of the Kingdom was readopted.

The regime developed a system of medals paralleling in part that of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (whose officers and men received many of these Khmer awards). Some PRK medals were suspended from metal broaches, and some from pentagonal folded ribbons. One photograph of a senior PRK army officer showed him in uniform wearing a full set of ribbon bars. Probably few but the senior officers ever wore the bars and even then only on more formal occasions. Many of the medals are suspended from a pentagonal ribbon, with lesser medals from a ribbon bar. Badges are suspended from a metal broach or a ribbon bar.

A complete description of these awards has been published in Cambodian Decorations of Honor, by Geoffrey P. Oldham and Brett Delahunt available at http://www.milimem.com.