A grieving mother was shocked to find a posthumous medal for her soldier son had a spelling mistake in his name, she said.
Lieutenant Richard Shearer, 26, died in Iraq in July 2005 when a roadside bomb exploded.
But his mother said when she received his posthumous Elizabeth Cross last week she was shocked to find a mistake in his name.
The inscription on the medal read "2LT R A Shearer, Staffords" despite her son not having a middle name.
The error comes less than a week after Prime Minister Gordon Brown was criticised for spelling mistakes in a hand-written letter to Jacqui Janes, whose son Jamie Janes was killed in Afghanistan.
Lt Shearer's mother Maureen, 60, from Nuneaton, Warks, said: "The silly thing was that they got his name right in some cases, but on the actual items - the medal and the scroll - they had an A in it which was a bit silly to say the least.
"I rang them up and explained what had happened and they told me I would have to write in and explain, and then someone told me the MoD would probably want the items returned before they could reissue them. It upset me because you're sensitive at that kind of time."
The retired teacher said she was made even more upset because the medal's arrival coincided with revelations that bonuses of around £47m had been paid to Ministry of Defence civil servants so far this year.
"I wasn't angry, but on top of the MOD bonuses story I thought can't they just double check?" she said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence apologised for the error. He said: "The MoD would like to apologise for any distress caused to Mrs Shearer and we will be investigating how this mistake occurred. We will of course be sending Mrs Shearer a new Elizabeth Cross."
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