Congress looks at Stolen Valor
Yesterday, some of our friends were in Congress urging them to mandate that the Department of Defense create a database of military honors that have been awarded to curb the recent rash of Stolen Valor claims. But the DoD and the National Archives doesn’t see a problem;
Representatives from the Defense Department, Army, Navy and Air Force testified in a House hearing Wednesday that creating a centralized database of military awards would take more effort than it’s worth and they defended their separate record-keeping practices.
“There appear to be adequate procedures in place to verify fraudulent claims to military decorations,” said Lernes Hebert, the director of the Defense Department’s Office of Enlisted Personnel Management.
Yeah, their “adequate procedures” rely on the cottage industry which has sprung up to identify and shame these criminals. The main supporter of the new database seems to be Utah’s Jason Chaffetz who claims he was burned twice by awarding medals to people who didn’t deserve them. One of whom, Myron Brown, we discussed recently.
Yeah, I think it’s a hoot that the government says that it’s not worth their time or effort to create a database. When I called the Baltimore FBI office and handed over all of the evidence I had on Charles Baxter, the idiot on the phone told me that I have too much time on my hands. She also didn’t know about the Stolen Valor Act and had to find out if it was a real crime. Of course, they never returned my call, and subsequent calls got the same reaction.
If it’s not worth their time, why even have Stolen Valor laws? Why give out medals if anyone can just go buy them whether they deserve them or not?
Category: Phony soldiers
If Congress mandates it in a future law, DoD won’t have a choice in the matter. But I can see DoD’s point, even if I don’t agree. Doing this comprehensively ain’t gonna be fast, easy, or cheap. And other than the top decorations (MOH, DSC/NC, and DDSM/DSM), I’m not sure it will ever be 100% complete. Award authority for SS and below has historically too decentralized during wartime, and there is no central repository I know of that has complete data regarding same. And as we all know, sometimes stuff simply doesn’t make it into an individual’s personnel records. So the only way I can see to collect this data accurately is to combine what the services have now in personnel records with a review of all current and retired unit records of awards. I had to track down a copy of award orders from retired unit archives once. It wasn’t fun, but I got lucky (it helped that I knew the approximate time frame of the award). If I ever meet the individual who helped out, I owe him a beer or six. Or maybe dinner for himself and his spouse. Why archive review? As the phony 2004 memo regarding former President Bush’s USAFR service showed, it’s pretty damn easy to gin up passable fakes with a word processor, a printer, and a copier. (The guy who ginned up that fake was an idiot and used MS Word’s default type font and margins in the fake, so it was pretty easy to spot.) So you can’t simply accept documents sent by individuals as validation of past service or awards without verifying the docs first – which brings you back to archival searches. Doing this comprehensively (e.g., for all military awards) will be one freaking massive undertaking. Started today, I wouldn’t bet on it being completed while I’m on this side of the dirt. But I could be wrong. Restrict the database to awards for valor and there’s a fighting chance it can be made correct down to the SS in a reasonable amount of time. I’d suggest starting at… Read more »
They suck. They are lazy as well. With the impending cutbacks, I would be trying like hell to find ANYTHING to do to stay employed.
A database would make it harder for politicians to lie about their service or lack of.
Hate to say it, Sarge, but even that won’t stop people for voting for some people based solely on the letter behind their names (cough…Blumenthal…cough).
The FBI in Charlotte N.C. sucks as well. LAZY!
Gentlemen, may I remind you Stolen Valor has no victims! Just ask the family of Patrick Murphy. His 1st Amendment to lie has victimized his own family.
Hondo…it is not that hard. Forget all that stuff about the “fire”…these orders exist and just need to be digitized. I estimate a data entry team could complete this for ALL awards including the Purple heart, with better than 95% completeness, in 2 to 3 years for a cost of $5 – $8 million. That’s just HALF of what Congressman Chaffetz cited yesterday that SV cases cost the Government in the last year alone.
Further, this database is NOT about “Stolen Valor”…that is just an ancillary benefit. This is about cases, and they are prevalent, of wounded warriors who should be able to go to the front of the line due a Purple Heart, but can’t…because the paperwork is lost. It is also about cases like that of Victor Miller who was almost denied burial at Artlington because the Navy had no record the WWII Navy Cross recipient had served on active duty.
Mr. Sterner:
Thanks again for your efforts on our behalf. However, I’m reasonably certain you’re underestimating the magnitude of the problem significantly.
Be happy to send you my thoughts if you’ll allow Jonn to send me your e-mail address (he has mine). No need to argue this out publicly.
Hondo…my email is doug@homeofheroes.com, although I think a public discussion of the feasibility of this may have its own merits. For instance, at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. are 335 boxes, each box containing 1200 – 1500 3/5″ index cards. These cards are probably close to 99% complete for all Awards of the Air Medals and Bronze Stars (both V and A/S) from the Civil War to 1990. Typing up those 1/2 million cards would result in a database of at least 98% of all awards of the Bronze Star and higher, IN HISTORY, to all members of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Based on my own experience, I estimate a data-entry team of 12 typists could complete this in less than a year.
There are similar cards (casualty cards) for the vast majority of WIA/KIAs Navy/USMC/USCG. These are even easier to enter…far less narrative. You might want to download my testimony and attached Exhibits from the House subcommittee website where I detail this and show examples. It would cost less than $1 million to have a reasonably complete database of Navy/USMC/USCG awards in history. Army becomes much more complicated but is doable. For Vietnam Alone there is ADCARS, a little known indexing of 600,000 Vietnam War Army General Orders.
I should have said Bronze Stars and ABOVE. These cards also include at least 98% of the NMCMs, DFCs, LOMs, SS, NX, DSCs and MOHs.
To All: Doug Sterner’s testimony is on this Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND3kQ4E-Sqc. Scroll forward to 047:46 (it is an hour and a half video). I was overcomed with emotion when I heard his testimony. The documents that were submitted can be found on http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1595%3A2-16-12-qpreventing-stolen-valor-challenges-and-solutionsq&catid=17&Itemid=1 Thank you, Doug, for recognizing Chuck and Mary Schantag during your opening speech. RIP Chuck. I still believe we not only need that Database to ensure our TRUE HEROES are being recognized, but can also be used as a source to go to if one suspects someone is not telling the truth about their military service or awards. All it would take would be a simple check through the Internet through a Database versus spending time and money requesting and verifying records via NARA or NPRC or the FBI. We live in an age where we don’t have to get in a car to go shopping anymore. A couple of researches, clicks and Voila: we get our services or goods delivered to our home…to include medals and ribbons. A twist of irony. We can click on a Website to buy a medal, but we can’t click on a website to verify if that person actually was awarded that medal. As long as there will be people, there will be wars. As long as we have wars, we will have awards and decorations. If we don’t stand up for the truth, for the accurate history and the accurate honors and recognition for what our Veterans deserve, then we will have no true heroes left to honor. Our society places more emphasis on the death of a celebrity or the shoes of basketball athletes than those who served and have died for our country as well as for other countries. Again, ironically, we live in an age where we now more than ever can reach out through a computer and seek information on anyone through search engines as well as Social Networking, yet we are unable or don’t care if a person’s claim to being a MOH recipient or a wounded Combat Veteran is true or false. We now have… Read more »
Mostly, this discussion just reminds me to get a whole bunch more stuff put into iPERMS.
Sig: by all means. But make damn sure you keep multiple copies also.
Send copies to mom. The services lose paperwork, but mom never looses anything!
Doug, thank you crediting Moms, but Dads deserve the same recognition. Even though I am a Mom as well as a retired Soldier and kept every document I was given during my military service as well as retaining my children’s drawings, report cards, shot records, medical records, high school transcripts, birth certificates that they later needed when applying for marriage certificates, jobs or security clearances,my Husband, my Dad and my Father In Law, all retired Soldiers, also kept EVERY document that was given to them during their military career to include their PCS orders. And when I say everything, I literally mean EVERYTHING. Anyone else out there still have 20-30 years of LESs that were printed in green that was under JUMPS or have DFs or any other documents that were created BEFORE the days of MyPAY or Computers? So, to all you military Dads that do save everything and that includes you Doug as well: I SALUTE YOU!