Obama: DoD to launch Stolen Valor website
This probably could have gone with the next post down because it came from the same speech to the VFW, but it’s a different subject, so…
According to the Stars & Stripes, the president announced that DoD will launch their database of awards on Wednesday. I’m sure it will be a humdinger;
An administration official said that record keepers from each of the military services have been working to compile military awards records since the Supreme Court last month struck down the federal Stolen Valor Act, arguing that the punishments for individuals lying about military medals infringed on free speech.
The website will initially list only the recipients of the military’s highest awards for valor – the Medal of Honor and service crosses – that were awarded after Sept. 11, 2001.
Yeah, maybe the initial unveiling will be OK, cuz we’re only talking about twenty people more or less, and that sounds about right for three weeks work for the government. But, we’re talking about the same government that can’t get medical records from the Pentagon across the river to the Department of Veterans Affairs on Vermont Avenue in DC. And they say the services are all working together on this? I’m sure that they’re working on different operating systems and trying to get data passed back and forth. So I don’t have a lot of hope for this.
But I guess at least they’re trying, and that’s a good sign. But, I’m sure our buddy, Doug Sterner, who sent us the S&S link, BTW, has a database that contains recent MOH and service crosses, so what is the government doing? Since 2001 happened during the computer and internet age, they should already have that database, shouldn’t they?
Maybe I’m just too skeptical.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Stolen Valor Act
Jonn, you know that they will manage to make it into a 10 or 15 year project. They will need committees and sub-committees. They will need liaisons between the various services, the White House and members of Congress. Shoot, they may even need a few studies into the need for a few extra committees because more than one Congressional committee might want to oversee this project.
Then after all the studies are completed they will need additional studies to update the now outdated information.
Anyone think they can actually get a database together for less than a few $mil per name entered into that database?
>>But, we’re talking about the same government that can’t get medical records from the Pentagon across the river to the Department of Veterans Affairs on Vermont Avenue in DC. And they say the services are all working together on this?
LOL- And if floors me that people want the government to be involved in something as important as their health and welfare. Really you want government workers deciding your life or death issues..? ugh!
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single-step, and this is just that…10 MOHs, 25 DSCs, 39 NXs (one of which is as yet unidentified), and 5 AFCs. We do have, BTW, all but the unidentified NX posted with citations. Now we are dealing with nearly 1,000 additional names if they decide to expand to the Silver Star. (I’ve only got about 80% of these posted, so I hope they will continue forward.)
The rest of these need to be done for this DB isn’t about Stolen Valor but Forgotten Valor. Let’s keep their feet to the fire. Thanks all.
Maybe I’m just too skeptical….but I bet the DOD screws this up.
Sad part is, I could probably create the core DB in about a week (and that is working on it only part time, 3 days tops if full time). Say another week for a graphics designer to do the web page front end (again assumes part time work). So, say two/three weeks tops for the core DB. What will take the most time is data entry, however if you gave me a team of like 20 people (with at least two per service) and depending on level of searchable detail, we could probably knock out ALL (not just since 2001) MOH and service cross entries by the end of CY 2012. The effort would be simple to carry on moving down in medal order even to the lowliest of achievement and campaign medals/ribbons. (That said I would recommend stopping just before the start of the Commendation Medal, with the Air Medal, Coast Guard Silver Lifesaving Medal and Arial Achievement Medals as the lowest tracked).
Once you have gone from founding of the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard to the present you could then pass it off to a designated service rep who would be tasked to keep it updated with new awarding.
Not including manpower costs, total effort: call it 50K for the servers, 2K for the Graphics Designer, and about 5 years worth of data entry and research work to go from founding of the services to that point.
Humm maybe we should all band together to form Pissed off Vets Inc. and just do it ourselves, at least then we’ld know it was done right, or submit a proposal when they release it out for RFPs.
Just saying….
-Ish
To all the skeptics, it’s not about designing the database or the interface. You are right, that’s pretty simple. Probably only takes one big table to do it. The hard part is traversing all of the digitized records that do not easily list what awards you have. Do a check of iPERMS and you’ll see that while your records have been digitized, it isn’t readily apparent what award you were actually awarded unless you go read the citation itself. It is going to take a lot of work to get this right which is why it is going to span years.
Two observations: Ishnala is correct – designing the database will be relatively easy; ditto designing the hardware support environment required. Data collection/validation/entry will be the harder issue. And it’s gonna be a bear, even if just restricted to awards for valor. (Gotta disagree on one point, ish – commendation medals and, for USN and USMC, even achievement medals are also awarded for valor/combat action. And a load of commendation medals have been awarded for valor – over 81,000 since the start of the Vietnam war in the Army alone). Second, SIGO has identified a part of the hard problem – the easy part. Getting good data from existing records will be difficult, as the existing records simply don’t lend themselves to extracting the relevant data in an automated manner. DD214s are not always accurate (both ways), and sometimes DD215s don’t exist correcting the errors – so the entire file will need to be manually reviewed to ascertain an individual’s awards. Even stopping at Vietnam, that will be a huge job. And that will be only the easy part of the job. To get to near 100% accuracy, unit archives of every 3-star, 2-star, and O6-level command since the beginning of Vietnam will also need to be reviewed even to catch awards for valor. This is because authority to award the Silver Star, BSM w/V, and ARCOM w/V during wartime is generally delegated to the 3-star, 2-star, and O6 levels, respectively. Why review unit archives? Three reasons: (1) some awards never make it to an individual’s OMPF, (2) some are interim awards that are later upgraded, revoking the originial; and (3) some are later revoked entirely. Only by checking with primary sources (unit archives) can we be sure we’ve gotten them all. (To regular readers of this site, should be obvious why we cannot allow people to merely “send in personal copies of their awards” for inclusion.) Bottom line: doing this right – even restricted to Vietnam and later, and to awards for valor only – ain’t gonna be easy. Starting at the top and working down, OWB’s guess of 10+… Read more »
Hondo…you are ABSOLUTELY correct. The way to do this is not to sift through 60 million OMPFs at St. Louis, many of which were lost in the 1973 fire or as you point out, have awards not recorded or updated. The KEY is a complete review/digitizing of the General Orders. The Army DID this in 1973, indexing more than 600,000 RVN General Orders (all but 3 missing commands that were “lost” but later were found but not added), in a database called ADCARS. Similarly, Army HR utilizes the DA Vietnam Casualty Roster which contains the names, dates and nature (WIA/KIA) of nearly all RVN PH recipients (which takes into account the fact that PHs are often awarded under Special Orders at the hospital. The data (General Orders) for virtually 99.99% or more of all Army/USAAF/USAF awards from WWII through RVN are available at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. There is, however, no index. A complete database of these requires little more than typing them in a database. Navy (including USMC/USCG) awards from inception through 1990 are 99.9% complete on 3×5″ cards at the Navy Yard. Doing a complete DB of Navy awards is a “cake-walk.” There are serious challenges to post-1975 awards for all branches, but especially the Army. For that reason, I’m glad DoD is placing emphasis on recent awards. As for what awards to include, to say “valor award database” raises its own challenges. The Navy awards the LOM with a “V” in many cases, so should we only enter LOM/Vs (which excludes all Army/AF LOMs as well as many Navy LOMs which were for heroic actions but didn’t include a “V” because some clerk failed to type the word “heroism” in the citation? Considering that there have been fewer than 50,000 LOMs (all branches) in history, why not do them all. The same applies to the DFC…the USAF presents it with a “V” if the word “heroism” is included. Again, these number much more…about 250,000 over half of which are WWII USAAF awards, but still not a major challenge. The RAREST save for the MOH… Read more »
Doug, The Soldier’s Medal/Navy and Marine Corps Medal/Airman’s Medal/Coast Guard Medal are all awarded for non-combat heroism; therefore, I’d say it’s a “no-brainer” that they’d be included in any database for valor awards. Restricting the database to BSM and above would help, assuming that ADCARS is indeed complete and correct less the 3 commands indicated. However, that “writes off” 81,000+ acts of heroism recognized in the Army alone by commendation medals – plus presumably a roughly comparable number between the USAF and USN/USMC – occurring during Vietnam and later. I’d argue that these are at least as important to remember as BSMs awarded for service or achievement. A commendation medal with V implies valor under fire (albeit at not a level meriting a higher award). A BSM for service or achievement merely means one did his or her job well in a combat zone – but not that the individual necessarily ever came under fire. Last I heard, very few if any of the folks receiving BSMs in Kuwait or Qatar since 2001 were ever the targets of shots fired in anger. Indeed, most likely only ever even heard shots fired in anger if they traveled temporarily to Iraq or Afghanistan while deployed. And don’t even get me started on the BSMs awarded by the USAF and USN to folks in CONUS and in Germany/Italy for supporting operations in the Balkans in the late 1990s. As you indicated, awards since Vietnam will be much more problematic. Those will likely require manual review/digitization/redaction/redigitization (if on-line documentation is to be provided), then manual entry into the proposed database. Different challenges will be posed by campaign/expeditionary medals and badges if these are to be included. Campaign/expeditionary medals are administratively awarded an do not leave the same kind of paper trail in terms of published orders (though they may – or may not – have some form of written documentation in terms of a locally-issued memo). In contrast, badges do have orders – but the issuing HQs range from the O5-command level on up. Reasonably complete central repositories do exist for some badges and… Read more »
I couldn’t agree more and, as an ARCOM/V recipient, I think the Commendation Medals SHOULD be included. (My ARCOM is more important to me than the 2 BSMs I got just for showing up. ADCARS IS very complete for the commands included, and the G.O.s for the two Missing Commands (I & II Field Force and XIV Corps) are now available to complete it. Nearly all of the GO’s for WWII (approximately 100 Divisions and commands) and Korea (about 10 Divisions and commands) exist in a level of completeness that exceeds 98% and I suspect a systematic digitizing of these would result in finding many of the “lost” G.O.s which are probably not really “lost” but just mis-filed. Ideally, I’d like to see such a DB go all the way to the Air Medal…but we have to start somewhere.
Thanks.
Here is how the Army (reluctantly) described ADCARS to me in an email when I started digging:
“ADCARS is an index of digitized records of the -available- General Orders from Vietnam. NARA microfiched WWII and Korean-era GOs, and ADCARS was an attempt at a step-up in technology. The digitized records were optically scanned (text recognitioin), and the meta-data saved inside the digital file. The results of the OCR were not spectacular. I say “available” GO files, since the I and II Field Force, and XXIV Corp GO files were not available to the National Archives when ADCARS was developed. (Seems that they were found at Clark Air Base in the Philippines when the volcano blew in 1991.) Some of the Divisional files are incomplete, and not all are completely readable.
“Adding records to the ADCARDS data index requires re-indexing. (Remember
– this is a 1st generation digital image storage solution.) No money has been designated to update the system, which is now very obsolete technology. Mr. Rimas actually has done a terrific job of porting the system to a server – originally it was run from 16 CD-Rom Readers on a single workstation.
“The records included were only the General Orders; no permanent orders (i.e.,assignments) or special orders (i.e, CIBs). Most Purple Hearts were issued by hospital commands; ADCARS only has GOs from field commands.”
Agree with both of you, Hondo and Doug. I also didn’t realize that Coms and Achievs could be given for valor. This being said any DB if designed well would allow the gradual inclusion of lessor awards. In this way you could start at the top and work your way down (i.e. start with the highest and least awarded medals and gradually move on until all of the from start to present day are entered).
Another major decision/question is should badges, scrolls, and other specialty items (cookies for Joint/Presidental service, instructors, etc) be included in this DB? While it could be helpful for weeding out pretenders, I would argue that their inclusion would be the start of requirements creep. If we include these items, why not all A schools/technical training. If we include A schools/tech training then why not performance reports and service dates. Pretty soon the DB that was initially intended to hold who earned what medal, has turned into a complete HR record system for all past/present/future military members.
Not saying that having a common system, compatible for all branches isn’t a good idea, but if we are really going to go down that road then it should be done right, funded/resourced, staffed/programmed, and have all branches buy in. That last item will be the tricky part.
-Ish
Ishnala: qualification and combat badges can be handled (for database purposes) as decorations. And there’s a good argument to be made for inclusion of qual and combat badges; many vets are as proud of their combat or qual badges as they are of any decoration they might have. Not saying that’s a good enough reason, but it’s nontheless a reasonable argument for inclusion. Your point about schools illustrates a good point – unless we’re talking a complete automation of the FOIA process, a “cut line” for design has to be established somewhere. I’d argue that qual badges can be handled (for database purposes) as decorations and would be easy to include (e.g., a single integer field per badge, with allowable values 0 or 1 to show whether or not qualified), while including schools would require a substantially different and more complex design. Thus schools appears to be a logical point at which to put the initial design cutoff. There may be other logical “breakpoints” that are similarly valid as well. Campaign/service/expeditionary medals are IMO going to be the most problematic. As I stated earlier: those are awarded administratively, w/o orders (and sometimes without a memo or other documentation – the Korea Defense Service Medal is a case in point). I really don’t see how those are going to be entered w/o manual review of individual personnel files against eligibility criteria. Some will be easy (NDSM, GWOTSM) – but many won’t be (AFEM, GWOTEM). Even campaign medals can be tricky – see the GWOTEM/ACM/ICM confusion from 2001-2005. On the other hand, campaign and expeditionary medals are also important; as we’ve seen with Chiroux, they generally establish who is a legitimate Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq/Bosnia/(insert your campaign of choice here) vet and who’s a pretender. They also establish veteran’s preference for Federal hiring, and sometimes figure into VA compensation decisions (think Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome cases). In any case: it’s critical to set the parameters of what’s being attempted initially – and IMO, to err on the side of an more-inclusive design vice a “quick and dirty” (and marginally cheaper) one. Even if… Read more »