Back around 2005 while I was still working in HR for my company's stamping plant in Detroit, I had a phone conversation with my counterpart who was retired from our closed facility in Philadelphia.
My friend was a combat medic in Vietnam and he said there was an employee in his plant who claimed to be a Marine and received a Silver Star...........
Well, since I had access to the personnel records from that plant, I was able to view his personnel file as well as his DD-214. Turns out that while he was indeed in Vietnam, the only medal he received was the Vietnam Service medal..........
If anybody makes a claim to me that they earned three Silver Stars in Vietnam, I'm going to be skeptical of their claim.
Here's a website that you might be able to verify his claim......
http://www.homeofheroes.com/members/04_SS/5_RVN/01_main.html
“If anybody makes a claim to me that they earned three Silver Stars in Vietnam, I’m going to be skeptical of their claim.”
Well, the circumstances of how/where I knew him don’t make that an issue. There doesn’t seem to be anything near a complete list of recipients.
A friend of mine, who I knew was a vet and had seen action, once wore a suit for a semi-formal affair of my company’s. He had a very small pin on his lapel, which only a knowing eye would recognize as a Silver Star ribbon. The display was not ostentatious, obviously only meant for those who would know.
I already had known that he had taken a bayonet through the forearm - the scar was telling.
I just pointed at the ribbon and asked him to tell me about it some day. “Maybe,” was all he answered. A couple of years later he told me. Damn. God Bless those guys.