Posted on 08/30/2024 6:00:43 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
For all of you on this thread that are downplaying the valor of soldiers that have been awarded a Bronze Star for their actions in battle and try to equate it to a participation trophy let me say lucky for you, you are not within arm’s reach of me because my blood is boiling right now. I never knew soldiers were so catty. Not a good look.
For retirement after nearly 30 years in uniform and four wars, I got the same award as my Petty Officers. Should not still piss me off, but it does.
It was and out and out bald faced lie.
The Air Force’s Personnel Center says that the award goes to service members who perform “acts of heroism in ground combat.”
Why did they ask AFPC?
I personally know of one person who was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Germany during OEF.
He was in the Army Reserves, unless he did all of his reserves time on Active Duty (very unlikely) he would not retire in 20 years.
You don’t “Win” a National Defense Service Medal. It’s a “Thanks for showing up” medal. Everyone in the Service during a conflict gets one. I got mine during Basic in’72 because Viet Nam was going on.
It’s wrong for the writer to say that medals are won. They are awarded.
Only Action Jackson won the coveted Combat Action Badge.
They named it for him and stopped awarding it.
Beats me where that started, I almost decked a guy at a veteran gathering for asking me where I won my purple heart.
Questions about Moore’s integrity arise anew after 2006 report surfaces
Democrat ‘sincerely’ wishes he had corrected his erroneous claim about earning a Bronze Star
By: Danielle J. Brown and William J. Ford - August 29, 2024, marylandmatters.org
Gov. Wes Moore claimed in a 2006 document that he earned a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan, a medal that he never received, according to a report Thursday in The New York Times.
While questions have been raised before about claims that Moore had a Bronze Star, he has always insisted that the claim was made by others, but not by him.
But in a 2006 application to the White House Fellowship program unearthed by The Times, Moore claimed that as a result of his work as a director of information operations during the war in Afghanistan, “the 82nd Airborne Division have awarded me the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge.”
His resume with that application also claimed that Moore, then a captain in the Army, had received the Maryland College Football Hall of Fame Award. There is no such award.
Both misstatements were explained away in the Times’ story by Moore’s superiors at the time — his commanding officer in Afghanistan and a coach on the Johns Hopkins University football team, where Moore was a player — as additions they insisted he make, on the expectation that he would receive the honors.
In a statement Thursday in response to the article, Moore said he was sorry he had not spoken up before this to correct the record. But he also went on the offensive, saying he would “once again, set the record straight, as people hunt for new ways to undermine my service to our country in uniform.”
“Over the last few weeks, our country has grown used to seeing what it looks like when a veteran’s integrity is attacked for political gain,” said the statement from Moore, who has been called on in recent weeks as a proxy to defend Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz over questions about Walz’s military record.
“It was an honest mistake, and I regret not making that correction,” Moore said about the claim of having earned a Bronze Star. “But do not think for a moment that this attack on my record holds any bearing on how I feel about my service, my soldiers, or our country.”
This is not the first time questions have been raised about Moore’s military record. In past interviews, Moore was introduced as a Bronze Star recipient and he did not correct the misstatements, according to the Times.
Questions about the Bronze Star also came up during Moore’s 2022 campaign for governor, and he insisted at the time that he had never claimed himself to have won the award, only that he failed to correct the mistake in others.
“Of the hundreds of interviews that I have given, the idea of pulling together a couple where I did not correct a reporter or correct an interviewer, it just continues to highlight a measure of desperation in the attacks,” Moore said during an April 2022 campaign event.
Moore told the Times that he forgot he had claimed on his White House Fellowship application to have won the Bronze Star, and that it was a surprise to him when he saw the paperwork this week.
The reaction from Maryland elected officials who had seen the story, including some who are military veterans, was similar to Moore’s explanation: It was a simple mistake that Moore compounded by not correcting it in the intervening years, they said.
snip
That was one piss-poor leader of an O-6, Chief. Good for you for showing the leadership for your people that he didn’t show to you.
Colonel, USAF JAGC (Ret)
“You can tell it’s fake because he “won” and “was awarded” the bronze star.”
That is a very common way for civilians to speak of medals. On a job application, he probably just “listed” it as a medal he won / earned / received.
You cannot tell something is fake by how a reporter summarizes it. FWIW, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 102,345 Bronze Stars were given: 99,886 for achievement and service and 2,459 for valor.
Love it!
What politician isn’t a liar?
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