From the studios of Ave Maria Radio in Ann Arbor,
this is Veterans Radio. And now here's your host,
Dale Throneberry. Good morning and welcome to
veterans radio on this beautiful Saturday morning
here in Ann Arbor, Michigan and coming from the
wonderful studios of Abbey Maria radio I want
to welcome everybody to our program where we've
got a special issue that we're gonna be Approaching
today. It's called stolen valor and this is where
we're going to be talking about veteran wannabes
out there people who for whatever reason in the
world Feel that they need to claim that they
are veterans and we're gonna be exposing a few
of them out there and I want to welcome everybody
into the studio with me today is I'm Gary Lilly.
Good morning, Gary. Good morning, Dale. And our
technical crew in the back room there is Bob
Gould. Airborne. And Ken Rogge and Kara. I haven't
met Kara before. Thank you. Welcome for being
on our program this morning. As I mentioned,
we've got a couple of guests that are lined up.
Hopefully they will call in and we'll see how
that goes. But first of all, we're going to go
to the news. And Gary, you're on. National Guard
and Army Reserve soldiers will mobilize and deploy
for only one year. Despite a new policy that
soldiers will deploy for 15 -month tours, a top
defense official stressed Friday, Thomas Hall,
Assistant Defense Secretary for Reserve Affairs,
reaffirmed that reserve component soldiers are
not affected by the 15 -month tour policy that
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced. Mr.
Gates mandated reserve components would mobilize
for one year and then have five years before
another mobilization. And the DOD policy shift
has cut disability retirements. Injured war veterans
of Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming more aware
of the critical 30 % threshold. Retired Army
Lieutenant General James Terry Scott, Chairman
of the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission,
spotlighted the value of 30 % ratings and ruffled
feathers of DOD officials before a Senate hearing
last week when he said the higher cost of disability
retirement plus severance pay gives DOD a strong
incentive to award 20 % or less. No service does
it more often than the Army, according to fresh
service data released by Scott. From 2000 through
2006, the Army gave ratings of 30 % or higher
to only 13 % of soldiers deemed disabled. By
comparison, the Navy awarded disability retirement
to 36 % of its disabled members. The Air Force
number was 27, and the Marine Corps's 18%. More
troubling, Scott suggested, was data showing
Army awarded a 0 % rating to 13 ,646 sailors
that it found unfit for duty. The Navy, Marine
Corps, and Air Force had assigned zero ratings
only to 400 apiece. And Destination R &R, a retreat
for wounded service members and their families,
is now accepting applications for a free family
getaway. Destination R &R was created to honor
the sacrifice of wounded service members and
their families and to provide them with the opportunity
to rejuvenate and have fun. The first Destination
R &R retreat will be held this summer from August
5th to 9th at the Turf Valley Resort near Baltimore,
Maryland. It will focus on fun for all ages and
enable sharing, connecting, and healing for families.
That must be applied on air. are on the line
at www .nmfa .org slash destination rr and we
will put it on our website I'll remember that
one can we go back to that other story you were
talking about the disability the 30 % certainly
and I and there's another article I know that
you were going to talk about where the president
has has ordered or asked, requested the VA and
the DOD to get together and come up with a common
definition of what disability is because that's
one of the problems that's going on out there.
Indeed. Is that the DOD is giving them one disability
and then they end up having to go through the
VA system and you know two or three years later
they end up getting bumped up to the 20 or 30
percent or over that 30 percent threshold. In
fact the president has ordered the Defense and
Veterans Affairs Department to carry out the
key recommendations from an interagency task
force, including developing a common disability
rating, as you said, system that would make it
easier for combat veterans to receive benefits.
And how can anybody try to cut benefits on combat
wounded veterans? I don't know, because I was
reading a story about that, and they were talking
about some of these guys, men and women, that
were coming back with serious wounds, and they
were getting, you know, just 10 percent or 20
percent, and it just... You can't keep my comments
to myself on some of these things, but you out
there, if you have a comment you want to give
us, let us know what you think about things.
We'll be talking to you later on in the program.
My personal story on that is when I applied for
compensation for Agent Orange, we got sprayed
with it. I was told that I didn't complain about
it while I was in the military. That was their
official response. I'm sorry that my fingers
weren't falling off at the time. In Colorado,
they're going to have a new license plate to
support the troops. 93 % of the proceeds from
the new $25 vehicle tag will go directly to support
Colorado military members and their families.
This will include active duty members, National
Guard and Reserve soldiers, as well as veterans
and non -profit organizations working to support
the military. The plate is set for release July
1st, and you folks in Colorado, advance orders
are currently being taken. Okay, we need to move
along to our Welcome Home segment, and Gary,
you get to do that too. Thank you, Dale. Each
week on Veterans Radio, we welcome home servicemen
and women who have been stationed around the
world in the service of our country. A Welcome
Home Warrior Citizen Awards ceremony was held
on Sunday, April 22nd. at First Lieutenant David
R. Wilson Armed Forces Reserve Center in Florida
for 50 unsung heroes. Soldiers from the Florida
Air National Guard 202nd Red Horse Squadron returned
home to Jacksonville, Florida on Sunday, April
22nd. Hundreds of family members and friends
greeted about 500 soldiers from the 102nd Infantry.
Battalion of New Haven, Connecticut on Saturday,
April 21st at the Army Aviation Support Facility
in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Barbara Jimenez,
mother of Lance Corporal John T. Schmidt III,
wanted returning troops to have a proper welcome
home ceremony in honor of her son. He died from
toxic fume inhalations in Iraq in January 2005.
She contacted Governor M. Jody Rell about her
wish to welcome home troops. In a few weeks,
a large welcome home banner will be displayed
at Bradley Airport. Wyoming National Guard members
received a spectacular city -wide welcome home
celebration in Gillette, Wyoming on Saturday,
April 21. Welcome Home is sponsored by the Marine
Scholars Program of Ave Maria University. Visit
them online at avemaria .edu or call Aaron Flaherty,
Assistant Director of Admissions at 239 -280
-2552. Welcome Home to all. We'll be right back
after these messages. And we're back on Veterans
Radio and my name is Dale Throneberry and joining
me in the studio again today is Gary Lilly Good
morning to all. Yep, and we're gonna be talking
about wannabes and we all know what wannabes
are and these are people that pretend that they
were in the military or if they were in the military
that they They did things More than they really
did so I want to get your comments out there
to our listeners audience And if you have a story
of somebody that you feel was a wannabe give
us a call toll free at eight seven seven five
seven three seven eight two five again, that's
eight seven seven five seven three seven eight
two five and Joining me on a line right now.
Hopefully is Doug and Pat sterner and are you
there? Yeah, we're out here, and you are in Colorado
is that correct? That's correct. I want to welcome
you to Veterans Radio. Well, thank you, Dale.
It's good to be here. And Doug, tell me a little
bit about your organization that you have that
searches out these evildoers. Well, actually,
I don't search them out. My thing is to highlight
the stories of the true heroes. Unfortunately,
in the process of that, the phonies show up.
I began a website several years ago to detail
the heroism of our nation's decorated war heroes,
and quite frequently I would get emails from
people saying, you know, why isn't my husband
listed in your site? He got the Medal of Honor
in Korea, or I know Uncle Joe got the Distinguished
Service Cross. I've seen the citation, and they
were not in my database. And so once I became
aware of them, I felt that I had an obligation
to deal with the imposters. And so, while it
was not my primary issue to go after imposters,
it wound up becoming very much that as a matter
of necessity. Well, I know that your wife got
involved in this and actually did a paper on
the stolen -vowel issue. Pam, are you there?
Well, I can put her on. We've got one line here,
but I can put her on when you want to talk to
her. I was wondering how she got involved in
the Stolen Valor Act. Well, she had seen my own
frustration in dealing with this, and I worked
very closely with FBI agent Tom Katone on the
prosecution or investigation for prosecution
of many of these individuals. So she knew Tom
personally, and of course she knows me personally.
Good thing. She never sees me because I'm always
at the computer. And she knew our frustration
in being able to go after some of these people.
Under the current code at that time, it was illegal
to wear any metal that you did not earn. But
for example, I showed her a newspaper. Someone
sent me a guy in Arizona holding up a plaque
full of his medals, his silver stars, and his
purple hearts, and this, that, and the other
thing. It was on the front page of his hometown
paper. for a veteran's day story, we couldn't
prosecute him because he wasn't wearing the medal.
He was holding it in his hand. And so, seeing
my own frustration at that, she was a student
at Colorado State University, majoring in political
science, and in her class, she was told to write
a paper for an assignment, and she did a paper
on this. Oh, okay. We know that there are many
wannabes that are out there. I want to pick your
brain a little bit here, but can you think of
the most outrageous one recently that you've
heard about? Well, it depends on what you mean
outrageous, whether you're talking about what
I consider to be the worst or what I consider
to be the most flagrant. Well, let's go with
the most flagrant right now. The most flagrant
was the guy that we nailed last summer up in
Illinois. We got pictures of him attending the
Marine Corps ball wearing the Navy Cross, multiple
silver stars, multiple bronze stars, multiple
legions of merit, and eight purple hearts, Marine
Corps uniform with eagles on it. And first of
all, it caught my attention because no Marine
has ever received eight purple hearts. And this
guy had never even been in the military. Was
this the one in St. Louis? No, you're talking
about Wielbacher. He wasn't wearing quite as
many. He was a big 400 -pound guy that was wearing
the Navy Cross and multiple other awards that
had also never been in the military. What about
the other one? That was the most flagrant. Did
it also include the worst? No, the worst in my
opinion. If somebody wants to look him up, they
can look him up because he's still telling his
lies on the Internet. He is a guy that we've
got out in California, and it's the worst because
this man is a legitimate veteran. He's a two
-tier Vietnam veteran. He served in Special Forces
and also as a helicopter pilot and earned a Silver
Star. He now attends functions in California
wearing a Lieutenant Colonel rank, even though
he got out as a captain, wearing the Distinguished
Service Cross, two Silver Stars, the Soldier's
Medal, and other awards that we've documented
he didn't earn. He uses this to promote a book
and to me it's the worst because this is a true
Vietnam veteran who could justifiably be proud
of what he did do and then he turns around and
he takes it to extreme and you know that really
bothers me because he should just be proud of
what he did. Well, I totally agree with that.
I think one of the things that we have found
in doing our veterans radio over the last couple
of years is that most of the veterans that we
do talk to are humble, you know, and you've got
to pull and pry to get their stories out of them
in most cases. This is Gary. I was interviewed
by a college senior one time for a paper he was
writing and I kept I mentioned to him about the
way that you can tell a real Vietnam bet is they
typically start off with I was only and Right
after he wrote or did the interview I got a an
email from a POW who said I was only a POW for
11 months I didn't put in the years that the
other guys did and I didn't realize I'd made
such a point of it, but the whole The title of
the paper was, I was only. And it talked about
the Vietnam vets and how they say so often in
their introductory, I was only. There was a,
I remember talking about the qualifications for
Vietnam Veterans of America hearing helicopter
pilots say, well, I was only a helicopter pilot.
I wasn't down on the ground like. The other guys
or and one guy said well, I was only there for
two weeks or three weeks He's got wounded and
spent the next nine months in a hospital in Japan
These are guys saying that they didn't think
they qualified to belong to Vietnam veterans
of America because I was only And I found that
to be pretty true tying in with what you said
Dale about being humble Well, there's no I mean,
you know most of us that I've that I've met again
at this as we go along You know that they just
don't flaunt it We like the silent generation
or the greatest generation. Most of us came home
and we just did our job and went on with our
lives. It's just that when some people started
attacking us at some point along the way that
we decided that we needed to fight back and tell
the true stories. I'm sorry that we don't have
B .G. Burgett on today. He was the one who wrote
the original Stolen Valor book that kind of got
everybody, I think a lot of people, on a roll.
to look out and find these people that were out
there. What about websites? Are there websites
people can go to to find out if somebody really
was in special forces or really was a POW? Are
there wannabe lists posted on the internet? Well,
and that's the problem that we've got. You can
find some of the websites that will list the
wannabes when we find them, such as the POW network
at pownetwork .org. The bottom line is, the United
States has done a very poor job of keeping the
history of our heroes. There have been 191 Air
Force Crosses awarded in history, only 191. And
when we would get an Air Force Cross imposter,
and I would turn it over to Tom Catone with the
FBI, and Tom would go to the Air Force and say,
can you verify that this man is or is not a legitimate
Air Force Cross recipient, it would take the
Air Force two weeks to figure out if he was one
of the 191 individuals that had got the Air Force
Cross. That's how bad the record -keeping has
been. I've spent the last five years developing
a database of the Navy Cross, Air Force Cross,
and Distinguished Service Cross. There is no
official list of the recipients of these awards,
and the tragedy of this is You know, we talk
a lot about the Medal of Honor, but the Distinguished
Service Cross, Navy Cross, you know, those ain't
chicken feed, if you understand what I'm saying.
I mean, George Patton said, I'd rather be a lieutenant
with a Distinguished Service Cross, and in general,
without one, fewer than 15 ,000 awarded in history.
And the United States Army has no official list
of those 15 ,000 recipients. That's amazing.
So it's very hard to check them out. You know,
I understand that we're talking with Doug sterner
who with his wife Pam were very instrumental
in getting the Stolen Valor Act Passed and just
in December to make it against the law. Did they
make that a felony? Well, it's a high misdemeanor
felony is anything it calls for one year and
a day, which is why sometimes You'll hear a judge
sent somebody to one year and a day then it's
a felony so It didn't bump it up to a felony.
It's one year, but it's a very, very high misdemeanor.
Did you have any reaction to that movie, The
Wedding Crashers, in which they showed the purple
hearts and they were trying to impress the ladies,
the two rogues in that movie? Well, we owe a
lot to The Wedding Crashers movie. When the movie
came out, it just happened by coincidence that
it was the same week. that we were introducing
the Stolen Valor Act. We had a press conference
the same week that Wedding Crashers came out.
And the media picked up on this as though it
was a congressman reacting to Wedding Crashers,
when in fact, Pam had written a bill more than
a year before that happened. And we had been
in discussions with Congressman Salazar on this
for six months. But because the media picked
up on that tie, They covered it extensively.
We got a lot of publicity. And so, actually,
when they put that in the movie, they did us
a big favor. And I think it was a large part
of how we got the bill passed. I know the effect
of when that movie did come out. They finally
did go back in and remove that scene from their
trailer, at least. You know, people respond.
Businesses will respond. Yeah. And what they
did do, they removed the online print your own
Purple Heart thing, which was very tacky. Yes,
to say the least. How difficult was it to get
this act into the hopper in Congress? Well, you've
heard the phrase, it takes an act of Congress.
Everybody told us going in there was no way,
no way that it would happen. I'm the ultimate
idealist as is my wife. It was introduced by
a freshman congressman in the minority. And we
did not realize that we were battling a partisanship
that was, that is very, very intense on both
sides. And we found out later there's kind of
an unwritten rule in Congress that a freshman
doesn't pass any kind of major bills. And so
it took quite a bit. Now, I understand that the
congressman that you're talking about is Congressman
Salazar, John Salazar? Yes. A Colorado Democrat,
I believe, isn't he? Yes, he's a Colorado Democrat.
My wife and I, for what it's worth, are lifetime
Republicans. After Pam wrote the bill, she offered
it to a Republican congressman, and he wasn't
interested. And then John Salazar called us.
He said, I've heard about this. I'd like to meet
with you. And we met with him. And I think it
was quite appropriate. And I know that when Roll
Call did a story on my wife, they pointed out
this is the way our nation should work. Democrats
and Republicans pulling together because this
is not a red or a blue issue. This is a red,
white, and blue issue. Oh, absolutely. I never
quite understand when partisan politics jumps
into certain issues, such as this. And I noticed
that Congressman Salazar was a veteran himself.
Yes, he was a Vietnam -era veteran. He served
in the Army late in the Vietnam War. He never
got a chance to serve in the Vietnam Theater
of Combat, but he was ready and willing to go.
And they sent him there. I love your choice of
words there. I've heard that before. I never
got a chance to go. And you talk with regular
civilians and they're going, what do you mean
you never had a chance to go? Unfortunately,
Dale and I had the chance. Well, I wouldn't trade
that opportunity for anything in the world. No.
Proudest thing I ever did in my life. It was
amazing. Well, I wanted to, we're coming up,
we've got about five minutes to go into this
segment of the program. For those of you out
there listening who would like to comment or
give us a call at 877 -573 -7825. We're talking
about stolen valor. uh... how military people
are really really can lot of them are being cheated
of their uh... heroes we are being cheated of
our heroes in our history because we've got pretend
people out there i just wanted to read about
one guy and and uh... you can you can comment
maybe this is the same when this is a judge michael
o 'brien in illinois Illinois District Judge
Michael O 'Brien displayed two Medal of Honors
in a frame on the wall of his courtroom. Everybody
in his city believed the judge was not only an
honorable man, but one of America's greatest
heroes. O 'Brien's fraud was discovered when
he tried to apply for a It's the special, you
know, the Medal of Honor license plate for his
vehicle. Illinois provides valid Medal of Honor
recipients with distinctive plates. He had to
present his, where did he go? Yeah, I lost it.
Judge O 'Brien applied for his plate himself.
Someone at the Department of Motor Vehicles happened
to contact a true recipient and learned that
O 'Brien was a fraud. O 'Brien's lies were subsequently
exposed, but he avoided prosecution. It was,
hopefully this has changed, while it was against
the law to manufacture, wear, sell, or trade
the Medal of Honor, it is not a criminal offense
to possess one or display one on your wall. And
in fact, they can be bought online, can they
not? Am I mistaken about that? Haven't I seen
them? I don't know if you can do it any longer.
And in reality, there's only about 170 living
Medal of Honor recipients out there. 100 can.
And see, Judge Michael O 'Brien was one of the
examples that really got Pam moving on this.
And I can put her on any time you want to talk
to her. But, you know, he could not be prosecuted
because those medals of honor were hanging on
his wall. He wasn't wearing them. Under today's
law, since December 20 of last year, he would
be prosecutable. Okay, I also see here that we
have this famous Lawrence Hammer of Florida.
who claimed to be a former Navy SEAL who won
the Medal of Honor for being shot. I didn't know
he got a Medal of Honor for being shot. But anyway,
he was shot twice in Vietnam. And not only did
he use his claims and falsified records to gain
employment, he also went on to con money out
of a widow that he met at a VA medical center.
And we couldn't touch him. It was just stories
he was telling. You can't prosecute somebody
for telling a lie. run into the wannabes and
I ran into one asking for help years ago here
in Ann Arbor. He'd come up from Florida and I
ended up talking to people in Florida saying,
oh is he up there doing it now? Now this guy
was claimed to be a POW, had an open brain injury
and was operated on by in Laos by the enemy,
now the path at Laos. The people I've talked
to that flew over Laos or operated in there,
they always, they said, they were told, you know,
save a bullet for yourself, do not allow yourself
to be captured. And yet this guy had open head
injury operation in the jungles of Laos by the
path at Laos. And I just, you know, I thought,
well, how brazen can you get and how stupid can
you get? Well, one of the stories that is pointed
out in the book Stolen Valor, and one of the
reasons I guess that Mr. Burkett got started
was that the head of the Vietnam Veterans of
America in Texas ended up being a fake. Do you
remember reading about that? Yeah, well, it's
not at all uncommon because, you know, there's
no way to check up on them. If you go to the,
you know, your other guest mentioned being interviewed
by a high school senior. That's probably part
of the Library of Congress's living history project.
I can send you to three of their living history
project interviews right now that have individuals
claiming Medals of Honor that are not Medal of
Honor recipients. That's a wonderful program,
but there's no way for them to check on, well
they could be able to check the Medal of Honor,
but there are several others. But now you've
got the Library of Congress saying these three
individuals are Medal of Honor recipients. You
can't get much more authoritative than that.
Pretty good evidence, too, that they've committed
a crime. Yeah. I wonder how you go in and yank
those histories out of there. Can that be done?
Does anybody know? I don't know, I guess to verify
and to check those things out. I think it's amazing.
We're talking with Doug Stern and we're going
to be talking with his wife Pam after our break
about the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 that makes
it against the law for people to wear or to claim
that they have won medals that they're not entitled
to. Somebody was just prosecuted with 90 days
in jail and he didn't have a Medal of Honor.
Is that right? Do I remember right? Well we've
had, in the last month we've had like five prosecutions
across the country. None of them were under the
current bill. We're still waiting to see who's
going to be the first to fall. We'll find out
more about this when we come back. You're listening
to Veterans Radio. The Medal of Honor is the
highest award for valor in combat given a member
of the Armed Forces of the United States. There
have been over 3 ,400 recipients of the nation's
highest award. This is one of them. Captain Louis
Millet was wounded by grenade fragments, but
refused evacuation. Details after this. While
personally leading his company in an attack against
a strongly held Korean position, Millet noted
that the first platoon was pinned down by small
arms, automatic, and anti -tank fire. Millet
ordered the third platoon forward, placed himself
at the head of the two platoons, and with fixed
band at led the assault up the fire -swept hill.
In the fierce charge, he banetted two enemy soldiers
and boldly continued on throwing grenades, clubbing
and banetting the enemy while urging his men
forward by shouting encouragement. Despite vicious
opposing fire, the whirlwind hand -to -hand assault
carried to the crest of the hill. His leadership
and personal courage so inspired his men that
they stormed into the hostile position and used
their banets with such lethal effect that the
enemy fled in wild disorder. During this fierce
onslaught, Millet was wounded by grenade fragments,
but refused evacuation until the objective was
taken and firmly secured. The Medal of Honor
series is a production of Veterans Radio. And
we're back on Veterans Radio, and I've just listened
to those ads for the first time, and for all
of our advertisers out there, I think we're going
to redo them because I'm talking too fast. Sound
a little bit like a New Jersey guy or something
along the lines. I thought it was New Jersey.
It is New Jersey, but anyway, we really want
to thank all of our sponsors. Without you, we
wouldn't be on the air, and most of you have
been with us for a couple of years now, and we
really do appreciate that. I want to make sure
I give out the number. We're talking about Stolen
Valor wannabes out there, veteran wannabes that
you may have run into during your travels. We'd
like to hear about them. Give us a call at 877
-573 -7825. On the phone, we've got Doug Sterner,
who is the webmaster and founder of TheHomeOfHeroes
.com. Am I correct, Doug? Well, actually, it's
Pam. They switch phones on me. Well, that's all
right. I like surprises. Joining us right now
on the air is Pam Sterner, who is the one that
got the Stolen Valor Act going. Pam, tell us
how you got that started. I decided to go back
to school as a non -traditional student, obviously,
and was a junior in school when we were taking
a policy analysis class. And the assignment for
the end of the semester was to write a paper.
about an existing policy that needed to be changed
or to create a new policy and Doug and I have
been aware of the problem with Impostors for
several years and we didn't know exactly how
to go about changing the law in order to be able
to prosecute them So I decided to go ahead and
do my paper based on title 18 United States Code
the section that deals with military medals and
and That sounds like a great idea. I'm going
to have to use that assignment for my own class.
Well, it's really bad for all the classes coming
up. And this professor's classes from now on,
she keeps saying, you take these school papers
seriously, because Oingale did. And she now has
a law, because of the effort that she put into
this assignment. I want to congratulate you on
that. I think that's amazing and it is a true
story. Other than a law getting passed for the
United States, how was your paper received elsewhere?
First, my professor in particular kept saying,
well, that's nice, Pam, but truthfully, who cares?
And what difference is it going to make? And
why is this really needed? But I think it was
good to hear her dissension on it because it
meant that I then had to write the paper with
the idea that not everybody was going to be behind
it. I think we've had some veterans who have
actually criticized this law, veterans who probably
are guilty of at least minor infractions of this
law by misleading people with their military
career. We've had a lot of collectors and traders
and sellers that are very angry with this law.
We're trying to explain to them that the law
states that you can sell, trade, collect medals
as provided in the military code. And actually,
the way that the military code states is that
there's not a problem with buying, selling, or
trading medals except for the Medal of Honor.
You can do that. You can put them up on a display
on your wall, whatever you'd like to do. You
just can't point to that display and say, yeah,
I earned those. At that point, you've crossed
the line. If somebody put up their diploma saying
that they had received a degree from a university
or if they had something that said that they
were a professor, I think that the people in
the universities would probably have a different
attitude about that. Yeah, I think you're definitely
right. You can't go around with a policeman's
badge in your pocket and say, I'm a cop. That's
against the law. So why should you be allowed
to say, I'm a veteran if you're not indeed a
veteran? other than the collectors, the people
selling them and so on, why would veterans...
You have some veterans that say, oh, what's the
big deal? And truthfully, those are the veterans
I'm a little bit concerned about, that they're
thinking that they've crossed the line several
times. And I know it's really easy with your
buddies to try to outdo the other person, but
I think a true veteran and true hero is always
going to be, you know, proud of what he or she
did actually do in the armed services. if i could
find a need to embellish that you talk to any
medal of honor recipient they'll never even mention
that they've received the medal of honor when
people come up to them and say i heard you received
it what did you do most of them will even talk
about that if they were just go read my citation
and that to me that the mark of a true hero someone
they can receive a medal for something they did
and they don't they don't really go and talk
about it they don't try to promote it They don't
try to pretend to be something else other than
what they are. A close friend of mine received
the Silver Star during an ambush in Vietnam,
what he did in the ambush, and his description
of it was, I busted things up a little bit. That's
typical. And that's usually when people say,
well, how do you know if someone's lying? Usually
the more they talk, the more it becomes obvious
that they didn't really earn that after all.
I think probably 95 % of us, whatever it was
that they did or we did, we do it on reaction.
We don't say, oh, now if I do it this way, I
could get a silver star. If I do it that way,
unlike there was an issue when I was researching
this program about General Douglas MacArthur
getting a distinguished flying cross. and and
the the actual the actual citation it was that
he flew in an airplane over the over the plains
of Korea putting himself in danger and I can
think of 90 % of the helicopter pilots and probably
90 % of all the pilots out there that didn't
get a distinguished flying cross or flying across
the plains of Vietnam or Korea or anything like
that they saw a shell burst from afar right you
know and That's yeah. Well, you know Medal of
Honor recipients a lot of times and you say you're
a hero and they'll say no I was just in a certain
place at a certain time and I just reacted and
did what I was supposed to do That's why they
don't want to be called Medal of Honor winners
Right to them a winner is someone who is in a
contest and it's set now to receive a prize They
call themselves recipients because they say I
was just doing what anybody else would have done
I received this and they usually consider themselves
Wearing that Medal of Honor for all the other
people that were fighting with them that didn't
receive it or that were killed in the action
They never really see that as something that
they personally deserve to have That's true and
going back to your statement about winner I use
the incorrect terminology one time to a Medal
of Honor recipient And I said I understand you're
a Medal of Honor winner. He said recipient son.
It wasn't a contest Yeah, they're very big on
that. Right. We're talking with Pam Sterner,
the author actually, I believe, of the Stolen
Valor Act of 2005, which finally got enacted
in 2006 and probably got started even before
then. When did you write your paper initially?
Actually, I wrote it in the fall of 2004. In
2004? For those of you out there who would like
to comment or ask Pam a question or us, give
us a call at 877 -573 -7825. You know we talked
earlier about the being interviewed by the students.
And I was interviewed once for a video class
over at the University of Michigan. I got another
guy that was with the 101st Airborne. He was
the prime person to be interviewed. And we were
invited to go to the presentations. And so I
went to the auditorium for two nights in a row
and watched the presentations that these students
made as they interviewed Vietnam veterans. and
I could sit there and I'd say wannabe. Real veteran,
wannabe. And as Dale said earlier, some of them
were there, but embellished the fact. So here
was a corpsman, I'm sorry, a medic, who said,
yeah, we could look across the rice paddies and
see all these little spots of light where they
had toked up. And so we waited and let them enjoy
one last toke before we called in, or before
I let them do that before I called in artillery
on them. And I'm sitting there just nauseated.
I know. Well, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.
It's such a worthwhile project, but that's been
one of the negatives about that project, is that
unfortunately no documentation is being collected
to make sure these people are being interviewed
are indeed veterans. Well, I think that's something
that we want to touch on just briefly, and I
don't know what you know about this, but, you
know, check out these people if you want to talk
to a veteran or anybody out there wants to have
one talk to their organization. Asked to see
a copy of their DD -214, which is not necessarily
the Bible of everything, but it gives you kind
of an idea of where they were and so forth. And
we know that there can be mistakes on the DD
-214 because mine had a bunch of them on there.
And if you go to your local Veterans Affairs
office, usually in a county or one of the other
veteran service organizations, they'll help you
get a copy of those military records. And if
you have a mistake on your DD -214 and it gets
corrected, you will get a new call. DD -215,
and the 215 will have all of the corrections
on it. So you need to have both of them if you
ever want to sell a book or something out there.
That's a very good idea. And remember, though,
that those can be falsified, too. So if they're
claiming a very high award, check out some of
the organizations out there that try to keep
track of those things, such as the Military Order
of the Purple Heart, or give Doug a call. Go
to homoheros .com and see if they really receive
the award that they're DD214 says they did because
it's very likely that they could have even gotten
that from eBay and filled in their own information.
That's right. We've seen examples of that. And
there are a couple of websites that non -POW,
I think it is, has a website with a list of all
of the people that they know of that have claimed
to be POWs. They exceed the number of actual
POWs that we had in Vietnam. There's the the
Special Forces has the same thing and one of
the ironic things is of the 1 million living
Vietnam veterans 14 million of them checked off
that they were Vietnam veterans in the 2000 census
form A great place to go to find out information
on people that you think may be one of these
is to go to Doug's website. That's homeofheroes
.com. All one word. It's an excellent site. All
kinds of information on there that you can find.
I got lost in there. Kind of you know, just finding
all kinds of things service crosses silver cross
and so forth Pam could you hold on for a minute
or two because we're gonna take another break
and I want to finish this up and we will talk
to you in just a minute You're listening to veterans
radio and we're back on veterans radio. We're
talking about stolen valor military wannabes
We're talking with Pam and Doug sterner Pam wrote
the stolen valor act. I think that'd be kind
of cool to say that that's something I'd be extremely
proud of Pam Thank you. And when we went to the
break, we were talking about how to verify the
authenticity of somebody's service. While we're
on that subject, I wanted to remind your listeners
that we are compiling really the first database
that can be publicly accessed to all of the higher
metals, and we're hoping to eventually include
all the metals. So if any of your readers out
there have citations of themselves or uncles
or grandfathers, whatever, and they would like
to send us a copy of those citations. We would
really appreciate that and that would help us
to go a long ways towards actually getting that
done. How would they get that to you? They can
go ahead and either email it to doug at homeofheroes
.com or by going to the homeofheroes .com website,
they'll see address and phone number there. Is
that for all wars? Yes, we want it for all wars,
all veterans. I know that that you are also talking
to Doug earlier that he had he had stated that
you were trying to get this to be Become a legal
act again. It's kind of an add -on to your stolen
valor program. We're going back for more legislation
kind of a stolen valor, too We're actually I'm
asking Congress to mandate That this role of
honor be kept for all veterans and that it be
readily accessible by the public and not only
we're not doing it so much as to but the frauds
although that would definitely make it easier
to do so we're doing that because the veterans
deserve to be honored in this way in their families
deserve to be able to find information about
what their father or their grandfather did as
part of their family history right now these
records are in cardboard boxes stacked at several
different places and as we already know from
The St. Louis fire, a lot of times these records
get destroyed. With our computer technology that
we have today, there's no reason we should ever
have a problem with records being destroyed again.
I don't know. With the government, they seem
to lose emails and all kinds of things. I don't
know where stuff disappears these days. Maybe
that's why the private citizens are taking it.
Well, that's true. And I think it's important
to paraphrase George Washington. If we don't
take care of our veterans, nobody else will.
And so it's up to us as civilians to do that.
We can't rely on the government to do everything
for us. They just won't because they get distracted
easily. Well, there's too much for relying on
the government. Let's do things ourselves. I
think the government suffers from ADHD and many
of those other attention deficit problems because
they move from issue to issue depending on which
way the wind blows. And it takes a dedicated
group like you and some of the other organizations
out there that to make sure that these things
do get taken care of. Because most of us, we
don't know what our dads and moms did during
this war or that conflict or even what they did
when they were kids. And I think the idea of
the history projects is really important. And
as Doug pointed out, we need to somehow figure
out how to verify that these are true stories.
I want to thank you very much, Pam and Doug,
for being on Veterans Radio today. And for any
of you out there who want to contact them, you
can go to their website. That's, where did I
put it? HomeOfHeroes .com. There it is. And thank
you very much. We'll put some information on
our website for you. And I hope to talk to you
both again soon. That sounds great. We appreciate
being on your show. Thank you very much. You're
welcome. Bye -bye. Dale, that's something that
really is important and you know part of the
healing process of veterans coming home from
war is the proper recognition and there's nothing
takes you know they don't want to be recognized
they really want the people around them that
they serve with to be recognized and for those
who steal that recognition, that hinders the
healing process. Well, again, while I was researching
this, Gary, and you and I have political differences
on a lot of different issues, but, you know,
it's interesting that the wannabes are out there
and people will use them for whatever their particular
cause is. In fact, I was looking back on that
documentary, The Winter of Shame. The thing about
the interviews in Detroit were... Oh, yeah, the
Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier, and it turned
out that half or more than half of the, quote,
veterans that were suffering from all the issues
that occurred in Vietnam were fakes. They were
fakes, and of the veterans that actually were
veterans, the majority of them had never been
to Vietnam. Right, and that's an important difference
out there for our listeners who are not military,
is that there's a difference between a Vietnam
veteran and a Vietnam -era veteran, just like
there's a World War II veteran and a World War
II -era veteran. And the era part is that they
didn't get to go over. And again, I don't like
that terminology there. That's right. You guys
were era. You were era. It happened to me. I
spoke to my nephew who was just out of basic
training at a time of the big cutbacks. And he
had an opportunity to get out. And I said, you
know, the military is a dangerous occupation.
in peacetime and not in a war zone. And being
in a war is nothing more than an accident of
birth. You had to have been born at a time where
about 20 years later there's going to be a war
going on, and you may or may not go there. And
those who served in the military honorably are
just as, you have just as much right to be proud
of them as those who did go to the war. There's
an article in Today's Ann Arbor News about the
ROTC graduates, which I thought was really interesting
because in fact it's been increasing. I think
there were 75 or something in their whole program
up there now and a number of them are getting
commissioned. They were getting commissioned
yesterday afternoon, the new second lieutenants,
and some of them said they just did this because
they felt it was the right thing to do, other
ones because of the scholarships and everything
that's involved with it. Hey, if you step up,
that's courageous. You bet. I want to go through
a couple of things. How to expose a phony. We'll
finish up this part of the program with how to
expose one of these wannabes. This is an interesting
website I found this on. This is actually Marine,
1st Battalion 9th Marines. Their website is called
TheWalkingDead .org. Oh, that was the unit, The
Walking Dead. That was their nickname. And how
do you expose a phony? Well, first of all, you
trust your gut. which is as you mentioned earlier.
If you think someone is an imposter, chances
are you're right. The guy from the FBI that Doug
was talking about, Tom Katone, says that nearly
all the tips he gets about fakers come from private
citizens, and well over 90 % of those suspicions
turn out to be true. Initiate a conversation
with them. Be curious ask questions about the
person his service or his awards about being
confrontational mentally take notes of dates
and units I know that with probably the same
thing with the soldiers that are in Iraq right
now How do they pronounce towns and villages
and so forth and what type of? Sea rations or
supplemental incomes did their food do they have
and that when were they all in the big three?
Where did you serve Saigon Danang and Cambodia?
Yes, I saw a sign. I mean everybody was in case
on right And I didn't even know where it was,
and I was there. So... Anyway, initiate that
kind of thing. Get a picture if you can. It's
not a crime to lie about military service, at
least not yet. Posers aren't breaking any laws
until they wear the rank awards or uniforms they
don't rate. To successfully prosecute fakers,
photographic evidence is key. Most fakers won't
mind a request for a picture. Most of them are
egomaniacs anyway. If possible, snap a shot of
their license plate too. And finally, if you
do think that you've got a fake here, contact
the authorities. Wearing medals fraudulently
and impersonating a service member now is a federal
crime. Don't bother with the local cops. Call
and contact a local FBI agent," he says. And
it's a shame that they have to be taken away
from protecting their country, but you know what?
This is something that needs to be done, and
these people should be exposed. I think so. The
other thing I wanted to add, this is from another
website. I can't even read this guy's website.
This is greensickle .com. And if they talk about
appearance matters, and this is really kind of
important because a lot of things as impesters
Impostors, excuse me put on pretty lousy impersonations
They're often out of shape and have solemnly
appearance in uniform If it looks like 50 pounds
of pork shoved into a 10 pound sack. It's probably
an imposter now We know that there are people
that will Nice quote, right? We also know that
some go to the other extreme and look extremely
straight. Yes. Well, I've got friends that are
so overweight they can barely walk. And that
came, I believe, from stressful eating afterwards.
I know they were grunts. I just happen to know
they were grunts. These people are fat. Top secret?
Probably not. Impostors? A phony often will say
details of his career exploits are classified
and he can't tell you if he does he has to kill
you. My dog ate my DD -214. Didn't work with
homework? It won't work with your DD -214 either.
Watch the rack, the rack of medals, the decorations.
What order are they in? Phonies often wear medals
in the wrong order or in dispromotion into the
time of service. I know some people that were
in the military for many, many years and they've
got two rows. Maybe three, I know some people
that say they were in for two years and they
got five rows. Right, these people were, they
got around and they were real heroes. And they
were real heroes. And another says, just ask.
Oh, just ask. Another one, check the birth date.
There's an awful lot of Vietnam veterans running
around out there that are 35 years old. They
started young. You go to the Vietnam veteran
reunions, Kokomo, Melbourne and all that, and
gee, they just stand out in the crowd. We have
about two minutes to go, and I want to, you know,
if you have any questions or comments about this
program, you know, send us an email. We'd love
to read your emails on the air and tell people,
you know, what you think about our issues and
our stories, because we'd really like to tell
the stories that you want to hear out there.
And let's just go to veteransradio .net, and
we'd be more than happy to get your issues out
on the air. We got a big one coming up next week,
and I wanted to just talk about this briefly.
This is pretty exciting to us there have been
allegations out there that the NCIS has the Naval
Committee Naval Criminal Investigation Services
in interviewing some Marines from a from a supposed
Friendly kill in Iraq have been using torture
of all things to get these Marines to confess
to whatever it was that they're going on and
They're going after a lieutenant colonel Chesney
Chesney and we're going to be talking with the
prosecuting attorney or the defense attorney
for him next week and that's going to be Richard
Thompson, Thompson of the Thomas Moore Law Center
here in Ann Arbor and he's going to be telling
us the entire story of the incident in Iraq and
what happened and I think you don't want to miss
this one. May 12th, we're going to be doing the
story on Bud Day, Medal of Honor recipient. A
real one? Pardon me? A real one. A real one.
While being held prisoner of war in North Vietnam,
and our special guest coming on to talk about
Bud Day was his former cellmate, Senator John
McCain. He'll be on Veterans Radio May 12th.
And then on May 19th, we're going to be doing
a program on Okinawa. So we are looking forward
to survivors of the Battle of Okinawa, which
was the bloodiest battle in World War II. And
we want to make sure that we get the live people
on as much as we can. Okinawa was so devastated
that there's pine trees all over the place. They're
not native to Okinawa. They were planted there
by our occupation forces afterwards to reforest
the island. I want to thank the people here at
Avi Maria Radio. Gary, Bob, Ken and Kara, thank
you very much. You are dismissed. The opinions
expressed on this program are those of our guests
and are not necessarily those of Veterans Radio
or this station. Veterans Radio is a production
of Veterans Radio LLC.