The fake Silver Star debacle
This stolen valor case gave us a headache — but it teaches important lessons!
The following investigation was made possible by Theresa Giarratano and Kenneth Ramos, who dug through records, noted the details, and otherwise did the heavy lifting. I merely put it together and offered advice along the way.
Recently, my friends and I learned that a suspicious individual was scheduled to give a talk at Memorial Day celebrations in a small Texas town. We were going to expose said individual 100%, but new findings made us reconsider using his name and the name of the town for now — from what we understand, this man did serve, he just appears to have greatly exaggerated his service and his awards record.
The man in question may be going through a difficult time, and I believe that our jobs as investigators — and anyone’s jobs, really — is to not kick someone when they’re down.
Even if he isn’t going through a difficult time and is cunningly gaming the system, we prefer to err on the side of caution.
However, there are still lessons here for us civilians that can help us avoid both embarrassing and legally fraught situations when dealing who may be misrepresenting their past.
First of all, let’s remember that the civilian-military divide can enable lying.
I get tired of saying this, but it remains true: A liar will count on a trusting civilian to not know shit about fuck, to paraphrase Ozark.
The United States has the world’s best military. But the average member of the American public doesn’t know enough about it. This causes all sorts of problems, and stolen valor is the tip of the iceberg.
If you’re a civilian being regaled with heroic stories, especially in a professional setting, check in with friends who’ve served — it’s what I always do. Don’t have friends who’ve served? Make some. Right now. Get back to reading this later.
Second of all, pay attention to the little details, they can really give a lie away.
What was concerning about this particular case? Well, right away, we saw that our guy had starred in a video about his heroic service and many things seemed off if you paid attention. Here’s just a couple:
There were no pictures of him from when he was in that were used in the video itself. There was a ton of stock footage, though.
Now, he said he served some years ago, and maybe his house burned down before his mementos were digitized, but then we get to this spectacle:
Does this look sloppy to you? If not, it should. This isn’t how these tabs should be stacked. And don’t get me started on the missing name tape.
“Whoa, Natalia, isn’t this a little harsh?” Sure, it can seem that way. But please understand that a heroic veteran is simply not likely to present himself that way. These things are completely in the wrong order, and you could and would get yelled at for showing up looking like this where there are people who know what you’re supposed to look like.
If you’re confused about a detail, Google can be your friend. I’m a civilian buttercup, I don’t know how any of this stuff works, and what if my friends were not immediately available? If I wanted to, I could just write “airborne, ranger, special forces” and do a search:
Sweet! Here we see the correct order. Special forces is on top! (Insert your jokes here, I will refrain) Then comes ranger! (Ditto) And then we get to airborne!
There were plenty of other details that gave us serious pause, this was just a few of them.
Again, a liar will not expect you to pay attention to such details. He’ll probably expect you to be too dazzled by his war stories. But you are going to be better than that.
Third of all, please note that big awards, such as Silver Stars and Medals of Honor, are kept track of.
Our target claimed that he had a “Silver Star with valor” — which is already a bad look, because that’s not how one would normally speak about such an award. It’s just a Silver Star.
And guess what, there are handy databases where you can search for a Silver Star recipient. The Department of Defense even has a very nice recent database for most of the GWOT veterans right here. [some are redacted for security or privacy reasons, but obviously a person touting his “Silver Star with valor” would not be in that category]
Our guy is not in there. Oopsies.
He also claimed that he was up for a Medal of Honor soon. Please understand this about a Medal of Honor — it’s a huge deal. If someone’s up for the award, the press will notice and provide coverage. Everybody gets excited way before the ceremony takes place.
Check out the story of this great American, Alwyn Cashe. Cashe was an incredible hero who gave up his life so he could save six U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter from a burning vehicle. I tear up every time I think about this man, I can’t help it.
Awarding the posthumous Medal of Honor to Cashe was a long process. Some will say that it was unacceptably long (I will offer no opinion here, this is not my area of expertise). Even when everyone knew it was going to happen, there was a wait.
So while the “I’m up for a Medal of Honor soon” discourse can technically make sense — please be aware that the process is very formal, and nobody winds up being randomly up for an award of this magnitude without it being thoroughly documented.
People are not being suddenly called up by their old battalion commanders while they’re mowing the lawn on a Sunday just to hear, “Surprise! You’re getting an MoH next week, pack your bags!” Not how it works.
So, we did just a few simple boolean searches: “[his name here]” AND “medal of honor”
There is absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever recommended our guy for an MoH.
A Purple Heart, by contrast, is different. There is no comprehensive database offered for Purple Hearts.
We were made aware that our guy may have a Purple Heart. Again, we wanted to be ethical in how we approached the situation. This was the point at which we decided to exercise caution and keep his name out of this report.
You should always exercise caution too. You never truly know what another person is going through.
Fourth of all, there are different categories of stolen valor.
If you financially benefit from specific instances of stolen valor, well — that’s illegal.
However, there are some gray areas. What if someone served but is exaggerating their service and not necessarily benefiting financially? To what degree should that person be held responsible?
There is no perfect solution to this problem. The government certainly doesn’t have the answer. People are usually stuck playing it by ear.
The gray areas are understandable, but they can also enable lying, grifting, and other forms of abuse.
This is why me and my friends decided to make you aware of this case — because it’s a tricky one. A lot of these cases are tricky.
When in doubt — proceed with caution. Ask a veteran. Ask several veterans.
Make good choices and good luck out there.
It’s cringey to see someone who served act this way...on a couple of levels. Colin Powell visited my unit in Iraq and said “this is the last time you’ll tell true stories about this war” - his implication being that we would tell bullshit bar stories about our service when we got home. This ISN’T that. This is fraud and an insult to everyone who served.