Conn. candidate not alone military service fraud
Published: May 18, 2010
Residents in Connecticut woke up this morning to news that Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal may have exaggerated his service during the Vietnam War, a move which will undoubtedly infuriate veterans groups across the state.
But he's not the first -- or last -- figure to unjustly claim military service or honors. In fact, just this week a coalition of veterans advocates and investigators relaunched their efforts to root our military frauds through a new Stolen Valor Task Force, working to pair their resources with groups like the POW network and Doug Sterner's Home of Heroes to ID false veterans and baseless claims of heroism.
Sterner (who was profiled in the Washington Post recently) said he has seen a recent increase in Post-Vietnam War claims "that are all too often bogus." That includes three questionable claims in the last two months for awards earned in Mogadishu in 1993, and a spike in rarely-awarded honors related to the first Gulf War.
Of course, rooting out frauds is tricky business, especially because the military does not have a central database of awards (a legislative crusade Sterner has waged for years). But those involved in the work insist that it's critical to preserving the actions and honor of true heroes.
