Liar, Liars and Moore Liars
Maryland governor latest to have been caught in a lie
Politicians lying about military service and military awards has been going on for decades. Politician Wes Moore is just one of the latest. And his lie was a whopper.
Two decades ago, Moore, who is now Maryland’s Democratic governor, lied about receiving the Bronze Star. He did not. Today, he insists it was “an honest mistake” when he falsely added the military award to his resumé.
I will make this crystal clear right now as a veteran of 35 years. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, accidentally mistakes thinking they received a major personal award, particularly an award generally given for combat. Moore’s lying was intentional. Plus, he had countless public opportunities to correct the record. He chose not to do so.
It’s worth noting a unit award (rather than an individual or personal award) can fall through the cracks. An organization may receive a unit award months or even a year or longer after the award period. Military personnel who transfer from the organization may not be properly notified they were a unit award recipient. I know from first-hand experience. It wasn’t until I was nearing retirement that an audit revealed I was included in a unit award from nearly 25 years earlier. It happens.
However, “honest mistake[s]” do not happen regarding a personal award such as a Bronze Star, as Moore claims. Moore lied. Plain and simple.
Joe Biden has repeatedly lied and has continued to lie about his son Beau having been killed while serving in Iraq. He did not. One might be inclined to forgive Biden due to the reality he has been in severe mental decline for years. However, he does have a six-decade history of lying, cheating and plagiarizing going all the way back to his days in law school when he faced possible expulsion for plagiarizing. Biden didn’t cheat just a little. He cheated a lot. Biden lifted five entire pages from a law review article and included it as his own work in a paper he submitted.
In October 2022, Biden infamously said, “I say this as a father of man who won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal, and lost his life in Iraq.” One must stifle a giggle at that one. His son received the Meritorious Service Medal, not a conspicuous service medal. Chalk that up to his mental decline.
Serving as Connecticut’s attorney-general Richard Blumenthal (D) lied on several occasions of having served in Vietnam as a Marine. He did not. There’s not much to add to this. Today, Blumenthal is a US Senator. And he is still a liar.
A fellow member of Blumenthal’ Senate Democratic caucus was Tom Harkin (D-IA). He had a bushel of lies about his military service including in Vietnam. Like Blumenthal, Harkin just made up stuff.
Career Democratic politician John Kerry was looking for a quick exit from his Vietnam tour. The rule-of-thumb was anyone wounded three times would be sent home. Kerry lied about being wounded a third time. He gamed the system and squeezed out a third Purple Heart that gave him a quick transfer from combat. Making matters worse is his first two Purple Hearts were awarded for a self-inflicted wound and a scratch that merited a band-aid, according to the Navy doctor who treated him.
Kerry also lied about the circumstances when he shot a young Vietnamese. Kerry insisted he shot a Viet Cong soldier before he launched a deadly attack, but eyewitnesses reported it was an unarmed teenager fleeing from combat.
I am very familiar with Kerry’s falsehoods as I am the journalist who pulled most of the documents from the Navy archives that contradicted his falsehoods. Kerry lied about much of his military service in Vietnam. Even the Navy documents he authored in Vietnam contradicted his 2004 presidential campaign claims.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is currently the most high-profile liar. For two decades he claimed a retired rank he doesn’t hold and claimed to have served in combat in Iraq. Neither is true. Moreover, he was untruthful over his abandoning the soldiers under his command when he abruptly left his National Guard unit shortly before its deployment to Iraq. Honest men and women who served will tell you his actions are contemptible.
Back in the 1990s, Congressman Wes Cooley (R-OR) lied about his education and claimed he was involved in clandestine military service in Vietnam service. None of that was true.
Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) fibbed about his military awards and claims he served in Iraq.
Then there was the case of the Navy’s top officer, the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy “Mike” Boorda. Sadly, Boorda took his own life when it was discovered he dressed up his Navy Commendation Medal and Navy Achievement Medal by adding small bronze Vs to the awards. Affectionately known as a combat V, the symbol is presented when a medal is given for acts of valor, typically in combat. Boorda had not earned the combat Vs when he received the NCM and NAM as a young, junior officer.
One can only speculate what inspired Boorda to embellish his NCM and NAM. The combat Vs were absent from his awards in his official Navy portrait photographs through the rank of captain (O-6). It was Navy policy to have a new photograph taken with every promotion in rank. The combat Vs appeared on Boorda’s awards after a tour of duty in the Pentagon when he was promoted to rear admiral after he had likely seen in the Pentagon corridors a slew of senior officers that had actually earned combat Vs.
James Webb served as the Secretary of the Navy for about a year (1987-1988). He ruffled feathers when he had a senior official in the Navy awards office quietly audit the records of every Navy “flag officer” (Navy admirals and Marine generals). Webb had noticed some of the flag officers in the Pentagon were wearing military awards he was doubtful they earned.
As word quickly spread regarding the audit there was a flurry of flag officers submitting updated official portrait photos that had fewer awards on their chests than their previous photos. One of the first orders of William Ball, Webb’s successor as Navy Secretary, was to shut-down the audit to the welcomed relief of the flag ranks.
It isn’t just the military and veterans. There have been people who’ve claimed veteran status when they’ve never served. An entire book (Stolen Valor) was published about 25 years ago about such military frauds.
Lying in general is an art form in Washington, DC. Congressman George Santos (R-NY) falsified his resumé. New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli recounted watching the live, televised Kefauver organized crime hearings … when he was just five-days old.
Then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) lied about coming under a barrage of sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia. Georgia GOP senate-hopeful Herschel Walker’s claimed he graduated near the top of his college class. In reality, he left school a year early to play professional football.
It’s been said that if only honest men and women were sent to Congress that each chamber would become a very lonely place.
It is not just politicians. Famed military historian William Manchester embellished his WWII service. US Olympic Committee president Sandra Baldwin didn’t have the academic credentials she claimed. Ward Churchill and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) lied (here, here) about being Native American to further their academic careers.
Still, it’s the lure of adding “veteran” to a resume that seemingly attracts all sorts of miscreants. Late in my Navy career I chaired a board that interviewed candidates for direct commissioning into the Navy Reserve. The Navy accepts candidates often without prior military service for direct commissioning (officer) or direct accession (enlisted) to help fill its ranks in the reserves.
I chaired a board that interviewed candidates at Naval Air Facility Washington (collocated with Andrews Air Force Base) outside of Washington, DC. Direct commissioning candidates from the DC-area posed a frequent problem. It was not unusual for Capitol Hill staffers to seek a direct commission, serve a handful of years, and then drop-out and run for political office as a veteran.
The track record was clear. Some would seek an overseas deployment opportunity, but often one that was not anywhere near actual combat. But it’s a great bullet point for political resumés! They were gaming the system and were filling billets that could have otherwise been filled by someone who actually wanted to serve their country rather than pad a resumé.
Washington, DC with its large population of political types is not the only place in America this has occurred. It has happened throughout the nation where someone seeking political office wanted to add “veteran” to his resumé.
Just ask Pete Buttigieg.
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).