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Vietnam Veteran Doug Sterner (homeofheroes.com) |
“We were doing patriotic activities in our home town of Pueblo,” Sterner said.
“We were bringing in Medal of Honor recipients to meet with the kids.”
That work led Sterner to establish his own website, homeofheroes.com, which focused on Medal of Honor recipients.
In the process of establishing the website, Sterner kept running across people
who were falsely claiming to have received the medal. That led him to
get involved with the FBI, where he worked with agents on stolen valor
cases.
Soon, the Army Center for Military History and the Medal of Honor Society
joined Sterner and launched their own websites that listed Medal of Honor
recipients.
“It was very quick and very easy to vet anyone who falsely claimed a Medal of
Honor,” he said.
Then Sterner noticed a shift in stolen valor cases, as more and more people
began falsely claiming to have received service crosses.
“It’s not about stolen valor, it’s about forgotten valor,” he said.
“When you start reading citations, you know stories come alive,” he
said.