A veterans group alerted authorities to a Norfolk man's false claims about his military honors.
By Mike Gangloff The Roanoke Times
Correction: An earlier version of this article confused which veterans group tipped federal authorities to Barnhart's claims. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jake Jacobsen credited the Web site www.pownetwork.org with alerting investigators.
Even as he pleaded guilty to inflating his military record, Thomas James Barnhart insisted he'd received a Purple Heart.
"I was given a Purple Heart with no paperwork in Vietnam, so it was as if I had made up the award myself," Barnhart, 58, said Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Barnhart also improperly sought benefits. In 1991 and 2005, Barnhart told Veterans Affairs interviewers tales of combat missions and a pilot dying in his arms. He said he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor.
But investigation showed only that Barnhart earned a medal for offshore duty during the Vietnam War. There was no record of combat or combat awards.
Barnhart pleaded guilty to violating federal Stolen Valor legislation by falsely claiming to have been awarded medals. He also pleaded guilty to a felony embezzlement charge tied to $13,923 in disability payments for supposed post-traumatic stress disorder.Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran from Colorado who was a leading advocate for the 2005 Stolen Valor legislation, said Barnhart's case shows the need for Congress to push the military to keep better records of medals such as Purple Hearts.
"There are literally tens of thousands of people who were given awards that never made it to paperwork," Sterner said.read more here
This is a very true problem for a lot of veterans. Paperwork errors have caused awards to end up in someone else's file because of a mistake on a social security number. The reason to save paperwork after discharge escaped many veterans and they simply tossed them out so they wouldn't be reminded. When errors were made, the veteran was left to either have to prove what they were saying was true, showing their own copies of documents, or they ended up with a lax case worker ready to believe anything. In our case, we were not so lucky until the error regarding my husband's award reached the ear of a general.
When we sent his aid the copies of the award along with some other documents we had, the record was corrected, the Bronze Star Award was finally in his file and he received a new award document to hang on the wall. That document is tucked away in a draw because the one with the wrong social security number on it is the one he was given in Vietnam and it is the one that meant the most to my husband. I often wonder what would have happened if my husband had not saved everything he was given. How could he prove what he was saying was true when the other paperwork must have been in someone else's file? How can any veteran prove anything without their own copies? With all he went through trying to have his claim approved, there are many more trying to do the same thing legitimately but we have to read stories like this about frauds trying to get what they didn't earn at the same time veterans are unable to receive what they already paid for in real life. Just doesn't seem fair at all.
Make sure you keep your records because you never know when they might be the only copies there are of what you need to prove yourself yet again.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If it is not helpful, do not be hurtful. Spam removed so do not try putting up free ad.