Veteran tracks valor medals, stolen and forgotten

Veteran tracks valor medals, stolen and forgotten
By: JULIA LEDOUX
InsideNova
Published: August 06, 2012

For Doug Sterner, it’s not just a matter of stolen valor; it’s also a matter of forgot­ten valor.

The Vietnam veteran and former Army combat engineer has spent years researching valor medals — including the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross — that have been presented to the nation’s service members. He’s combed through records and made countless Freedom of Information requests to document who has received the awards and why.

The result of that research is easy to see in a spare bedroom in Sterner’s apartment: Folders and binders are filled with the docu­mentation, some of which the Army itself doesn’t have due to a 1973 fire in St. Louis that burned a records center.

Thus far, Sterner estimates he’s documented about 105,000 of the nearly 350,000 medals above the Bronze Star and up to the Medal of Honor that have been award­ed. He is so dedicated to his quest that he and his wife moved from their hometown of Pueblo, Colo., to Alexandria, where they could be closer to records stored at the National Archives, Quantico Ma­rine Corps base, the Washington Navy Yard and other locations holding details.

“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, Home of Heroes, which focused on Medal of Honor recipients.
read more here