{"id":108109,"date":"2020-12-09T12:49:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T17:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=108109"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:31:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:31:13","slug":"robert-mr-bob-walker-official-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=108109","title":{"rendered":"Robert “Mr. Bob” Walker – Official Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You may recall a recent post<\/a> about Robert Walker, who was featured on the front of a magazine called the Chadds Ford JunXion<\/a>, which is a local community magazine.<\/p>\n

On the cover and in the writeup, claims were made about a Navy Cross, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for combat actions in Vietnam.\u00a0 Several of these awards were questioned, in addition to Walker wearing an officer’s uniform.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since this magazine came out and MP & TAH posted about it, there were meetings that took place and military records supplied, both official and non-official – all in an effort to get to what’s accurate and what’s fiction.<\/p>\n

To his credit, the editor of the magazine stepped forward and wanted to get to the ground truth and make any corrections if warranted.\u00a0 Along with a member of the TAH community, who was asked to come along, a face to face meeting with Mr. Bob happened.<\/p>\n

I can only paraphrase the conversation, supplied to us in notes, but two things emerged that caught my attention:<\/p>\n

1) “MISSOURI FIRE”<\/strong> – Walker claims that his military records were affected by the “Missouri Fire” which we would take to mean the National Archives records fire of 1973.\u00a0 However, NO … I repeat … NO Marine Corps records were affected and NO records from Vietnam were affected.<\/p>\n

Read more about the 1973 NPRC fire at NPRC<\/a> and Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NOTE: Although a small few Navy and Marine Corps records were checked out and in the vicinity of the fire, “the present policy of NPRC is to state that there were no Navy and Marine Corps records destroyed in the fire and to treat these records as records that had been lost in ordinary circumstances.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2) ENTITLEMENT<\/strong> – In regard to the Silver Star, Walker claims his actions on the day of question were worthy of and rated the Silver Star vs. the Bronze Star with V.<\/p>\n

Well, with that said I can only offer up the following meme:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If it is not in your records, the military did not feel you rated that award.\u00a0 If your platoon mates felt that you did then there are proper channels to get signoff and approval and have the award upgraded and entered into your records *officially*.\u00a0 Otherwise, it is just a story.<\/p>\n

A common story is what I call the “Kiss My Ass Purple Heart.”\u00a0 This is where somebody claims they were awarded a Purple Heart but told the military to “Shove it – Kiss my Ass” seemingly because others were killed or wounded more severely.\u00a0 A noble story, if true.\u00a0 I point out that the value of that Purple Heart was cashed in at the moment of refusal and for the reasons given, if<\/em><\/strong> the story is true.\u00a0 To tell the story over and over years later is not honorable, in my opinion.\u00a0 It is really saying “I rate one, but here is why it is not in my records.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Bob supplied his records to the editor of the magazine, who graciously supplied it to one of our own, who then supplied it to us.\u00a0 Keep in mind, these records came directly from Walker so there was not a clean chain of custody.<\/p>\n

. . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

MILITARY RECORDS SUPPLIED BY ROBERT WALKER<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Robert Walker supplied DD-214<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Robert Walker supplied Bronze Star citation<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

. . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

MILITARY RECORDS SUPPLIED BY NPRC<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following records came *directly* from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), therefore represent a clean chain of custody.\u00a0 The NPRC is the official government organization that maintains historical records of military service.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
FOIA Results – NPRC – Robert Walker – Summary Sheet<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
FOIA Results – NPRC – Robert Walker – Assignments #1<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
FOIA Results – NPRC – Robert Walker – Assignments #2<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

. . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still no Navy Cross or Silver Star. There is a discrepancy for the Purple Heart in that the DD-214 that Walker supplied states that there are two secondary awards noted by two stars. On the summary sheet from NPRC, which is transcribed from the DD-214, it has one star vs. two.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bob claimed that he was going to pull some awards out of his display case.\u00a0 Ah, where to start?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bob appears to have a military career most would be proud of.\u00a0 Scratching my head as to why he would embellish anything.\u00a0 There was no need.<\/p>\n

What about the school children?\u00a0 What were they told?<\/p>\n

And as the movie title suggests – What about Bob<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may recall a recent post about Robert Walker, who was featured on the front of … Robert “Mr. Bob” Walker – Official Records<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":108110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,609,461,462,408,391,446],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marinecorpsposer","category-navy-cross","category-purple-heart","category-silver-star","category-stolen-valor","category-valorvultures","category-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108121,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108109\/revisions\/108121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/108110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}