{"id":125703,"date":"2022-05-10T10:10:20","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=125703"},"modified":"2022-05-10T10:11:11","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:11:11","slug":"veteran-says-late-sen-orrin-hatch-not-entitled-to-a-military-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125703","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Says Late Sen Orrin Hatch Not Entitled to a Military Honors"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A Vietnam veteran wrote an op-ed for The Salt Lake Tribune expressing his opinion about the funeral held for US Senator Orrin Hatch.<\/p>\n

Letter: Orrin Hatch was not entitled to military honors at his funeral<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

By Luciano S. Martinez | The Public Forum | May 10, 2022<\/p>\n

As a U.S. Army veteran, who served in Vietnam (1967-1968), I was offended to see the pictures in The Tribune of Orrin Hatch being honored by the military at his funeral. He did not deserve this honor. He could have served, like so many of his generation, but chose not to do so.<\/p>\n

It does not bother me that the former senator did not serve in our Armed Forces, but he should not receive military honors he did not earn. This is akin to someone wearing military medals he\/she does not deserve, and falls under the category of, \u201cstolen valor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Department of Defense Instruction 4515.19 Policy 1.2, section b, states, without exception, that under United States Code, \u201ca former member of Congress who is not a veteran is not entitled to military funeral honors.\u201d Military officers associated with the funeral should have been aware of this regulation, and informed civilian funeral planners accordingly.<\/p>\n

Even if military officers say they were following directions from Gov. Spencer Cox, as members of the National Guard they are still subject to Department of Defense regulations. A departmental investigation might clear up how military participation was approved, so that this does not occur again.<\/p>\n

Orrin Hatch was entitled to law enforcement participation in his funeral as a former elected official of the state. This should have been sufficient to show respect in an exemplary manner.<\/p>\n

Not every military veteran can receive a funeral like Orrin Hatch. Citizens do, however, have two opportunities to honor our service members, past and present, this month. Saturday, May 21, is Armed Forces Day. Then, Monday, May 30, is Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

We must never forget that without our military, we would not be, \u201cThe land of the free, and home of the brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luciano S. Martinez, Murray<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Senator Hatch was the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving senator from Utah. He died on April 23, 2022 at age 88.<\/p>\n

The issue raised about stolen valor is a tough one. On one hand Hatch may have not had input into this but on the other hand funerals for past presidents and other distinguished politicians are planned far in advance of them passing away so there is a possibility he was aware of it. One would have to dig into the arrangements. I also don’t know the rules that surround military honors at funerals and if there are exceptions made for politicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Vietnam veteran wrote an op-ed for The Salt Lake Tribune expressing his opinion about the … Veteran Says Late Sen Orrin Hatch Not Entitled to a Military Honors<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":125705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125703","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\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/125705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}