{"id":19048,"date":"2010-05-10T12:01:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T17:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=19048"},"modified":"2010-05-10T12:01:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T17:01:51","slug":"a-well-deserved-salute-to-mr-doug-sterner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=19048","title":{"rendered":"A well-deserved salute to Mr. Doug Sterner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mr-doug-sterner\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just A Grunt sent us a link to a Washington Post<\/a> story about Mr. Doug Sterner. Some of you who hung around here this weekend might recognize his name as one of our commenters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At times, the database has been his only job, and an unpaid one at that. He’s fallen behind on rent and bills. Friends have urged him to slow down. But he continues, driven by a desire to prevent “the real heroes” from “being lost to history.”<\/p>\n

In 2008, the Military Times bought Sterner’s database for $250,000, allowing him to devote himself mainly to the project. His list is so comprehensive that FBI agents routinely rely on him. “He would be my first source to go to,” Cottone said. “He’s invaluable.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While we’ve never met, Mr. Sterner and I have shared some email communications. Like the good folks at POW Net, Mr. Sterner has been in the shadows of some of our phony soldiers stories. I’m sure he’s a bit embarrassed by the Washington Post article, humble guy that he is, but he’s probably one of the most important people in the battle against fakes and phonies. Mr. Sterner practically wrote the Stolen Valor Act and created the Home of Heroes<\/a> database.<\/p>\n

Every time his name pops up in my inbox, I’m humbled by the thought that such a fine veteran and American bothers to read our humble blog. Last week I almost went weak in my knees when a reporter told me that Mr. Sterner had recommended This Ain’t Hell and our research to him.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Just A Grunt for providing us at TAH with this opportunity to thank Mr. Sterner for his difficult and selfless labors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just A Grunt sent us a link to a Washington Post story about Mr. Doug Sterner. … A well-deserved salute to Mr. Doug Sterner<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19048","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}