{"id":25689,"date":"2011-07-05T07:24:34","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T11:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=25689"},"modified":"2012-03-12T08:46:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:46:16","slug":"richard-ortega-real-life-soup-sandwch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=25689","title":{"rendered":"Richard Ortega, real life soup sandwch"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Our own AverageNCO emails that he’s been working with our buddy Doug Sterner on outing Richard Ortega and the story appears in the Air Force Times<\/a> today;<\/p>\n

The 88-year-old retired chief master sergeant, in his dress uniform, regales crowds with his memories of fighting on D-Day, flying bombing missions over Korea and serving as a special operator during the Vietnam War. The awards on his coat include two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars with \u2018V\u2019 devices and seven Purple Hearts.<\/p>\n

His daughter, Rachael Ortega Bateman, wrote a book about her father\u2019s service. The title reflects her admiration for him: \u201cMy Hero … My Dad: Echoes from the Battlefield.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the National Archives and Records Administration he really did serve in many of the places he claims, but I guess he didn’t think the Army rewarded him properly for his service;<\/p>\n

Ortega has six Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and four Bronze Stars, according to a 2003 article in the Orlando Sentinel. Several newspaper articles from this year put the number of Purple Hearts at seven.<\/p>\n

His dress uniform tells another story.<\/p>\n

He wears a Silver Star Medal ribbon with an oak leaf cluster, a Bronze Star Medal with valor ribbon with three oak leaf clusters and a Purple Heart ribbon with four oak leaf clusters.<\/p>\n

The two Silver Stars do not appear on the personnel record provided by the National Archives and Records Administration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article goes on to list several other discrepancies.<\/p>\n

Ortega’s service was indeed exemplary, and he didn’t need to embellish his career, but here he is stealing the valor of his fellow warriors. Not only that, but look at how his daughter found out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our own AverageNCO emails that he’s been working with our buddy Doug Sterner on outing Richard … Richard Ortega, real life soup sandwch<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25689","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=25689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}