{"id":26429,"date":"2011-09-07T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=26429"},"modified":"2011-09-07T19:10:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T23:10:22","slug":"is-this-really-stolen-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=26429","title":{"rendered":"Is this really stolen valor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote about David Oh and Mike McCalister<\/a> a few weeks ago. They’re both Republicans and they both made comments that were a little “iffy” about their military careers. They had both served with Special Forces units, but they weren’t school trained special forces officers. <\/p>\n

David Oh was an 11-series infantry officer serving in an 18-series special forces officer slot. During Desert Storm he was activated with his Special Forces Detatchment, but he didn’t deploy. I don’t see where he did anything wrong in making claims that he served as a special forces officer because it looks like he did from where I sit.<\/p>\n

McCalister was a colonel who worked at Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base. McCalister said he was involved in some “black ops” – he probably was “involved” at some planning level, but not in an operational capacity.<\/p>\n

Well, I’ve had some time to think about that first post, monitor some of the press and talk to TSO, and I’ve come to the conclusion that neither is really a case of Stolen Valor in my opinion. And the folks who are claiming that they are Stolen Valor are just using a wild stretch for their own political reasons.<\/p>\n

Take McCalister, for example. I’ve emailed with Chuck Winn, McCalister’s main accuser and apparently the only member of the “Stolen Valor Task Force of Florida”. It seems that the SVTF’s only stolen valor research focuses on McCalister. it should be noted that Winn also opposed Marco Rubio’s campaign for the Senate in Florida last year while Winn worked for an opponent Republican.<\/p>\n

Winn seemed just a little too eager to convince me that McCalister was embellishing his career. And the media seems real eager to take Winn’s word for it. Winn, it should be noted is also a veteran. He tells me that he had a 32-year career, 20 years on active duty which ended in 2000.<\/p>\n

I’ll admit that McCalister has done some shady things, but not as shady as Winn makes it sound. Take for example this snippet from Tampa Bay Online<\/a>;<\/p>\n

…McCalister’s campaign website (http:\/\/mikemccalisterforsenate.com\/) reported in response to criticism from Stolen Valor that he “served at the United States Special Operations Command \u2026 from September 1998 to September 2005.”<\/p>\n

The service included time “as a Special Operations Action Officer” from September 1998 to September 1999; and as a research and analysis officer from September 1999 to September 2000, the website says.<\/p>\n

McCalister then worked as assistant deputy chief in the Training, Doctrine and Education Division, Center for Operations, Plans and Policy from September 2000 to September 2005.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So he did work at SOCOM from 1998 to 2005…what’s their stupid point? Did he say that he worked as an operator? No he didn’t. Working at SOCOM is a pretty big deal, in my opinion. Some of our readers are colonels at SOCOM and I’m proud that they read us, and I’ve never asked them what they do…they work at SOCOM, isn’t that impressive enough?<\/p>\n

In the beginning of the article, they make a specious claim that he “violated Army regulations” when he wore his uniform to a dinner;<\/p>\n

On Feb. 16, GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike McCalister, a retired Army National Guard and Reserves colonel, attended the Highlands County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner in full dress uniform.<\/p>\n

That violated Army regulations, which allow former soldiers to wear uniforms on certain occasions but not to political events.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think they’d have a tough time proving that his attendance at a dinner was in violation of the regs. Sure it was a Republican event, but it was also a “Lincoln Day dinner”. Not everything Republicans do as a group are political…they do social stuff, too. Unless McCalister was actually doing something like campaigning or endorsing a political issue, I don’t think it necessarily violates Army regulations. <\/p>\n

I referenced Army regs<\/a> in regards to Dan Choi’s clear violation of policies, but unless Winn is ready to call the Republicans an “extremist organization” I don’t think the regs would prohibit McCalister wearing his uniform to a dinner.<\/p>\n

I don’t know, that’s my opinion. I’ve been a little tentative about writing in regards to this because I didn’t want to appear to favor Republicans, but I think I’d defend Democrats in the same position if I had to. But since no one ever heard of the Stolen valor Task Force before the McCalister campaign, I have to think they’re just bomb throwers tossed together to oppose McCalister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote about David Oh and Mike McCalister a few weeks ago. They’re both Republicans and … Is this really stolen valor?<\/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":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-in-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26429","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=26429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}