{"id":72263,"date":"2017-05-24T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=72263"},"modified":"2017-05-23T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T21:32:09","slug":"snopes-asks-tah-about-sheriff-clarkes-stolen-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=72263","title":{"rendered":"Snopes asks TAH about Sheriff Clarke’s Stolen Valor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Snopes<\/a> reached out to us on the question of Sheriff David Clarke’s Stolen Valor;<\/p>\n

But criticism of Clarke\u2019s uniform is purely subjective. John Lilyea, a retired Army sergeant who runs the blog \u201cThis Ain\u2019t Hell\u201d which often deals with stolen valor cases, said he saw nothing wrong with Clarke\u2019s pins, and thought the kerfuffle was much ado about nothing. In an e-mail, he told us:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see anything wrong with what Sheriff Clarke is wearing. None of it is military-related\u2026 The people in the Salon article were just having an emotional reaction to the sight of the Sheriff in his uniform rather than anything substantial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lilyea directed us to a blog post he had written on the topic (categorized under \u201cDumbass Bullshit\u201d) in which he characterized the controversy as nothing more than partisanship:<\/p>\n

The whole thing is childish and it\u2019s a political attack. We\u2019ve busted phonies here on both sides of the political aisle, irrespective of their politics because that\u2019s the nature of stolen valor. I can\u2019t find any articles on Salon that take [Democratic Connecticut Senator] Dick Blumenthal to task on his fake claims that Blumenthal was a Vietnam veteran.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anthony Anderson, a staff sergeant who runs the web site \u201cGuardian of Valor\u201d and has taken on the task of busting military impostors, agreed with Lilyea. He told us by e-mail:<\/p>\n

From what we can see there are no official military badges or insignia on this man\u2019s uniform.<\/p>\n

We see a bunch of pro-American and Law Enforcement pins. Not sure why anyone would approach this man and accuse him of Stolen Valor. Unless there is a background that we don\u2019t know of, there\u2019s nothing offensive or wrong with what he is wearing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More important, perhaps is Sheriff Clark’s response;<\/p>\n

You know they\u2019re talking about some of the pins on my uniform, first of all they\u2019re not medals, they\u2019re pins. And they have very significant emotional and real value to me. Some of these have been handed to [me] by people who have lost sons and daughters in the line of duty, or a spouse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tiara boy scrambles to save a shred of his dignity. Too late.<\/p>\n

Snopes concludes;<\/p>\n

Actual \u201cstolen valor\u201d is a serious offense \u2014 it\u2019s a federal crime to wear authentic military medals like a silver star, a Purple Heart or a Combat Infantryman\u2019s Badge without having earned them. Although Clarke has a penchant for meticulously arranging his personal pins on his dress uniform, he never claimed to have served in the military and says the items are personal belongings, not military-issued medals or badges.<\/p>\n

It may be a gray area for some, but the level of offense taken is in the eye of the beholder. Clarke does not misrepresent his past nor does he masquerade as a veteran of the armed forces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snopes reached out to us on the question of Sheriff David Clarke’s Stolen Valor; But criticism … Snopes asks TAH about Sheriff Clarke’s Stolen Valor<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-who-knows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72263","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=72263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}