{"id":79343,"date":"2018-05-10T09:39:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T13:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=79343"},"modified":"2022-01-23T22:45:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T03:45:46","slug":"mike-ritze-valor-theft-in-ok-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=79343","title":{"rendered":"Mike Ritze; valor theft in OK legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

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According to Tulsa World<\/a>, Oklahoma Legislator Mike Ritze who represents Broken Arrow has been called out by two of his peers for wearing a Disabled American Veterans cap with a Purple Heart attached on the floor of the chamber;<\/p>\n

Two of his House colleagues \u2014 Reps. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, and Josh West, R- Grove \u2014 are accusing Ritze of embellishing his military record. They say he has been wearing on the House floor the DAV cover \u2014 or hat \u2014 with a Purple Heart insignia, implying that he was a member and had been awarded the medal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He also claimed that DAV had given him a honorary membership in the organization. DAV denies that and they’ve asked him to stop using their name in his campaign material.<\/p>\n

Ritze did serve in the Army’s Medical Corps and he was discharged as a Captain after eight years of service, according to his discharge certificate;<\/p>\n

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McDugle called Ritze\u2019s situation a case of stolen valor \u2014 when someone wears something they didn\u2019t earn. McDugle served eight years with the U.S. Marines, serving with an infantry unit, special forces unit and airborne forward observer unit, and was also a drill instructor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a big deal,\u201d McDugle said. \u201cIt is an honor situation. The idea is: Why portray himself as something he is not? It calls into question everything else he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

West, who served nine years in the Army, was awarded a Purple Heart from a firefight in Iraq in 2003 where he was shot in both legs and the stomach and sustained a traumatic brain injury.<\/p>\n

West said he respects all veterans, regardless of whether or not they served in combat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very personal when people embellish their service,\u201d West said. \u201cI take issue with it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Tulsa World, Oklahoma Legislator Mike Ritze who represents Broken Arrow has been called out … Mike Ritze; valor theft in OK legislature<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79343","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=79343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}