In Ranks of Heroes, Finding the Fakes
Last August, the Texas Department of Transportation started asking applicants for more documentation after discovering that at least 11 of the 67 Legion of Merit license plates on the roads had been issued to people who never earned the medal.
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“This kind of fraud matters,” said Doug Sterner, a decorated former Army sergeant, “because it cheapens the valor of service, warps the historical record and scams taxpayers of millions of dollars in veterans’ benefits.”
Over the past decade, Mr. Sterner has built an online database of 120,000 valor-medal recipients going back to the Civil War.
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