Stolen Valor GOP Legislator
Military service records for a Rhode Island lawmaker who has blamed a string of legal troubles on combat stress he suffered in the 1991 Gulf War indicate he never served in the Middle East.
State Rep. Daniel Gordon’s Marine Corps records, obtained by The Associated Press, list him as an aircraft technician who served from 1987 to 1991 in the U.S. and Japan. Gordon has said his leg was injured by shrapnel outside Baghdad.
Gordon’s records also list no Purple Heart award for an injury.
The Portsmouth Republican is fighting calls for his resignation following his arrest on charges stemming from a 2008 police chase in Massachusetts. The arrest exposed past legal problems, including a four-month sentence in 1999 for assault, an attempted murder charge dismissed in 2004 and a long list of traffic offenses in Massachusetts.
Gordon has said his problems sprang from alcohol abuse relating to post-traumatic stress from his service.
On Friday, Gordon insisted that his service record is incomplete. He said he couldn’t provide evidence of his time in Iraq because many of his photos and keepsakes from his service were destroyed in a house fire. Gordon said he couldn’t recall precisely when the fire happened, but said he was living in Fall River, Mass., at the time.