Someone You Should Know

We don't do this often enough on this site. I have no excuse other than current events seem to take precedent.

This gentleman was in town visiting this weekend and a friend sent me a photo from this morning. I'm not sharing the photo, but I am sharing this Marine's dedication to country.

Colonel Wesley Fox USMC Ret

Col. Fox was born in Herndon, Virginia, the oldest of ten. He enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly before his 19th birthday, on August 4, 1950. Corporal Fox was wounded in action during the Korean War on September 8, 1951, but returned for a second tour of duty in Korea as a Platoon Sergeant.

After his Korean War service, Fox returned to the United States and served as both a drill instructor and recruiter. He was promoted to First Sergeant in May 1966, and soon after was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

Assigned to Vietnam, First Lieutenant Fox's actions in Quang Tri Province during Operation Dewey Canyon on February 22, 1969 earned him the Medal of Honor. Having been wounded in action, along with almost every other member of his unit, Fox personally neutralized one enemy emplacement and directed his men to destroy others. After his executive officer was mortally wounded, Fox continued to direct the actions of his Marines, ordering air strikes and coordinating the advance until the enemy retreated. Fox was wounded again in the final assault, but refused medical attention while he reorganized his troops and prepared the wounded for evacuation. The medal was presented to then-Captain Fox by President Richard Nixon on March 2, 1971.

Colonel Fox retired from the Marine Corps in September 1993. He continued to wear the uniform for eight more years as a deputy commandant of cadets for the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets. During his time at Virginia Tech, Fox spoke of his experiences to America's next generation of military officers, business executives, and civic leaders.

Fox has written a book about his experiences in the military, Marine Rifleman: Forty-Three Years in the Corps (ISBN 1-57488-425-5), and was featured on the 2003 PBS program American Valor.

Some Morons Just Don't Get It

and if I have to explain, you wouldn't understand anyway.

Anyone who would deliberately lie about citations, awards, or medals earned is a loser who has to rely on the efforts of others to feel better about themselves. Thats a sad way to live a life. I'm not sure if they deserve pity or contempt.

H/T Blackfive

"Stolen Valor" law under attack
With nothing much held sacred anymore, you knew this had to come:

The federal courts are wrestling with a question of both liberty and patriotism:
Does the First Amendment right to free speech protect people who lie about being war heroes?

At issue is a three-year-old federal law called the Stolen Valor Act that makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to falsely claim to have received a medal from the U.S. military. It is a crime even if the liar makes no effort to profit from his stolen glory.

Attorneys in Colorado and California are challenging the law on behalf of two men charged, saying the First Amendment protects almost all speech that doesn't hurt someone else.

Neither man has been accused by prosecutors of seeking financial gain for himself.

Maybe I misunderstand the intent of the First Amendment, but I've always been under the impression that it protected political speech; i.e. Congress could make no law which stifled or prohibited political speech. The idea was to prevent the sitting government from essentially outlawing the speech of those who didn't agree with it.
So how is lying about a medal "political speech"? And why should a lie be protected anyway? Of course, it shouldn't.

So let's trivialize the offense and exaggerate the "problem" shall we?

Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School who is not involved in the two cases, said the Stolen Valor Act raises serious constitutional questions because it in effect bans bragging or exaggerating about yourself.
"Half the pickup lines in bars across the country could be criminalized under that concept," he said.

For heaven sake, this isn't about "pickup lines in a bar". This is about mooks like the guy just busted in Houston parading around as a Army BG. It is about those that use and feed off of the valor, honor and respect of others who've earned medals to advance their own pathetic lives.

Defense attorneys say the law is problematic in the way it does not require the lie to be part of a scheme for gain. Turley said someone lying about having a medal to profit financially should instead be charged with fraud.

So it is only "fraud" if they profit financially?
Is it legal to pretend you're a doctor? A lawyer? Even if you don't profit financially?
Of course not.

It's as much a fraud as what defense attorney's are trying to wave off here. And so is impersonating an officer, or NCO or any member of the military. It isn't just about financial profit. It's also about theft. These people attempt to steal what someone else has earned for their own purposes.

That's the case with any lie - it has a purpose or there's no reason for it to be told in the first place. MOH awardee Pete Lemon notes that claiming to be what you aren't can bring "undeserved rewards": "It gives you the power to entice somebody into marriage," he said. "It could give you the power to be able to join an organization, get special treatment with regards to getting tickets to a football game, getting license plates, getting preferential treatment in a job situation."

As for the attempt at a First Amendment defense, presidential historian Doug Sterner points out that our first president, George Washington, saw no First Amendment defense for imposters: Sterner noted that Washington created the Purple Heart, the nation's first military decoration, and wrote: "Should any who are not entitled to these honors have the insolence to assume the badges of them, they shall be severely punished."

"I think that speaks to the intent of the framers," Sterner said, "that George Washington saw this kind of lie outside the scope of this freedom-of-speech issue."

Keep an eye on this. If successful, an appeal will be necessary and the milblog community (and the whole blogging world) needs to get behind any such effort. The "Stolen Valor" act is both necessary and, at least in my opinion, constitutional, and if it should be successfully challenged, it is not a law we should let be discarded over false charges of prohibiting "free speech".

Some Sentences Shouldn't Even Be Written

Read this sentence and tell me why you should not be reading it:

One of this country's last remaining WWII Medal of Honor recipients is being asked to remove a flagpole from his property.

Henrico County MoH Recipient Has Flag Issues

Homeowners Associations are like this, yeah they are.

The Barfoot family is accepting donations from supporters but wants the money to go to the USO, the military service organization.
"We want the money to go the families of servicemen, not us," said Margaret Nicholls, Col. Van T. Barfoot's daughter.
The homeowners association in his western Henrico County community wants Barfoot, 90, a Medal of Honor recipient, to remove a freestanding flagpole that he erected in his yard, and from which he flies the American flag daily.
Checks should be made out to the USO and sent to: Stand Tall for Colonel Barfoot, c/o The Hoople Group, 12105 Browning Court, Richmond, Va. 23233.
The Hoople Group also is serving as a clearinghouse for telephone calls, letters and e-mails of support

Hero's funeral. Thank God for men like him.

MA2 Mike Monsoor was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq, giving his life to save his fellow SEALs.

During Mike Monsoor’s funeral in San Diego, as his coffin was being moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, SEALs were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers route forming a column of two’s, with the coffin moving up the center.

As Mike’s coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the wooden coffin.

The slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it. This was a fitting send-off for a warrior hero.




h/t The Daily Brief