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74–036 PDF 2012

PREVENTING STOLEN VALOR: CHALLENGES AND

SOLUTIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Serial No. 112–127

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform
(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

CONNIE MACK, Florida

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

JOE WALSH, Illinois

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JACKIE SPEIER, California

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN

OPERATIONS

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Ranking

Minority Member

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 29, 2012 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Hebert, Lernes, Director, Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management,

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness,

U.S. Department of Defense; Colonel Jason Evans, Adjutant General,

U.S. Army; Colonel Karl Mostert, Director, Awards and Decorations,

U.S. Air Force; James Nierle, president, Board of Decorations & Medals, U.S. Department of Navy; Scott Levins, Director, Military Records,

National Personnel Records Center; Joseph Davis, director, public affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars; and Doug Sterner, curator, Military

Times Hall of Valor ....................................................................................... 7

Davis, Joseph ............................................................................................. 36

Evans, Colonel Jason ................................................................................ 15

Hebert, Lernes ........................................................................................... 7

Levins, Scott .............................................................................................. 28

Mostert, Colonel Karl ................................................................................ 19

Nierle, James ............................................................................................. 23

Sterner, Doug ............................................................................................. 42

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Joseph, director, public affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 38

Evans, Colonel Jason, Adjutant General, U.S. Army, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 17

Hebert, Lernes, Director, Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management,

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness,

U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of ................................. 10

Levins, Scott, Director, Military Records, National Personnel Records

Center, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 30

Mostert, Colonel Karl, Director, Awards and Decorations, U.S. Air Force,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 20

Nierle, James, president, Board of Decorations & Medals, U.S. Department of Navy, prepared statement of .......................................................... 25

Sterner, Doug, curator, Military Times Hall of Valor, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 44

(1)

PREVENTING STOLEN VALOR: CHALLENGES

AND SOLUTIONS

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND

DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Platts, Labrador, Tierney,

Clay, Quigley, and Braley.

Also present: Representatives Issa and Cummings.

Staff present: Thomas A. Alexander, senior counsel; Michael R.

Bebeau, assistant clerk; Adam P. Fromm, director of Member services and committee operations; Mitchell S. Kominsky, counsel;

Sang H. Yi, professional staff member; Nadia A. Zahran, staff assistant; Jaron Bourke, minority director of administration; Devon

Hill, minority staff assistant; Peter Kenny and Carlos Uriarte, minority counsel; Paul Kincaid, minority press secretary; and Mark

Stephenson, minority director of legislation.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The committee will come to order.

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight Committee Mission Statement.

We exist to secure two fundamental principles. First, Americans

have the right to know that the money Washington takes from

them is well spent. Second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them.

Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee

is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right

to know what they are getting from the government.

We will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to

deliver the facts to the American people and bring them genuine

reform to the Federal bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I want to welcome everyone to this hearing which we have entitled Preventing Stolen Valor: Challenges and Solutions. I would

like to welcome Ranking Member Tierney, members of the subcommittees, members of the audience and especially the chairman

of our full committee, Mr. Issa of California.

The National Security Subcommittee has a long history of overseeing matters affecting the treatment of our troops and veterans.
2

Under both Republican and Democratic leadership, Members have

worked side by side to help ensure the best care for our wounded

warriors. Last May, we addressed the lengthy transition of wounded warriors from the Department of Defense to the Department of

Veterans Affairs. Today, we will address the impact of those who

lie about military service for their own personal gain. We also

looked at whether the Federal Government has the ability to track,

store and locate personnel records and to the extent they are accessible.

As a Nation, we honor those who wear the uniform and defend

our freedom. In recognition of their service, we bestow medals and

citations. Some are awarded on a routine basis such as a Good

Conduct Medal. Others such as the Congressional Medal of Honor

and the Distinguished Service Cross are reserved for the most heroic acts of sacrifice.

Sadly, there are some who claim awards even they were not

earned. According to the VA’s Inspector General, there were 78 arrests from stolen valor investigations between January 1, 2010 and

September 30, 2011. These arrests generated over $10 million in

restitution and roughly $5.4 million in administrative savings and

recovery of taxpayer dollars.

In some cases, stolen valor has involved ‘‘renting‘‘ the military

service of legitimate veterans. The purpose of renting is to obtain

access to government services and programs reserved for truly disabled servicemen. These actions are despicable and must be prevented.

It was recently discovered that a government contractor set up

a construction company with a disabled veteran as the figurehead.

This company fraudulently obtained $3.4 million in preferential

contracts issued by the VA.

Last year, I was approached by someone claiming to have earned

the Silver Star, a Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart.

Shortly after presenting the medals to him at a town hall meeting,

I learned that he may have falsified his paperwork and potentially

lied about his awards. My office is not alone. As Mr. Sterner will

attest, there are more than a few Members of Congress who have

been publicly victimized.

Unfortunately, this behavior is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed,

it has been a problem since our Nation’s founding. In 1782, General

George Washington proclaimed, ‘‘Should any who are not entitled

to these honors have the insolence to assume the badges of them,

they shall be severely punished.’’ As a founding father and war

hero, he recognized the importance of protecting the valor.

In that same spirit, Congress acted in 2005 to impose fines and

imprisonment for those who falsely represent themselves. The Stolen Valor Act, however, is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Alvarez. While that case is certainly open

for discussion, its merits are not the focus of today’s discussion.

Rather, we will concentrate on the Federal Government’s effort

to track, store and access military records. Do we have the proper

systems in place? What portion of the overall data is digitized and

searchable? Are the data easily acceptable to those who need to

know? Are the Federal Government’s efforts cost effective? Can we

do it faster, cheaper and more efficiently?
3

I hope that our discussion today will answer these questions and

bring us closer to finding a solution. Preventing stolen valor is critical to preserving the dignity of the honors bestowed upon our men

and women in uniform.

We have people who want to employ those who have served in

our military and done so with honor. I worry that those people

have no way of verifying whether or not these medals are true. I

am not talking about some guy trying to impress some girl in a bar

somewhere. I am talking about someone who legitimately wants to

hire somebody and all things being equal, wants to do it for someone who has served their nation. I worry that there is no mechanism to find that out, that it is convoluted at best, there isn’t the

coordination that needs to happen and consequently, we have people abusing the system.

I like what President Ronald Reagan said, ‘‘Trust but verify.’’

There needs to be a way to go through this verification process.

That, to me, is the heart of what we are trying to do here in this

hearing.

I look forward to hearing from the panel. I appreciate all of your

efforts: your patriotism, your commitment to this issue and your

being here.

Now I would like to recognize the ranking member, the former

chairman of the full committee, Mr. Tierney from New York, for

the purpose of an opening statement.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the

members of this extensive panel I see before us here today.

The topic of stolen valor is timely and important. In the past,

Congress has acted to defend recipients of military service awards

and to punish those who misappropriate the honors and prestige of

the awards for their own personal, professional benefit. The Stolen

Valor Act of 2005 makes it a crime to falsely represent oneself as

a service award recipient and provides for jail time up to 1 year

depending on the award falsely claimed.

Though the question before us today, as the chairman rightly

notes, is not whether or not those who commit acts of stolen valor

should be exposed and punished, instead the question this subcommittee should be asking is whether and how the Federal Government can do a better job of maintaining and assessing service

records to verify awards in order to protect the public, including

Members of Congress, from this type of fraud.

As we assess the scope of this problem of false representation of

valor and any proposed solution, I think we should probably focus

on three key points. First, the awards verification process must be

factually accurate. This means that any official response from the

Department of Defense must rely on official records, must rely on

examination of the entire record and that any proposed list or data

base must be comprehensive.

Second, the awards verification process must be responsive. Since

the purpose of the system is to help confirm awards of valor to the

public, I believe the responses must be timely to limit the possibility of fraud.

Last, the awards verification process must be cost effective. In

this climate of budget cuts and economic insecurity, it is important

that any system for confirming military awards provide the most
4

accurate and timely responses at the lowest cost to the taxpayer.

To that end, I would just note that the National Personnel Records

Center contains 60 million official military personnel records.

The approximate cost of responding to a personnel records re- quest, which can involve the reconstruction of the record, is $33 per

record. As we look to ways to improve the current system, I suggest

we start by looking at the Department of Defense in a decentralized way that they respond to these requests.

Although the National Personnel Records Center previously

served as the one stop shop for verifying military personnel

records, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. With the advent

of electronic records systems in the 1990’s, the service departments

began developing their own data bases.

I think it is instructive that look out at the panel here this morning and I see six people from the Services here testifying when we

probably only need one if we had any kind of centralization on this.

I think that probably speaks to a lot of issues with our military

today but we do seem to be decentralizing and probably duplicating

a lot of activities at considerable expense.

Today, each of the Service departments has a different relationship with the National Personnel Records Center which leads to

different processes and procedures to verify records. I would like to

hear each of the witnesses tell me why they think that is the best

way to proceed or if they think we ought to change that and how

we might go about changing it so we don’t end up with a situation.

We have to determine whether or not we can have a more consistent, uniform system that would improve both responsiveness

and efficiency.

Last, I want to briefly thank Mr. Sterner for his personal contribution. I understand that the data base you have worked on has

assisted law enforcement in stolen valor investigations and even

assisted members of the public. I thank you for that.

I thank all of you for your interest in the topic, thank all of you

for your testimony here today and I look forward to our discussions.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.

I will now recognize the chairman of our full committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for 5 minutes.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What we are going to do here today, as both the chairman and

ranking member pointed out, is going to deal with the accuracy and

the efficiency of the records so that, in fact, we have a better, more

consistent and easier to access data base for confirmation.

As a Member of Congress, if I didn’t say the name Wes Cooley

here, I wouldn’t be reminding people that we have had people who

either ran for or got elected to Congress who flat lied about their

service careers, either exaggerated medals, combat service or in

fact, didn’t serve at all. That is one of the problems we have, there

is not enough transparency to the entire public for honorable service.

At the risk of being inaccurate, I will carefully say I have two

honorable discharges and two DD214s. I will say no more because,

in fact, my service was not special, I was not awarded medals for

valor. In fact, it is important that all of us understand that we be-
5

stow well-earned special rights, privileges and places of honor on

behalf of those who served honorably.

I think this committee has a special obligation. The ranking

member, in his opening statement, included the word efficiency.

This committee certainly wants efficiency. If it costs $33 or $300

a record to get it right, our choice is get it right or dishonor those

who served and gave so much.

Just yesterday, I had the honor of meeting with Dwight David

Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, one of our very few five-star generals in history, President

of the United States for 8 years, is buried in a Navy Valor coffin

with one row of medals by his choice.

Those who serve honorably, those who serve at the highest levels, for the longest time and with the greatest valor, all of the

above, usually tell less about what they did. They don’t feel the

need to brag in bars about their service in Nam. They often don’t

get enough credit for what they have done.

This committee takes a special pride and obligation in making

sure those who don’t talk enough and don’t exaggerate are honored

appropriately and never again do we find false medals being

awarded by Members of Congress, false medals being worn by individuals or in fact, people claiming special positions for hire or contracting because of a claimed service which they did not do and did

not earn.

Mr. Chairman, I think there is no more important hearing we

will hold than to make sure we hold accountable those who would

lie about their service and bring such a questionable honor on

those who do.

I have no special right to talk on service. My service was just mediocre by my own statements. I came, I served, I was enlisted and

I was fortunate enough to get a college education and be commissioned, but I served with an awful lot of great people. Some of them

are buried at Arlington. All of them gave a great deal. They hold

a special place in my heart.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing and

for national security, including getting it right for our veterans.

I yield back.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Thank you for your service.

To all those who have served, thank you. That is the heart of this

hearing.

I would now like to recognize the ranking member of the full

committee, Mr. Cummings for 5 minutes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for calling this hearing today to examine the problem

of fraudulent claims of military service awards and decorations. As

you know, in 2005, Congress passed the Stolen Valor Act to make

it a crime for anyone to falsely claim the receipt of a congressionally authorized medal or decoration.

When this legislation was considered in Congress, it passed the

House unanimously. Although the statute has since been challenged in court, I think we can all agree that Congress should do

everything it can to ensure the integrity of our military awards and

decorations.
6

As we consider potential solutions, I think it is important to understand the scope of the problem. For example, in his written testimony, Mr. Nierle states that the Department of the Navy has received only two requests from law enforcement agencies for

verification of military awards since 2008. Similarly, Mr. Herbert,

the Director of Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management at the

Department of Defense states in his testimony that ‘‘limited frequency of such claims helps to inform the way forward.’’

I look forward to hearing from the panelists today about the

scope of the problem so that we can ensure that Congress and the

Executive respond appropriately.

Now, I would like to yield to Mr. Clay the balance of my time.

Mr. CLAY. I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to introduce Mr. Levins.

As St. Louis’ Congressman, I am proud to represent the National

Personnel Records Center. Director Levins and his excellent work

force of National Archives employees perform critically important

services. The men and women who have served our country in uniform and as Federal civilian workers count on Mr. Levins and his

staff to fulfill more than 25,000 requests for records each year.

They do so professionally and properly while upholding the highest

traditions and standards of the National Archives.

I want to say unequivocally that I believe Archivist David

Ferriero has an exceptional leader in Director Levins. Moreover,

the Archives employees at NPRC are doing an outstanding job and

I give them my thanks and thanks to this committee and the chairman.

I yield back.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Does any other Member wish to make an opening statement?

Very good.

Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for the

record.

I will now recognize our panel. I want to make sure I get each

of your names proper.

Mr. Hebert is the Director of Officer and Enlisted Personnel

Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Colonel Jason Evans is the Adjutant General of the U.S. Army. Colonel Karl Mostert is Director of Awards

and Decorations for the U.S. Air Force. Mr. James Nierle is the

President, Board of Decorations and Medals, Department of Navy.

Mr. Scott Levins is Director for Military Records at the National

Personnel Records Center. Mr. Joseph Davis is the director of public affairs for Veterans of Foreign Wars. Mr. Doug Sterner is the

curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor.

We thank you again for the time and effort of you all being here.

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before

they testify. Please rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. You may be seated.

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
7

In order to allow time for proper discussion, please limit your

verbal testimony to less than 5 minutes. We have a rather large

panel and we would like to get to the questioning. We will submit

your entire statement into the record and if you have additional

materials you would like to add later, please submit those to the

committee within 5 days.

We will now recognize our first witness, Mr. Hebert, for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF LERNES HEBERT, DIRECTOR, OFFICER AND

ENLISTED PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF THE

UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PERSONNEL AND

READINESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; COLONEL

JASON EVANS, ADJUTANT GENERAL, U.S. ARMY; COLONEL

KARL MOSTERT, DIRECTOR, AWARDS AND DECORATIONS,

U.S. AIR FORCE; JAMES NIERLE, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF

DECORATIONS & MEDALS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF NAVY;

SCOTT LEVINS, DIRECTOR, MILITARY RECORDS, NATIONAL

PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER; JOSEPH DAVIS, DIRECTOR,

PUBLIC AFFAIRS, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS; AND DOUG

STERNER, CURATOR, MILITARY TIMES HALL OF VALOR

STATEMENT OF LERNES HEBERT

Mr. HEBERT. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz, Mr. Tierney and

distinguished members of the committee.

I am honored to come before you this morning to address concerns regarding the fabrication of military service records and

awards by those who fraudulently seek to obtain personal and professional benefit and the mechanisms available to verify such

claims.

Before I proceed with my formal statement, I would offer to you

two points. First, I am convinced that everyone in this panel and

in this committee are equally committed to the protection of our

veterans and our serving members and equally committed to the

recognition of their service, valor or not. It is that service that

makes the Nation what it is.

As many of us have served, both in the committee and on this

panel, it is our right and our privilege to protect those who follow.

That being said, although the Department of Defense is not responsible for prosecuting criminal offenses under the Stolen Valor

Act, the military departments do provide verification of claims to

military decorations and awards based on requests from the Department of Justice, the States Attorneys General, law enforcement

agencies and Members of Congress.

Each military department does have the authority to prosecute

and discipline currently serving members who fraudulently claim

military decorations and awards. While even one false claim is too

many, the limited frequency of such claims does help to inform the

way forward.

Regarding the Department’s ability to maintain data bases to

track and access service records, each military service currently

maintains digitized official military personnel records which include the Certificate of Separation on Discharge and documents detailing military decorations and awards conferred.
8

A limitation of these files is that the conversion began in the

1990’s and wasn’t completed for all services until 2004. Official

military personnel records that have not been digitized are maintained in the National Personnel Records Center or National Archives. To enhance access to these digital files, the Defense Personnel Records Information Retrieval System was launched in

2002, providing a portal through which authorized government

agencies may access the military departments’ official military personnel records.

Some of the agencies that currently have access include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor

and the Federal Aviation Administration. Over the past few years,

there has been significant increase in the use of this system. Last

year alone, over three-quarters of a million inquiries were fielded.

This system provides fast and efficient means of verifying military decorations and awards with regard to fraudulent claims.

However, limitations inherent in such an automated system don’t

allow us to determine the purpose for which the inquiry was done,

whether it was to verify awards or decorations or to verify employment or service because the scope of the information provided in

the system is so broad, it allows law enforcement agencies to verify

a broad variety of questions that might come up.

While the Defense Personnel Records Information Retrieval System provides access to digital files, each military service, along

with the National Personnel Records Center, must individually

process requests for verification of military decorations for service

members whose records only exist on paper or microfiche.

Regardless of the age or type of record being verified, each military department provides priority responses to requests from law

enforcement organizations or Members of Congress. Naturally,

verification of paper and microfiche records is more time consuming

as these records must be located and manually reviewed to determine decorations and awards conferred.

Verification of these records is not always definitive. There was

a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in 1973 that destroyed approximately 16–18 million Army and Air Force records.

Although the military departments receive many requests for

verification of military decorations, very few of these requests have

been identified as specifically tied to fraudulent awards with regard to the Stolen Valor Act.

The Department’s ‘‘Report to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on a Searchable Military Valor Decorations Data

base,’’ in March 2009 details the issues associated with making this

information public. The Department determined that the utility of

a publicly accessible data base is limited by the need to protect personal privacy and the lack of a means to account for all decorations. The omission of even one individual from this data base can

inadvertently harm a veteran, the same person it was designed to

protect.

The Department concluded that protection of the individual was

paramount and therefore, opted to use tiered levels of review and

the government accessible data base I have described. While only

more recent records benefit from current technology, the alter-
9

native would require digital conversion of up to 60 million service

members’ personnel records at a substantial cost. Given the limited

number of inquiries the Department receives each year, allowing

records professionals to verify older records on a case by case basis

has proven to be an effective process.

That is not to say there is not room for improvement. The Department recognizes every system we have has room for improvement with regard to efficiency and effectiveness.

Each witness here today will further address their respective organization’s decorations and awards process.

I thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and for

your continued support of our military members and their families.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hebert follows:]
10
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12
13
14
15

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Colonel Evans.

STATEMENT OF COLONEL JASON EVANS

Colonel EVANS. Chairman Chaffetz, Representative Tierney and

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of America’s Army.

It is a privilege to be here today to present our system of military

awards to you. The Awards and Decorations Branch is the centerpiece of the Army’s Military Awards Program. Our awards system

recognizes distinguished acts of valor and bravery for our soldiers

and when needed, supports internal and external agencies with

verifying cases of possible fraudulent awards.

There is no greater act of heroism than serving this great country in uniform and there should never be a time when a member’s

service is compromised by those who misrepresent their service to

this great Nation and fraudulently receive awards. In that, we

make it a priority to support agencies who request our support and

expertise to verify awards for those suspected of and charged with

making fraudulent award claims.

The Army uses multiple data bases and a systemic process to

protect the integrity of our awards system and to verify awards information on its soldiers, past and present. The Army verifies a soldier’s awards record through internal personnel data bases, official

military record files, microfiche and other historical and records

cache resources which require research and analysis.

At the request of internal and external agencies, we use all those

systems and have been able to support or deny suspected fraudulent award claims. Upon receipt of a request, we make it a priority

to conduct thorough research and analysis and provide timely feedback to the requesting agency.

A soldier’s personnel service record impacts the timeliness of our

feedback. In many cases, for a soldier who served during a past

conflict, we request the soldier’s personnel records from the National Personnel Records Center to assist in the process of validating approved awards. When validating award requests, the

Army takes great care not to deny a valor award solely based on

the omission of records.

Record losses stemmed from the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center, additionally, errors may have been made in

recording the award or records have been lost entirely through no

fault of the soldier. The Army will exhaust all available resources

before stating we cannot confirm an individual was not awarded a

valor award. This process may take 6 months or more.

We routinely assist the Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of

Investigation, judge advocates, as well as the Army Board of Correction of Military Records, Veterans Affairs, congressional Members and Army units. Over the past 3 years, we are aware of less

than 20 fraudulent cases. In each case, we have assisted in providing valuable information to these organizations which prompted

the need for further investigation or prosecution by the appropriate

authorities.
16

While service organizations play a critical role in assisting veterans to receive retroactive awards, we are aware there are illegitimate, on-line services which claim to provide Army awards and

decorations. However, those illegitimate, on-line resources are not

supported by the Army as a reliable resource to validate award information and issue reproduction certificates.

The Army awards system contains numerous checks and balances which include endorsements from various levels of the chain

of command and human resources elements for ensuring the appropriate level of recognition is warranted for each soldier.

We will continue supporting all legitimate agencies to protect the

integrity of the Military Awards Program for our men and women

who honorably serve this nation.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you

today. I look forward to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Evans follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Colonel Mostert.

STATEMENT OF COLONEL KARL MOSTERT

Colonel MOSTERT. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I thank you for

the opportunity to appear before you today representing the men

and women of the U.S. Air Force. We appreciate your leadership

and continued support of our Airmen and their families.

We have many Airmen who go above and beyond the call of duty

while performing their duties. We recognize these individuals with

military awards and decorations. By their unwavering actions, they

have earned the right to wear these awards and decorations and

to wear them proudly.

Unfortunately, there are occasions where current or former military members or those who claim to be former military members,

fraudulently assert to have earned awards for valor. This action

has the potential to degrade the value of our military recognition

program. The Air Force takes this matter very seriously. All

awards and decorations earned by an Airman are included in, and

can be verified, through their official military personnel record.

When our Department receives a request for award verification

from Congress, through the Secretary of the Air Force’s Legislative

Liaison Office or from law enforcement agencies, our Air Force Personnel Center conducts research and provides validated results. If

the person being researched is an active duty Airman or one who

separated from the Service during or after October 2004, we can

quickly ascertain the reported recognition by retrieving their electronic record in our Military Personnel Data base System which

began operation in October 2004.

However, if the person is not on active duty or separated from

the Service prior to October 2004, we must send a record request

to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, a

process which takes on average about 60 days to complete. The Air

Force receives a few hundred award verification requests per year.

We verify those that are valid, constituting about 95 percent of the

requests and identify those that are either lacking documentation

or are unconfirmed, about 4.9 percent, or suspected to be fraudulent, about .1 percent, constituting two cases over the past 2 years.

We take fraudulent matters very seriously. As an example, in

early 2011, we expedited a personnel records review for an investigator from the Department of Treasury. He sought to validate an

employee’s claim of being a Purple Heart recipient. We were able

to provide information in a few days enabling the Department of

Treasury to address the issue from an informed position.

Mr. Chairman, to conclude, I again thank you and the committee

for the opportunity to be here today to discuss this serious matter.

We look forward to working with the committee and answering

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Mostert follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Mr. Nierle.

STATEMENT OF JAMES NIERLE

Mr. NIERLE. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney and other distinguished members of the subcommittee.

I am honored to be able to testify this morning about the awards

process within the Department of the Navy and the procedures we

use to verify awards received by members of the Naval service.

The integrity of the process by which our valor decorations and

medals is approved is vital to maintaining the high esteem in

which these awards are held. The fundamental aspects of our

awards process are time tested and have not changed significantly

since World War II.

Recommendation for an award for a valor medal may be initiated

by a commissioned officer who has knowledge of the facts who is

senior to the individual being recommended. No person may recommend himself or herself for an award. The recommending officer

completes and signs the award form which includes a narrative

and is supported by the statements of eye witnesses. The award

recommendation is then forwarded up the chain of command to the

person who has the authority to approve or disapprove the award.

There are also well defined and longstanding procedures in existence for recommendations of veterans of past conflicts for valor

awards and for the reconsideration and upgrade of previously

awarded decorations.

Although the basic process has not changed significantly since

World War II, the technology in use within the award system has

evolved. From World War II through post-Vietnam, award recommendations were processed and recorded as hard copy documents. Since 2003, the Marine Corps is utilizing a Web-based,

paperless system. Although the Navy continues to use paper recommendations and approvals for awards, the Navy does maintain

a Web-based searchable data base that contains data for awards

that go back to 1963.

Our awards branch staffs have ready access to various other

awards records covering World War II and later. None of these collections is exhaustive.

For all periods of service during and after World War II, the

most authoritative source for verification of awards is the individual service member’s Official Military Personnel File. OMPFs

for Navy and Marine Corps personnel in active service, and those

who left the service since the late 1990’s, are in electronic digital

form maintained by the personnel branches of the Services. OMPFs

from earlier periods are maintained by the National Personnel

Records Center in St. Louis.

The Department of Navy gives priority support to law enforcement agencies investigating fraudulent award claims. Fewer than

five of these requests from law enforcement agencies for

verification of military awards have been received at the Department headquarters since 2008. During that same period, a small

number of verification requests were also received from Members

of Congress, the media and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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However, it is important to note that law enforcement agencies

and other Federal agencies do have access to recent OMPFs

through the Defense Personnel Records Information Retrieval System [DPRIRS] and it is impossible to know how many of those accesses through that system were used to investigate fraudulent

claims.

When responding to an award verification request, we are careful

to caution that our inability to locate an official record of a particular award is not in and of itself proof that this award was never

made or is not valid. It is possible the award or the person claiming

to have received the award has in his or her possession some authentic documentation of that award.

It is also possible an error was made in recording the award or

the pertinent record was destroyed or cannot be located. When no

official record of an award can be found, the Department of the

Navy is bound by the presumption of regularity and must conclude

that the award in question was never approved. Clear and authentic evidence must be presented to overcome this presumption.

Again, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nierle follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Mr. Levins, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF SCOTT LEVINS

Mr. LEVINS. I would like to thank Congressman Clay for the kind

introduction.

Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney

and members of the subcommittee.

Thank you for calling this hearing and for your attention to

issues surrounding the management of records which document the

service of our Nation’s veterans.

I am proud to represent the staff of the National Personnel

Records Center, many of whom are veterans themselves. I am

pleased to appear before you today to discuss the work the Center

does to serve those who have served.

The National Personnel Records Center is an office of the National Archives and Records Administration. Located in multiple

facilities in the St. Louis area, the Center stores and services over

4 million cubic feet of military and civilian personnel, medical and

related records dating back to the Spanish American War.

In the year 2000, Congress provided NARA with a revolving fund

that allows NARA’s Records Center Program, including the National Personnel Records Center, to function on a cost reimbursable

basis. Accordingly, NPRC no longer receives annual appropriations

for its Records Center Program and instead, charges each agency

the full cost of servicing their records.

In the mid-1950’s, the Department of Defense constructed the

Military Personnel Records Center in Overland, Missouri. In 1960,

the Center’s functions were consolidated and transferred to the

General Services Administration to be managed by the NARA’s

predecessor agency, the National Archives and Records Service as

a single program leveraging economies of scale to improve efficiency and offering a central point of access for military service

records.

When the Military Personnel Records Center was constructed in

the 1950’s, it was not equipped with a fire suppression system. In

1973, a massive fire at the Center destroyed 1618 million records

documenting military service of Army and Air Force veterans who

separated between 1912 and 1964. Though the fire occurred almost

40 years ago, the Center continues to service approximately

200,000 requests per year which pertain to records lost in that fire.

Though the Center is normally able to reconstruct basic service

data, it is often impossible to reconstruct complete records of

awards and decorations.

Today, NPRC holds approximately 60 million official military

personnel files. Its holdings also include service treatment records,

clinical records from military medical treatment facilities, auxiliary

records such as pay vouchers and service name indexes and organizational records such as morning reports and unit rosters. NPRC

stores these records in both textual and micrographic formats.

NPRC’s military records facility receives between 4,000–5,000

correspondence requests each day from veterans, their next of kin,

Federal agencies, Members of Congress, the media and other stakeholders and responds to 74 percent of these requests in 10 business
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days or less. Nearly half of these requests come from veterans

seeking a copy of their separation statement because they need it

to pursue a benefit. The Center responds to 93 percent of these

types of requests in 10 business days or less.

Regarding requests for military awards and decorations, NPRC

does not issue service medals. However, for cases involving Air

Force and Army veterans, the NPRC staff review the records, find

the awards listed, send a response back to the veteran listing the

awards and initiate an order with the Army or the Air Force to

have the actual awards mailed to the veteran. For veterans of the

Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, the requests are referred for

action to a Navy office which is co-located in the same facility. During fiscal year 2011, NPRC responded to approximately 67,000 requests for military awards and decorations which represented 6

percent of its overall correspondence volume.

NPRC also responds to Freedom of Information Act requests for

records of all the military services. During fiscal year 2011, NPRC

responded to over 16,000 FOIA requests and responded to 98 percent of them in 20 days or less. Some of these requests come from

interested third parties wishing to verify a veteran’s awards and

decorations and we are able to release that information about

awards and decorations earned while in service.

Despite the original idea in 1960 for NPRC to serve as a central

repository for information needed to verify rights and benefits of

veterans, beginning in the early 1990’s, the military service departments stopped retiring medical records, now called service treatment records, to NPRC and instead, retired them directly to the

VA. As a result, the NPRC does not have direct access to modern

service treatment records.

From the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s with the exception of

the Coast Guard, the military service departments also stopped retiring official military personnel files to MPRC and instead, retain

them in-house in electronic formats. The military services use their

electronic personnel records systems to respond to routine correspondence requests from veterans and other stakeholders. With

the exception of the Department of the Army, the NPRC refers correspondence requests for these records to the appropriate military

department for servicing.

In 2007, the Department of the Army entered into an agreement

with NARA to allow NPRC to access its electronic personnel

records for the purpose of responding to routine correspondence requests. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps continue to service

their own personnel records and respond to routine correspondence

requests from veterans and other stakeholders.

NARA is eager to work with the subcommittee and other stakeholders to explore opportunities to better serve our Nation’s veterans. We invite the subcommittee members to visit NPRC. We

welcome suggestions to improve service and efficiency and again,

extend our sincere thanks to the subcommittee for expressing great

interest in the services provided by NPRC.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Levins follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Mr. Davis, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, sir.

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney and members of

the subcommittee, thank you on behalf of the 2 million members

of the Veterans of Foreign Wars for having this hearing today.

One of the greatest threats to small unit morale is the barracks

thief. It is an egregious violation of personal space, property and

trust, plus it sows seeds of suspicion among those who must depend upon each other to fight, win and survive our Nation’s battles.

Upon discovery, the thief is dealt with severely, principally on

charges of Article 122 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

America’s wars past and present have produced thousands of

true heroes who have been properly recognized for their selfless

service and bravery, and untold more whose heroic actions died

with them in battle. For those few who survived, and to the memories of those who did not, the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 was enacted

to protect them against barracks thieves who would seek public acclaim and personal gain during an era of tremendous public respect

for the military.

The VFW is a lead co-signer of the amicus brief to ask the U.S.

Supreme Court to uphold the Stolen Valor Act. This law must be

upheld and all punishments must be swift, severe and public to the

maximum extent to deter others from stealing other peoples valor.

The constitutional issue of the Supreme Court is not the purpose

of this hearing. We do ask the committee to use this opportunity

to require the military services to better document military wars

for verification purposes. All military decorations are governmentissued, yet there is no government-run, searchable military data

base that catalogs the awards. Instead, this function has been

ceded almost entirely to non-government entities that may or may

not have access to complete lists, if such lists exist at all.

The Civilian Enterprise Military Hall of Valor is the unofficial

records keeper and its founders and chief researchers, Doug and

Pam Sterner of Alexandria, Virginia, are recognized experts for

verifying recipients of the military’s top medals for valor and for

helping to expose fraud. The Hall of Valor lists almost 100,000

medal recipients to include all the Medal of Honor recipients and

virtually all the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Air

Force Cross recipients. It also lists over 24,400 recipients of the Silver Star, which is our Nation’s third highest medal for valor.

A civilian entity with limited resources, limited manpower and

budget has accomplished all this through open source documents,

FOIA requests and most of all, perseverance and Hall of Valor has

done it with an extremely high degree of accuracy. The question

begs why the hasn’t military taken the initiative to properly document for prosperity the medals they issue. Preserving military heritage demands an electronic recordkeeping of more than just who

was the chief commander of the military service, a Navy ship or

an Army division.

It demands an official and verifiable record of battle maneuvers

and of the units involved. More so, it demands that those service
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men and women who excelled under fire be recognized and entered

into the permanent history of that service. A searchable data base

is the only responsible way to properly document the medals the

military issues and would also help the Department of Veterans Affairs and their mission to provide health care, disability compensation and burial benefits to our eligible veterans.

The military must take better ownership of their personnel recordkeeping and do everything possible to eliminate the hole in personnel service records such as when a medal is not processed or approved until long after the service member has separated or retired

or in some cases, died. A co-worker here in the VFW Washington

office learned he was awarded a Bronze Star for service meritory

in Iraq during 2004. He has a copy of his medal certificate and orders but for almost 7 years has been unsuccessful in tracking down

the original document to correct his DD–214. A reply earlier this

month from the Army Human Resources Command basically said

our records on you might be a little incomplete.

Mr. Chairman, if this 30-year-old, Iraqi veteran who is immersed

in the ways of the government bureaucracy because of his position

here in Washington, DC, can’t get his records corrected, how difficult must it be for hundreds of thousands of other veterans from

other services and other generations. It is virtually impossible.

Computers have made things faster, but computers have not made

the military personnel system any better.

Perhaps it is because the military focuses too much on recruiting

and retention and not on the high quality of people they return to

civilian society after 4 or 40 years of faithful service. Regardless,

there is absolutely no excuse in the year 2012 that the entire military personnel system cannot immediately find and correct errors

and omissions on military service records.

Mr. Chairman, the civilian public’s disconnect with the military

is already huge. The Veterans of Foreign Wars asks for your help

to not allow the military to exacerbate its own disconnect with

their own service members, their veterans and their retirees. Those

who serve our Nation in uniform deserve so much better.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Mr. Sterner, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF DOUG STERNER

Mr. STERNER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Tierney and

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I would like to begin by acknowledging my wife, Pam, who in

2004 authored the Stolen Valor Act. I would also like to pay tribute

to Chuck Schantag, a Vietnam War Marine, Purple Heart recipient

who passed away unexpectedly last Thursday. He and his wife,

Mary, have been at the forefront of exposing stolen valor for decades.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case

in which a man falsely claimed to be a Medal of Honor recipient.

His conviction was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court that said

he was exercising his right of free speech. Such cases are rampant,

resulting in great cost to the government. Eight men charged in Seattle cost the VA $1.4 million. None had ever been in combat, two

had never been in the military.

While I hope that the Supreme Court fails to find merit in the

decision of the Ninth Circuit Court, I would agree with them on

one point. They said, ‘‘Preserving the value of military decorations

is unquestionably an appropriate and worthy governmental objective that Congress may achieve through publicizing the names of

legitimate recipients.’’

When George Washington established our awards system in

1782, he said the fakers should be punished but he also said ‘‘The

name and regiment of the person so certified are to be enrolled in

the Book of Merit which will be kept at the Orderly Office.’’ This

was the first call for a data base of our awards but presently there

exists no Book of Merit other than a data base of Medal of Honor

recipients.

In 2009, the Dallas Morning Herald reported that 14 of 67 issued

Legion of Valor license plates were bogus. They wrote, ‘‘Officials

say it is hard to actually verify an individual’s claim even with documents. Without a data base, we are hamstrung.’’ I can detail

cases of stolen valor for hours. It would become redundant, but

there is another point I want to make and that is the way our real

heroes are being robbed on a daily basis for lack of proper recordkeeping by our government.

Twelve years ago, after watching ‘‘Saving Private Ryan,’’ Monty

McDaniel decided to research his uncle who was killed in the Normandy Invasion. He found he uncle may have been awarded the

Distinguished Service Cross but there was no record of that in the

family. He searched and he found the evidence not only of his uncle

but the man whose citation followed him killed in action and his

family did not know of that award. In 2001, both of these heroes

were finally awarded their posthumous Distinguished Service

Crosses, the parents of both men died in the 1990’s, never knowing

of their great heroism and award of their dead sons.

In 2007, I received an email from Jan Girando whose father was

one of fewer than 4,000 recipients of the Navy Cross in World War

II. By the way, Jan flew in all the way from Kansas yesterday to
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be here. This is that important to her. Jan was trying to get her

father buried at Arlington but the Navy, for its part, couldn’t even

find a record that he had served on active duty. She emailed me,

I verified the award and she notes, ‘‘Six days later, I was informed

that Arlington had ordered my father’s marker’’ and made my week

because that is what this is about.

The closest thing to any kind of data base that the Army has is

an enumeration of awards, no names, published by Army Human

Resources Command. They show that 848 Distinguished Service

Crosses were awarded in the Vietnam War. The Military Times

‘‘Hall of Valor’’ has the citations for 1,068. That is 220 of the most

decorated heroes of the war I served in that are otherwise lost to

history.

The problem of lost heroes hasn’t improved with technology. The

Baltimore Sun reported, The Army denied a March 2006 Freedom

of Information Act request for the narratives of Silver Stars first

on the grounds that it couldn’t find them all.’’ In fact, I personally

FOIA’d for the Silver Stars awarded to 24 men killed in the wars

in Iraq and Afghanistan. I tell you, Scott does a great job but he

can only send me what he has, 22 of those 24 came back from St.

Louis no record of that GWAT veteran getting the Silver Star.

I hope to demonstrate to you today that a data base of awards

is an achievable goal and a worthy one not only to serve as a tool

to thwart acts of stolen valor and fraud against our government,

but as a noble effort to preserve for prosperity the great service,

sacrifice and valor of America’s veteran. We owe them much and

the very least we owe them is to keep an accurate record of their

deeds.

As Medal of Honor recipient William A. Jones wrote shortly before his death in 1969, ‘‘Poor is a nation that has no heroes, but

begger that nation that has and forgets them.’’

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sterner follows:]
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, gentlemen.

We are now going to move to questions and I recognize myself

for 5 minutes.

You heard Mr. Davis and Mr. Sterner, you five gentlemen. I have

no doubt about your patriotism, your commitment to your job, your

country or anything else. I heard you all give testimony about

where we are today but I didn’t hear a whole lot about what we

really should be doing.

My guess is in your heart of hearts and your expertise, you know

what is wrong with this system. The committee wants to know

what is wrong, what should be fixed and what should we do about

it. Any of the five of you who could respond to Mr. Davis and Mr.

Sterner, I would appreciate it. Mr. Hebert.

Mr. HEBERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admittedly, any system as massive as the Department of Defense’s personnel systems requires constant and vigilant improvement. Such improvement was made in 2002 when we introduced

the accessible data base through the Defense Personnel Records Information Retrieval System. Imagine as a veteran, I, myself, in

preparation for this hearing, went to the VA Web site, logged on

and within a matter of minutes was presented with an email back

in my account that my records were available.

By trade, I was in the personnel community when I was in uniform, so I was pretty familiar with my own personnel records. Surprising to me that I had 130 pages of documents some of which I

had never seen before that were filed and digitized and immediately accessible to me as a veteran.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Are you advocating that we have one data base?

Mr. HEBERT. I am advocating that we have advanced beyond the

structure of a single data base.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you are advocating that we have multiple data

bases?

Mr. HEBERT. I am advocating that the system we have in place

now has inherited advantages over a single data base. Let me explain.

Any data base itself has to reference a source document or a

source record. If you create a redundancy within your system, your

data base is only as accurate as your last refresh, the last time you

went back and sought to update your records. What the Department has created instead is a single portal that reaches back to the

individual’s service source records so there is no redundancy, there

is no update or refresh time. It is accessing the same record that

the personnel clerk would.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I have to catch up here a little bit. If we can go

to that first slide, I want to show you that this the form you are

supposed to fill out. I don’t know if we can get to the bottom part

of that. Maybe it is slide two. You are having a hard time seeing

that on the monitor but what that says this is the address list of

custodians. Essentially, there are 14 different areas in which you

can go. You have to do this chart and connect the numbers. It

seems like a very convoluted way of doing things. The inaccuracy

or incomplete nature of these records is what is so troublesome.

Take for a moment that I am some company out there in Idaho

and I have somebody come to me and they are applying for a job.
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Being a patriotic employer, all things being equal, I want to hire

the veteran, even though he may be disabled, maybe earned a Purple Heart, and I want to hire that person. How do I, as an employer, verify that he is telling the truth? I want to believe everybody is telling the truth, but the reality is, unfortunately, they are

not. It goes back to the Reagan mantra of trust but verify.

Mr. HEBERT. Yes, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What do I do?

Mr. HEBERT. You have hit upon the one area where you were

asking where the system could be improved. In preparation for this

hearing, my panelists and I all did extensive research. One of the

gaps, if you will, is that we don’t display in a layman’s simple format, how you access these records if you are not a veteran.

If you are a veteran, going to the VA Web site, it is very intuitive

and that sort of thing but if you are an employer, without knowledge of the Department of Defense, without knowledge of our internal systems, how do you get to it? Clearly that is an area that we

are lacking and as a Department, we are going to move forward to

make sure there is a very clear, single point of entry that delineates exactly how you access records, whether the individual is a

veteran or a former veteran or a currently serving member, or

whether the individual, regardless of service, you can come to this

one stop shop to gain access to these records.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My time has expired but very quickly, Mr. Levins,

a few more stats if you will. I know you don’t take appropriations

but how much money is flowing in and out of your organization?

How many personnel do you have in place to execute your mission

and what you are doing at your office?

Mr. LEVINS. We have about 900 employees in St. Louis, but

about half of them are student temps, part-time employees, and

many of them work on issues involving the civilian facility not the

military facility.

To store the records in the appropriate environment, the military records and provide reference service on them is about a $15 million a year program.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

In the essence of time, I will now recognize Ranking Member

Tierney for 5 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Hebert, let me ask, have you used the services, outside advice or counsel from people in private industry who might be involved with data bases and computer systems and sought their

input into how you might better do your jobs?

Mr. HEBERT. No, I have not, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Colonel.

Colonel EVANS. Sir, not that I am aware of.

Mr. TIERNEY. Colonel.

Colonel MOSTERT. Sir, in the development of the data base systems that we do presently use, that was done with the assistance

of advisors, subject matter experts on building data bases.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Nierle.

Mr. NIERLE. Yes, Mr. Tierney, in the same way in the development of our current systems, the Improved Awards Processing System for the Marine Corps, a completely paperless system which
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came online in 2001 and is still in use, is contracted out. Also, in

the Navy, we also have the Navy Department Awards Web service

which is another data base. Of course we have people under contract to continually improve those systems.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do the five of you from Mr. Hebert to Mr. Levins

all join in the contention that having service-based systems are better than having one system, individual processes in each department or each Service? Mr. Hebert, we know you think that is a

good idea. Colonel Evans?

Colonel EVANS. Yes, sir, I think the data base we currently have

now and the ability of the Defense Records Information Retrieval

System that NPRC uses, the National Personnel Records System,

is sufficient.

Mr. TIERNEY. Colonel Mostert.

Colonel MOSTERT. Yes, sir, the records system that we have

serves our needs and with DPRIS, we are able to provide information that is accessible outside of us. That is the entry point for outside agencies to access our information as well as the other information.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Nierle.

Mr. NIERLE. Yes, Mr. Tierney, I do agree. Our systems were developed specifically for the way our forces are deployed around the

world, the command structures that we employ within our Services

and I think they do work better as separate systems because they

are complete systems. They are not simply recordkeeping and data

bases for lookups.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Levins, do you think that should change or do

you think it is fine the way it is?

Mr. LEVINS. I could only hazard a guess at how complex it might

be to merge all the different systems together, but DoD has had

great success in DPRIS which is a portal which will speak to each

of those systems. I think the benefit could come from revisiting the

issue of one stop shopping for veterans’ records. Right now, our

technicians are credentialed to use DPRIS and they are proficient

at using DPRIS to access Army records, but they can’t use the system to access records of the other Service departments.

When a potential employer writes to us for employment

verification of a modern veteran who just got out of the Air Force,

for example, we can’t respond to that request if we don’t have the

record. We have to refer that to the Air Force. I think DPRIS could

be further leveraged to create that one stop shop.

I think DPRIS provides great benefits to the veteran himself because there is the opportunity for self service but when it comes

to third parties like potential employers, there is a lot of personal

data in those records and not all of that personal data pertains to

the veteran. It often pertains to other members of the military and

it is not releasable. That needs to be carefully thought about as

well. The character of service is not something that is releasable

under the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr. TIERNEY. Who would be responsible for taking the lead and

making those kinds of changes, Mr. Levins?

Mr. LEVINS. The Department of Defense, I would imagine.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Hebert, would that fall under you or are we

missing somebody here?
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Mr. HEBERT. We are missing somebody here, sir. Basically, it is

the individual Service’s responsibility. Under statute, they are required to organize, train and equip. This is part of that function,

the recordkeeping function, of the personnel records, personnel

records being much more than just a reporting of history. It is an

integral part of how individuals are developed, assigned and processed throughout their career.

Mr. TIERNEY. Who do we need at the table to try to look at and

evaluate the recommendation Mr. Levins just made?

Mr. HEBERT. I will take it for action to go back and meet with

the Services to discuss it further to determine whether or not there

is viability in adopting an Army model, if you will, for the other

Services.

Mr. TIERNEY. I wonder if we have the whole Joint Chiefs of Staff

thing going on here. It doesn’t seem to be working all that well in

terms of coordination, does it?

Mr. Davis and Mr. Sterner, correct me if I am wrong, you each

thought it would be important to have a list of recipients of a particular medal, who received it and when and particulars about it.

Was that one of the points you raised, Mr. Sterner?

Mr. STERNER. That is my hot button, the awards. I think that is

so critical. On the other hand, you are talking about a data base

for immediately betting whether or not someone is a veteran who

qualifies for a veteran’s preference, I would like to point to a 2004

study done by NPRC looking into the feasibility of digitizing

awards.

In that study, they found it would be impractical to digitize everything but reading from the executive summary from that,

‘‘Digitizing the key military separation document, the DD–214,’’

that is what you are looking for, Mr. Chairman, ‘‘in every post-1947

file will yield a $4 million annual return on an $11.9 million investment.’’ There is your data base done by NARA.

The problem with it is, of course, it is going to be incomplete because of the 1973 fire. The awards data base that I am calling for

would fill in many of those gaps and would be a very, very complete system. With the system we have now in place, merging it all

together would give you what you want and also give us that

awards data base.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I recognize Mr. Braley for 5 minutes.

Mr. BRALEY. I want to thank the chairman and I want to apologize to our distinguished panelists. I was actually at Walter Reed

this morning talking to a young Marine from my district who had

both of his legs blown off in Afghanistan and is back for revision

surgery. That and another event that is coming up in 10 days

which has been on my bucket list for a long time have really put

this whole hearing in perspective for me.

Mr. Sterner, you mentioned Saving Private Ryan in your opening

remarks and the fictional character, Private Ryan, was from Peyton, Iowa. I live in Waterloo, Iowa where the five Sullivan brothers

grew up. These are not abstract principles to us. In fact, when Ken

Burns came out with his classic documentary on World War II, I

called him the next day because he inaccurately described their

hometown as being Clarksville, IA.
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I am going in 10 days, to Iwo Jima with a World War II veteran

from Waterloo who landed there with my father the day they

raised both flags on Mount Suribachi. My dad has been gone for

31 years and it was only through accessing his records at the National Personnel Records Center that I was able to start to piece

the story of his military history together for me and my family.

Yet, it is amazing as I prepared for this trip, I have also been

researching a guy I knew in my tiny hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa

named Harold Keller who was the second Marine to reach the summit of Mount Suribachi and is in the famous gung ho flag raising

photograph taken that day. He slept under the flag that night.

I have been accessing data bases for people interested in that

battle and you would be amazed at the number of people who claim

to be in that photograph when in Jim Bradley’s book, everybody is

identified but two people. This underscores the nature and extent

of the problem we are having.

We have 90-year-old veterans to whom being in that photograph

is so important that they are claiming to be in it and there are

many people claiming to be in it, then how do we protect people

who are trying to preserve the integrity of sacrifice that these veterans have made when so many people are out there on eBay buying medals, buying citations because we desperately want to have

some association with this valor? How do we get to the underlying

problem of the demand for recognition that is causing all this problem? Mr. Davis. Mr. Sterner.

Mr. DAVIS. Sir, I think one of the initial issues is basically

verification needs to be easy. That is why a searchable data base

is easy to access by anybody with the Internet. Look it up at the

library or whatever. What we are hearing here a little is turf war

obviously because people like to protect what they own right now.

In the current state of the economy, stuff merges. Look at the

commissary system. There is only one commissary system in the

military now. There is only one accounting system in the military

now. There is talk now on the Hill to merge the exchange systems

and right now they are looking at possibly one Medical Command

instead of three separate in the Army, Navy and Air Force.

I know this might not be the format to talk about this but one

Human Resources Command entity under DoD or whatever is a

possibility but having a data base that is easy, searchable is absolutely vital to this issue because regardless of what happens with

the Supreme Court, this issue is going to remain.

Mr. BRALEY. On the form Mr. Chaffetz put up earlier, which is

a form newer than the one I used to access my father’s records, Mr.

Chairman, I believe there were at least three options on there. If

you were looking for a Marine Corps veteran’s records, you would

have no idea which of those options to select unless you had more

sophisticated knowledge than is included on the form itself.

If ease of access and yet integrity of access are the things we are

trying to preserve, I don’t understand how that form gets us there.

Mr. Sterner.

Mr. STERNER. Congressman Braley, first of all, Kelly Sullivan of

Waterloo, Iowa, the only surviving granddaughter of the five Sullivan brothers is a good friend and she would love to hear your

comments today.
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With reference to Mr. Harold Keller, what most people don’t realize, what many congressional staffers don’t understand, there are

approximately 350 large boxes at the Navy Yard here in Washington, DC, with 3 x 5 index cards. I go there every Friday and

copy about 1,000 and take them back to my office and type them

up. It is data entry, it is not rocket science.

I have estimated 12 data entry people in 1 year could type all

of those into a data base. For that cost, we have all the awards to

members of the U.S. Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Navy from

inception of our awards system to present. It is vetted, it is from

original source documents. I can type them quicker than you can

OCR them because they are brief, so it is accurate. It would be a

very simple matter to do this.

As to accuracy, DoD in their report in 2009 said in order to be

functional, a data base must be 95 percent complete. I would challenge the Department of Defense to audit the data base the Military Times currently has with 13,500 DSC recipients, 7,000 Navy

Cross recipients, 194 Air Force Cross recipients and fewer than

3,500 Medals of Honor and find that our data base is not 99 percent complete.

If we can do it with that, we have proven we can do it with the

Silver Star and we can do it with the other awards. The chairman

of the full committee mentioned Dwight Eisenhower. We don’t just

focus on valor awards. If we didn’t include the Distinguished Service Medal, General Dwight Eisenhower would not be in the Hall of

Valor. I think it is important we remember all of these awards.

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you.

I yield back.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

I sent a request to Secretary Panetta’s office asking that they

send one person to provide us information and they sent us four.

I appreciate the gentlemen that are here but I have to tell you, we

are fundamentally failing to fulfill this mission. The Pentagon is

very mission oriented but this has gone on far too long.

Some of your testimony said that you get very few inquiries. If

I just read your testimony or heard your testimony, I would be led

to believe that everything is fine. It is not fine. It is not working.

Let me give you an example, Colonel Mostert.

I had a situation where somebody presented some documentation

and it was Mr. Sterner who pointed out it was probably false. My

communication, the way I am supposed to do it, through the legislative liaison, the National Personnel Records Center, back on August 3 when they responded to me, the first sentence said, ‘‘The

record needed to answer your inquiry is not in our files.’’

That wasn’t good enough so I went back again. From the Department of Air Force, September 12th, ‘‘Unable to verify.’’ I got another letter from November 29 from the Department of Air Force,

‘‘It appears his record is lost in transit.’’ I went back again. Finally,

on December 28th, the Department of Air Force said, ‘‘The documentation was not authentic.’’

As a sitting Member of Congress, with my own legislative liaison,

that is the kind of response we get. I can only imagine what some

employer in Florida, or pick any State, trying to go through this

process, and Mr. Hebert, with all due respect, I don’t believe that
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our own military can go through this process sufficiently and find

the answers they want about their family and about their own

records.

When I had an opportunity to talk with Secretary Gates, I wanted to know about the military record of an injured service member

who was being discharged and the transfer of his records from the

military to the Veterans Department. It was taking over a year.

The Secretary said, yes, that is about right. That is totally unacceptable.

These gentlemen, Mr. Davis and Mr. Sterner, are calling for

what I think is entirely reasonable which is a data base where people can verify the medals they have earned. There is sensitivity to

a lot of the personnel records that nobody should have access to

other than maybe the service member and their spouse. I understand that.

Why can’t we create a data base of people and what medals they

have earned so it can be verified? To hear the four of you, including

Mr. Levins, the five of you, you are good with the way it is. I think

it is totally unacceptable. Again, explain to me, Mr. Nierle, let us

start with you, what is wrong with what Mr. Davis and Mr. Sterner are saying? Why wouldn’t we have one data base?

Mr. NIERLE. Mr. Chairman, to address your comment about the

current veteran or recently discharged veteran, those individuals

can go online and can access our systems to find out what awards

they are entitled to. It is when you get into the person who was

discharged prior to the electronic uploading of the systems that

might be more involved.

The comments that have been made do understate the problem.

Throughout history, as I mentioned in my statement, the methods

of recordkeeping have evolved, there are different forms, different

media being used. The number of awards, as Mr. Sterner just said,

you won’t stop at this award and that award, so effectively we are

talking about potentially going back in history and trying to record

all awards ever awarded.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Isn’t that worth doing?

Mr. NIERLE. That is immense.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. It is hard for me to believe we are in 2012 and

there are still some questions as to whether or not we would do

that. Are you advocating we not do that?

Mr. NIERLE. As we have said, in a perfect world, for example, he

addressed the cards on file at the Navy Yard. They are imaged as

well, we have them on microfilm and we search them routinely. To

type in all those cards, to have those in a data base readily available would be of some benefit. The question would be is the cost

worth that benefit?

Mr. CHAFFETZ. In the U.S. Congress, per legislation, the directive, we routinely award what would amount to billions of dollars

in contracts and preferences to people for their military service. We

have employers from coast to coast all the time who are wanting

to employ people who have achieved these medals and it is not

some guy in a bar trying to impress a woman that I am worried

about. This is a serious problem. We are talking about billions of

dollars and the integrity of those who truly did earn their awards.
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My time has expired. Mr. Davis or Mr. Sterner, do you care to

comment?

Mr. STERNER. The issue that keeps being raised is the 1973 fire.

The military is redundant in paperwork if nothing else. I have been

calling for digitizing the index cards at the Navy Yard. I said 14

data entry people, 1 year, that is less than $1 million to have a

complete data base. We could do all of the Purple Heart cards for

the Navy and Marine Corps with probably four data entry people

in 1 year.

The problem is with the Army because it was the Army and the

Army Air Forces and U.S. Air Force records that burned in the fire.

This is one volume of two that has the general orders for the 63rd

Infantry Division in World War II. The sticky notes are the missing

general orders. The Army, in their DoD report, talked about how

many orders were lost. There are five missing general orders that

I haven’t found. I am sure we can find them.

These contain the citations for every member of that Division.

There were approximately 100 Divisions in World War II that got

any award under general orders—8,000 awards. To have a complete record of every award down to the Bronze Star and the Air

medals, for this Division would be as difficult as typing up two of

these books.

I have gone through both volumes and have typed up every Silver Star. Every time I do that, I skip through 10 pages of Bronze

Stars, detailing the heroism of American soldiers in World War II.

I skip over that, why, because the Bronze Star isn’t important?

Heck no—because I simply don’t have the time and resources. I

have to limit it to the Silver Star and above. It is there.

If you FOIA the men that are in this book, 90 percent of them

will come back from Scott saying, we are sorry, the record burned

in the fire, but you open the book and you read the Bronze Star

and there is his name, service number, his unit, his military specialty. If he was an infantryman, that means he qualifies for a CIB

now that we have vetted that was lost to history, his theater of action, now you know his campaign ribbons, the date he was in action. It may say he was attacking the machine gun nest, he was

wounded, now we have evidence of a lost Purple Heart and at the

very end, it has his hometown and home State, so you guys can remember locally your own local heroes. Why don’t we do it? It is

data entry.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Go ahead, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I am very, very grateful that there is

at least one person and his wife with limited manpower, limited resources who wants to do this, who wants to make a difference to

make this correction. They just want to take care of their own but

they can’t because they don’t.

If you go on the Army Web site and all the Services list their

Medal of Honor recipients. The Marine Corps is on the Navy Web

site. From that down to the Cross recipients, the Silver Star is not

there. You have press releases for external consumption, you have

internal press releases for base newspapers around the country but

there is no accounting of all these.

If you go into the Air Force’s Air University, they have a list of

Air Force Cross recipients but just for the enlisted folks who got
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it. If you go to the Army War College, they have a listing of Army

Medal of Honor recipients but their data base comes from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society which is a 501(3)(c) nonprofit.

The military Services have to want to do it like Doug and Pam

Sterner want to do it.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

My time has well expired here.

I recognize Mr. Platts for 5 minutes.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I first want to thank you, the ranking member and your staffs

for your focus on this very important issue in helping to ensure

that we properly honor those who have served and don’t allow others to wrongfully and dishonorably try to use the service of others

to their own benefit.

I apologize, I have another hearing going on at the same time

and a constituent is waiting for me. I don’t have any questions

other than to express thanks to all of you for your individual efforts

and collective efforts of trying to help us rectify the problem and

go forward in a positive way to make sure we do better in the future as a government and as a nation.

I think probably one of the things it is important to emphasize

here is this isn’t just about preventing individuals from wrongfully

claiming veteran status or especially heroic status of those who

have served in harms way, but it is also about protecting those who

have served us because we know when individuals wrongly get the

benefit, it takes money away from those who have properly and heroically earned the benefit.

Especially in difficult financial times as we are in today where

every dollar counts, when we have people fraudulently benefiting

from claiming veteran status and especially the status of service in

harm’s way, that means we are not doing as much as we could for

those who are truly deserving of that assistance from our Nation

that they earned through their heroic actions.

I thank each of you and appreciate the written testimony. As

probably has been expressed here, all Members are trying to be in

five places at once and not able to hear your oral testimony.

Mr. Chairman, to you and the ranking member, I certainly offer

my assistance in working with you and the committee in any way

I can to better properly identify and maintain a good data base. I

think in your memorandum you highlight George Washington’s

quote. Throughout our Nation’s history this has been an issue we

have sought to address. Hopefully we can do better going forward.

With your leadership, I am certain we will.

With that, I yield and again, say thanks to all of our witnesses.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I won’t use 5 minutes.

Colonel Evans, Colonel Mostert and Mr. Nierle, I have no doubt

that you do a good job at what you do. I want to thank you for that,

but I don’t think that we should burden you with the notion that

you are setting policy on this issue. Correct me if I am wrong, but

I don’t necessarily think you are thinking of the overall policy for

the Department of Defense with respect to this recordkeeping.
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I would like to have our staffs work together with the chairman’s

staff to identify with Mr. Hebert and Mr. Levins, who would be

dealing with the policy on this issue because it needs to be revisited and we need to see a cost benefit analysis laid out with some

specificity. The Department of Defense, for all the good it does for

us on our national security, is the one agency that cannot pass an

audit on this which gives us real reason to pause about whether

or not we are doing things efficiently and appropriately.

With the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as I mentioned earlier, so many

things were supposed to have been done efficiently and appropriately in terms of consolidation and as Mr. Davis said, this may

be one area we should look at, why we have all the different Services doing this independently and differently. It certainly doesn’t

make us feel comfortable up here that it is being done the best way

it could be.

Mr. Hebert, Mr. Levins, if you would just commit to working

with the staffs on that. Maybe we can identify those people setting

policy who can come before the committee and the chairman, if you

might be interested in doing that, to find out what the policy is,

to revisit what it ought to be and look at the cost benefit analysis

of that. Maybe we can get some answers for not just Mr. Davis and

Mr. Sterner, but for all of us.

Thank you. I yield.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

I think it is worth revisiting this March 2009 report, the report

to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on ‘‘A Searchable Military Valor Decorations Data base.’’ In this report, one of

the extracts here was ‘‘The more centralized the award authority,

the more likely the applicable military department is to have a

more accurate record of the awards whereas the opposite correlation is also true. The more decentralized the award authority, the

less likely the applicable military department is to have an accurate award and accurate record.’’

It goes on to say, ‘‘The Defense Manpower Data Center estimates

the cost of establishing a publicly accessible data base of valor

award recipients is $250,000. The data base would include public

access via the World Wide Web.’’

I really do believe with the hundreds of billions of dollars allocated to the Department of Defense, if there was a will, the Department of Defense would find a way to do it. I think this is a lack

of leadership within the Pentagon. I am not pointing to a Democrat

or a Republican. I am just saying the highest levels of the Department of Defense have to make this a priority or it won’t happen.

The gentlemen sitting here today, I appreciate your service. You

are doing what you are asked to do. I am not here blaming you individually but collectively, the Department of Defense is failing.

They have failed to recognize the problem, they have failed to recognize the need, and they have never put forward a plan to solve

this problem.

I can tell you as long as the people of Utah put me in this position, I will push the Department of Defense to do this. There is

$250,000 in there somehow, somewhere to get this done. We will

hold hearing after hearing if need be, but this is something that

our Nation cares about. People are being ripped off, they are being
57

scammed and we owe it to the men and women who earned these

awards to make sure there is a way to verify and recognize those

people who truly did earn those awards.

I know I speak for Members on both sides of the aisle, this Congress will be committed to making this happen. I appreciate your

dedication. I cannot thank Mr. Davis or Mr. Sterner enough, I

thank the family that came here, and for those people who have

gone through this nightmare of having their valor questioned, the

people who have overstated it, I think we as a Congress have to

have a commitment. I am committed to it and I hope that sooner

rather than later, the Department of Defense is committed to it.

This hearing is now concluded. We appreciate your service.

Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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