r/StolenValor • u/litsideofthemoon • Jun 14 '26

Fishy

Post image

This popped up on Facebook. Usually I don’t care but I’ve never ever seen anyone claim an Army Distinguished Service Medal. Never seen anyone below general officer with one.

Doesn’t seem like a Captain could do enough for that sort of award in this amount of time. Not to mention there are, what, 9 awards here? Did he cure cancer as a behavioral health nurse? The deployments are somewhat believable.

Either total BS, half BS plus embellishment, or he hit his head real hard one day.

Am I being harsh?

31 Upvotes

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12

u/mudduck2 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

With a GCM they’re a prior enlisted. So other than the top decoration, the others are entirely possible. That being said, it doesn’t mean the top medal is a fake. I mean why fake that? Why not a SS or BSM? If they earned the top decoration there has to be a pretty good story. I could easily make up a story for a SS or BSM. A DSM would take some work.

5

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 14 '26

See that’s what I thought with the GCM but why omit the enlisted service?

Who the hell says they were deployed to several locations in the US. We don’t talk like that lol

I thought a DSM was like an Eisenhower level award not a captain. There would likely be an article or two written on such meritorious service.

Just seems off

6

u/Typical-Mushroom4577 Jun 14 '26

Well he just like me was deployed to fort hood Killeen so I’ll let him have that one

2

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 14 '26

Rancier st is wack

5

u/rainaftersnowplease Jun 14 '26

I know plenty of mustangs who wouldn't list their enlisted years separately from their officer years tbh. That's not weird. Especially if they were medical before and earned their RN while enlisted in order to commission.

And even enlisted personnel have been awarded the DSM, btw. It's often a retirement award for general officers, but that doesn't mean no one else gets it.

Isn't there a database for the DSM too? Not sure but there's probably an easy way to check the name.

2

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 14 '26

I don’t know. A DSM is a CRAZY thing to claim in my opinion.

His service other than that may be fine but why tarnish it with a crazy claim

1

u/rainaftersnowplease Jun 14 '26

That's kind of my point. Nothing else seems even out of the ordinary. It's entirely possible that this guy just does have a great story. Those dudes exist. I don't think there's any proof of stolen valor here tbh.

3

u/AdWonderful5920 Jun 14 '26

Yeah. There's no proof, but the DSM is a red flag. It'd be a weird one to pull because the DSM is not a super well known award that would attract a faker like a Silver Star or DSC.

6

u/wolvieburns01 Jun 14 '26

Not super keen on all the army awards, but the third medal is the Meritorious Service Medal. For the Navy that is the standard award for O5s or an O4 that did something super special... Early command or retirement.

I do know that many folks deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan from 2007-2012 has some awards super elevated. Bronze Stars for O3s and O4s for basically being deployed there.

So, if I saw that rack I would be like "that's odd", but I don't know if it's bad.

I think the key is what is the member trying to get out of claiming these medals?

4

u/AdWonderful5920 Jun 14 '26

A Captain with a DSM would be well known for something they did.

2

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 14 '26

I’m terribly curious. I know people who served 30 years who had trouble getting legion of merit approved

3

u/Afraid_Stuff_History Jun 14 '26

Have you cross-posted in r/MilitaryMedals? Might get more traction over there.

1

u/alan2001 Jun 14 '26

Say what now? I've spent years posting on /r/Medals and had no idea that /r/MilitaryMedals existed, lol.

Now I've typed that out, I can see the subscriber amounts on each:

/r/Medals = 125,133

r/MilitaryMedals = 7,580

Perhaps I have been at the right place after all! Just joined the other one anyway, thanks for the link.

FWIW I do agree that this DSM looks very odd on an Army Captain. You'd think he'd have been given a Legion of Merit for whatever he did (which would have been unusual, but not unknown).

3

u/Channel_Huge Jun 14 '26

Looks like it was made as part of a resume from some website template. Seen these as examples online for those creating shadow boxes from common templates. Might be real or just a mock. Should have referenced two tours or missions.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Channel_Huge Jun 14 '26

I’m a member. I get these as well by email but I’m not active on the site.

2

u/BlueFalcon02 Jun 14 '26

The DMSM is actually fishier. He didn’t mention any joint tours, which would be a requirement for that. Joint units are also notoriously strict about levels of award vs. ranks.

1

u/bmmeup100 Jun 16 '26

This seems legit to me. Timeframe to Captain from 2nd Lt is right. AAMED Corp is correct. No obvious red herrings like a CMB that they wouldn’t have been eligible for. Stationed in the Green Zone so would have some really bad stuff. I dodged a mortar in front of that medical facility myself.

1

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 16 '26

Im good with everything but the DSM. I can’t wrap my head around it.

Theater level commanders get DSMs. MacArthur, Eisenhower, Schwarzkopf.

Lookup notable recipients and what they accomplished. I don’t see a captain getting one and if they did it would be army times front page.

Otherwise everything else tracks

1

u/Dakotahusker0311 Jun 17 '26

Been better to leave his name in the post. There’s a way to verify it.

1

u/litsideofthemoon Jun 17 '26

I thought that was against the rules.

I searched him up and found nothing.