It's hard for him to produce evidence when he's dead? And that seems to be your side on this. Against him because he cannot defend himself therefor he cannot win.

Well, gee there, Legal Beagle.

I for one will nominate you for a hero cookie, and a no medal.

And, a citation for being genuine lawyer material, such as legal dreams are made of.

Perry Mason is still better, though.

And your shoes need polishing.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.

i am known for sarcasm.

At the risk of repeating myself, IF YOU GET A SILVER STAR, YOU DON'T FORGET TO NOTICE THAT IT'S NOT ON YOUR ENLISTED RECORD BRIEF. Kyle was an E7. He must have at some point been promoted from E5 to E6. Then from E6 to E7. That would have required how many promotion boards and inspections from E8s and E9s. His ERB would have contained all his awards and promotions, points, whatever system the Navy was using in that period. I know for a fact that the service member AND the boards look at that stuff with scrutiny. How many people with SILVER STARS and BSMs with VALOR do you meet every day? Sure there are more in SOCOM units, but it still stands out. Silver Stars attract a lot of attention.

Every Soldier I've ever met above say E4 has an "I love me" book with pages of awards and medals and accolades and achievements. Kyle was no different. Ever seen pictures of his home - there are decorations and awards on the walls. Odds are he'd have framed and hung his significant awards too.

Yes, he is dead. I hope that someone else (his wife, his old commander, whatever) has a document, a picture, etc. of these awards. I'd love it if it can easily be proven that he was correct and the Navy was wrong. Conversely, I despise it when people lie about their accomplishments and inflate their awards. I have no reason not to like Kyle and hope this is cleared up in his favor - but I'm also not so awestruck at his fame and notoriety to know he's human and can err.

Don't loose site of the fact that just because someone is a SEAL doesn't mean they aren't also a liar, thief, criminal, or murderer etc. Several examples in recent history of SEALs doing shady stuff.

Soooo. His DD214 states more than "records show". Now part of his career was compiled from non computer generated systems(from what I'm seeing). And all this information was told to the news source from an individual who requested the info via the freedom of information act. The news station did not receive this from a navy spokesperson or a pentagon rep. The navy is currently conducting an investigation into the matter(now for all we know they may try and kill the story and hope it goes away).

Some more food for thought. Being a SEAL. They do conduct operations that would not be seen or made available for the "freedom" of information act. Is it possible that that information wasn't on there due to that matter? I mean sure, somewhere there would be a paper trail with one reason or another for the medal but I'd highly doubt it would be on a freedom of information file if it was given for the results of a classified op?

There's nothing "secret" or non-FOIA about an ERB or DD214. The narrative of a particular mission might be concealed or not subject to FOIA... but the ERB and DD214 is simply an abstract record.

Mhm

A BSM with out a "V" is a thank you for playing award. I don't hold much stuck in BSMs unless they have a "V" on them. Same with ARCOMs without the "V". You get all E-7s and above get BSMs for the deployment while E-6s and below got an ARCOM. Big whoop.

I also find it funny how people in support roles always try and justify how important their job is to combat arms. We get it, you are just as important if not more...

That is why I like the Marine Corp over the Army. The make it clear from the start that everyone not Infantry in the Marine Corp is there to support the Infantry and the Infantry is the backbone of the Corp.

This is where the state department and Dept of defense comes in. Not once do I ever recall, for the year I was there, seeing any award, let alone where, for times a troop was suddenly assigned to a hqtrs company for tdy, for whatever amount of time they were somewhere dark. But then again that was back in the eighties.

Just an update on this. The Navy investigated this and in spite of his DD214 reflecting 2 Silver Stars, it appears that there is no documentation to support one of them. So his official records were downgraded to 1 Silver Star.
By Thomas Gibbons Neff
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/che ... ge%2Fstory

Mine too. I had an ETS ARCOM that wasn't on my DD214 the first time I got out, had to correct that when I got commissioned. My MSM was still being processed when I ETSed out in 2005 so it isn't on my DD214 either. If you have the orders you can claim it.

I personally don't brag about any awards I have. I have enough salad on my uniform to look impressive enough but I never was that much into getting awards.

When I was in (out in 1983), they did all that shit with carbon paper copies off a typewriter.
And the people who processed the paper weren't recruited for their high ASVAB scores.
I'm sure there are lots of mistakes.

It's your individual responsibility to make sure it's right, not the admin shop or anyone else. You show them the correct citation/paperwork and they put it in. You check it periodically to make sure it's right.

The whole thing just seems like a smear on a dead man though. I wonder who Jesse Ventura called?

When I got out, the last thing I "examined" for accuracy was awards and medals. Granted, I was not close to the stratosphere of Silver Stars, that sort of thing...to me, it just didn't seem to matter in the grand scheme of civilian life.

Now, my Shellback certificate is another matter!

Shellbacks! Neptunus Rex!

What pissed me off was pre-paying $10 for a West Pac cruise book, and never getting it.
HM3 (book editor) said "Oh, we'll find you and make sure you get it"
I was discharged in Okinawa, didn't wish to extend or reenlist. Never got it.
Have one now, had to pay $100 on ebay, was issued to some Ensign I never heard of.

I admire Kyle, read his book, and think he is a hero. But it is just as important for his records to be honest and clear is we expect from our other arms of government, like Clinton. Nobody respects a liar or someone that inflates the record. I'm not saying Kyle is a liar and he can't defend himself, but the whole thing is very puzzling.

Silver Stars aren't just issued with a handshake. I've known quite well a number of S1s and dealt with hundreds of Soldiers and their awards as part of my job, and have a pretty good working knowledge of the process.

In my entire career which pretty much overlaps Kyles era, here's how it works: A narrative is drafted by someone in the service member's chain of command. It is distributed via email to seniors. Rarely is it correct. It goes through few rounds of corrections, until approved. For a Silver Star, the approval authority would be Sec Navy IIRC. All of SEC NAVYs emails and documents would be, by law, preserved indefinitely and any approval would 99.9% likely have been routed through the Pentagon where he works. The process probably takes months, and has dozens of eyes on it.

At minimum, he would have received a 8x10 certificate which the S1 put in his permanent electronic records, and there it would stay forever. In reality, there would have been some awards ceremony, since a SS is a pretty big deal. And the unit photographer/PAO, or someone with a camera, would have taken a picture. He wasn't camera shy. And I'd be surprised if that SS 8x10 award, which is a pretty big deal, wasn't put in a nice shadowbox frame with the medal, and mounted on a wall in his home.

So, where is all this evidence, if he really was awarded the 2nd one? Just like the absurdity of the CIA losing files, Clinton's email garbage, etc. You can't deleted these records if you tried. There are just too many forensically available copies. Probably in dozens of email accounts, photos, and hard copy given to him (which his wife would certainly have in his files at home), etc.

I will however, say that I have zero confidence in "military investigations" having reviewed thousands of them myself and finding an alarmingly high percent that fail on their surface. It is quite possible, for instance, they didn't even interview his wife, or look very hard for the information. It would not surprise me at all.