Republicans behaving badly

[MN-Skeptic]

How about a little Stolen Valor?

Military documents contradict Republican Rep. Troy Nehls' military record claims

During his time in office and amid his inaugural 2020 run for Texas' 22nd District congressional seat, Republican Rep. Troy Nehls has repeatedly claimed to be the recipient of two Bronze Star medals and a Combat Infantryman Badge from his time in the U.S. Army serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is no question that Nehls served overseas, engaged in combat, and was awarded a Bronze Star for his duties there. But military documents obtained by CBS News after a months-long investigation and a review of his service record by the U.S. Army at the Pentagon show Nehls received one – not two – Bronze Star medals. And his Combat Infantryman Badge from Afghanistan was revoked from his service record in 2023 because Nehls served as a civil affairs officer, not as an infantryman or Special Forces soldier.

[zekeb]

I suppose you can claim that you received it when, in fact, you did receive it. It's just more convenient to omit that you had to give it back,

[Suranis]

Good old lies by omission. Ah, always good to see the classics.

[zekeb]

I believe the US Army dropped the requirement that you must have a combat arms MOS and been engaged in combat to get the CIB. You are still required to have been engaged in actual combat, though.

[Ben-Prime]

I believe the US Army dropped the requirement that you must have a combat arms MOS and been engaged in combat to get the CIB. You are still required to have been engaged in actual combat, though.

I thought they had simply created a distinct Combat Medical Badge and Combat Action Badge for non-infantry-or-SF forces that were in direct combat.

[Maybenaut]

I looked at the photo of him in uniform. The oak leaf cluster (denoting a second award) is clearly visible. What an odd thing to claim to have. Knowing the Army awards system as I do, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he honestly believed he had been awarded a second medal. I’ve done a number of Board for Correction of Military Records cases involving mistakes like that - command believes the medal was approved and goes through a presentation ceremony and dude doesn’t find out until it’s missing from his DD-214 at separation that it had been disapproved or downgraded by a higher authority.

This is a nothing-berder IMO. It’s not like he claimed to have a Silver Star and the most he ever got was the Good Conduct Medal, or whatever.

[Foggy]

Yeah, it makes no sense. A Bronze Star is a hell of a tribute to the courage and action of the owner. Why would anyone need to claim a second one (which it seems highly improbable that anyone could earn two)? If he wasn't in combat, how the heck did he get a Bronze Star?

Oh, Wikipedia says it's "for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone." If it involves combat, you get the "V" device on it - V for valor.

This dude got no valor.

[zekeb]

Here's a Southern boy's take on Kristi

[Maybenaut]

Yeah, it makes no sense. A Bronze Star is a hell of a tribute to the courage and action of the owner. Why would anyone need to claim a second one (which it seems highly improbable that anyone could earn two)? If he wasn't in combat, how the heck did he get a Bronze Star?

Oh, Wikipedia says it's "for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone." If it involves combat, you get the "V" device on it - V for valor.

This dude got no valor.

Each service has its own standard, but yeah.

ETA: Remember when ADM Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations committed suicide when he was alleged to have worn a “V” device in two of his medals - the Commendation Medal and the Achievement Medal? It stemmed from a Newsweek investigation. Many of us on active duty at the time thought the Newsweek piece was a hit job; Boorda sided with the Clinton Administration over Tailhook and lots of folks didn’t like that.

I thought they made way, way too much out of the “V” thing - he had a defensible reason for thinking he was entitled to include them, and stopped including them when he got a definitive answer. That was *a year* before the Newsweek investigation even began. But when it was apparent that the issue wasn’t going to go away, and they were going to drag his ass through the mud, he committed suicide.

It was tragic. Boorda, a high-school drop-out, was the first prior enlisted member of any service ever to rise to the highest position in that service. He placed a great deal of emphasis on programs intended to assist enlisted members in accomplishing whatever goals they had set for themselves. As a prior enlisted member myself (I was a Lieutenant in the Coast Guard at the time of his suicide), I had a great deal of respect for Boorda - what he had accomplished and what he was trying to do as CNO.

[pipistrelle]

I thought they made way, way too much out of the “V” thing - he had a defensible reason for thinking he was entitled to include them, and stopped including them when he got a definitive answer.

So he did the honorable thing, and still they didn't let it go.

[Kendra]

I forget if I read it online of heard it on teevee, so don't quote me, but I think I heard Noem is going to Face the Nation tomorrow morning.

[pipistrelle]

Wants PR for her waste of trees.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

I forget if I read it online of heard it on teevee, so don't quote me, but I think I heard Noem is going to Face the Nation tomorrow morning.

I thought she was going to moon the nation.

[Kendra]

Wants PR for her waste of trees.

There's a list on Goodreads called Trees Died for This? I voted it on to it. She's not getting the best ratings on that site, I think the book comes out on 5/7 and the Amazon reviews should be fun

[pipistrelle]

She didn't kill just Cricket. She killed a goat. And somewhere she mentions putting down three horses in two weeks, which seems off. A few horse owners agreed.

She didn't just kill them. She had to express her hatred.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

Her family, she writes, also owned a male goat that was “nasty and mean”, because it had not been castrated. Furthermore, the goat smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid” and “loved to chase” Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.

Noem decided to kill the unnamed goat the same way she had just killed Cricket the dog. But though she “dragged him to a gravel pit”, the goat jumped as she shot and therefore survived the wound. Noem says she went back to her truck, retrieved another shell, then “hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down”.

She tried to claim this is what farmers do. I have enough farm in me to know billy goats smell. Not exactly a secret to farmers with goats. They also like to butt kids. Again, not a secret. And kids on farms are used to having clothes get torn up and dirty. Has this woman ever been to a farm? Mucked out stalls? Fed pigs? Been around a henhouse? I think enough people have commented on bird dog training to say you don't screw up training and then kill the pupil.

But i think what's most disturbing is that she "hates" the animal or describes it as "nasty and mean." Those are her issues, not the animal's.

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

[Suranis]

We had a goat growing up. Dumbest animal I've ever been around, and ya it loved to butt things with it's head but it was fine for kids to be around. It was pretty affectionate too.

[zekeb]

All her goat needed was a snip job in the loins.

[pipistrelle]

All her goat needed was a snip job in the loins.

Yeah, you'd think someone so expert on farming and rural life would know that.

[MN-Skeptic]

One of Noem’s claims is that she met Kim Jong Un and implied she stared him down. Now it’s being said that that was an error in the book. The problem with that… Noem recited the audiobook herself!

[Rolodex]

One of Noem’s claims is that she met Kim Jong Un and implied she stared him down. Now it’s being said that that was an error in the book. The problem with that… Noem recited the audiobook herself!

And said she knew about "little tyrants" from her time teaching Sunday School for little kids. Not sure I'd want my kids to have a Sunday School teacher who thinks kids are little tyrants.

[Ben-Prime]

One of Noem’s claims is that she met Kim Jong Un and implied she stared him down. Now it’s being said that that was an error in the book. The problem with that… Noem recited the audiobook herself!

And said she knew about "little tyrants" from her time teaching Sunday School for little kids. Not sure I'd want my kids to have a Sunday School teacher who thinks kids are little tyrants.

Especially if, given the factual examples we have of how she treats living beings she believes to be untrainable, she decides one of the little tyrants is ungovernable.

[Rolodex]

Well, exactly. I don't love being in a room full of small kids, which is why I never taught Sunday School. I always said if I go to Hell after I die, I will be stuck for eternity in a classroom of kindergartners.

[Frater I*I]

Well, exactly. I don't love being in a room full of small kids, which is why I never taught Sunday School. I always said if I go to Hell after I die, I will be stuck for eternity in a classroom of kindergartners.

My Dante's Inferno is being stuck working a Taco Bell drive thru in a suburb with a constant dinner rush...

[MN-Skeptic]

I don't think Center Street is particularly happy with Noem. They issued the following statement on Twitter -

At the request of Governor Noem, we are removing a passage regarding Kim Jong Un from her book No Going Back, upon reprint of the print edition and as soon as technically possible on the audio and ebook editions. Further questions about the passage should be referred to the author.

[Sam the Centipede]

With regard to Sunday school teaching, Kristi Noem probably misunderstood then diligently implemented Matthew 19:14 (tone of voice: action hero growl): Jesus said: "Suffer, little children!"