[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
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
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
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
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts,
Chairman Ranking Minority Member
DAN BURTON, Indiana BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PETER WELCH, Vermont
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
C O N T E N T S
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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
PREVENTING STOLEN VALOR: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
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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. 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?
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 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
request, 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 bestow 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.
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.
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.
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 alternative 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:]
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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.
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.
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 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 government-issued, 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 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 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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.]