Restoring Valor: One Couple?s Mission to Expose Fraudulent War Heroes and Protect America?s Military Awards System

“Terrific read. Stories of stolen valor you won’t believe, and those who hunt them down and participated in writing legislation to restore dignity to all those who have truly served in combat.” —Peter C. Lemon, recipient, Congressional Medal of Honor

Stolen valor occurs when a person lies about receiving military decorations that he or she has in fact never earned. It has become a major societal problem that has been discussed numerous times in the news; according to the New York Times, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid disability benefits to more than six hundred people falsely claiming to have been POWs in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. The number of stolen valor cases reported to the FBI has tripled in the last decade. In fact, more imposters lie about earning high military declarations for battlefield bravery than the actual number of real-life hero recipients. These imposters trade on tales and the trappings of military valor to secure privileges such as career advancements and even unearned veterans’ benefits.

In Restoring Valor, Doug Sterner provides riveting case studies of the stolen valor imposters he’s investigated and exposed and the serious crimes—including murder—they’ve committed. He chronicles the evolution of stolen valor from the inception of the republic to today. Sterner shows why the federal law he and his wife, Pam, helped to enact—the Stolen Valor Act—is necessary.

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Doug Sterner is a Vietnam veteran and two-time Bronze Star recipient. He has been a frequent guest on news shows such as Anderson Cooper and is the media’s “go-to” person for the Stolen Valor Act. He is the founder of the Hall of Heroes website and curator of the Hall of Valor data base on Militarytimes.com. Pam Sterner is a graduate of Colorado State University, where, as a student in 2004, she authored the study that became the framework for the Stolen Valor Act. They live in Pueblo, Colorado.

Michael Mink is a free-lance writer who has written more than five-hundred nationally published articles and has co-authored two previous books.