American Valor

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The thing that gets us about the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Alvarez — the ruling in which it declared unconstitutional the federal law known as the Stolen Valor Act — is not the question of whether the law is or is not a violation of the First Amendment. The court majority suggests that it is, because it outlaws speech that might be described merely as boastful and, in any event, that Congress mayn’t abridge. The minority, comprising Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas, says, in a dissent, that it isn’t. Rather it’s just about protecting our country’s system of military honors.

Either way, the thing that gets us about this case is what the court describes as the “epidemic” false claims that has sprung up in the current war. It involves an astonishing number of wannabe heroes. Justice Alito, writing for the dissenters, reports that an “investigation of the 333 people listed in the online edition of Who’s Who as having received a top military award revealed that fully a third of the claims could not be substantiated.” He adds that when the Library of Congress “compiled oral histories for its Veterans History Project, 24 of the 49 individuals who identified themselves as Medal of Honor recipients had not actually received that award.”

It may be that it was always thus, but those of us of a certain age can remember Vietnam. That’s when our GIs came home to polite indifference or open hostility.  Why has this contretemps erupted? Is it because the liars and frauds desire an insult to our heroes? Hmmmm. We don’t gainsay Justice Alito’s point when he writes that the “lies proscribed by the Stolen Valor Act tend to debase the distinctive honor of military awards.” But our own instinct is that’s the effect more than the intent. It seems that America is in a surge of admiration for its heroes.

That would be only underscored by the phenomenon that some of the false claims of valor are animated by a desire for financial, employment, or social advantage. That seems to be involved in a number of the cases cited by the Supreme Court. All the sharper is the point that nags us about this case. What a change has been wrought since Vietnam. The court’s decision to protect false claims under the shield of the First Amendment will only throw into sharper relieve that we are suddenly in a moment when our nation’s heroes are unambiguously those GIs who have proven to be prepared to put themselves in harm’s way and who, when they got there, disclosed the un-alloyed coin of American valor.


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