24 Medal of Honor records in history project, including 1 from USCG, don't appear in official registry. His name is Boatswain Don Louis Duiven. Anyone knows who he is?

Your post is kind of convoluted. Is this guy claiming to be a MOH recipient? No such name exists in the list.

http://www.army.mil/cmh/moh.html

http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/672198221/m/9610036641001

see this thread

http://ucgblog.blogspot.com/

and this web site

quote:

Boatswain Don Louis Duiven.

Any mention as to what was/is the age of this person ???

The grade of Boatswain (W-1) hasn't been used/worn since the late 60's. Unless he's an elderly WW2 type veteran claiming this, he should have been easily debunked right from the start.

On the other hand, and this could prove an interesting research bit.

It's known that 1st Lt Frank Newcomb was awarded a Cardenas Medal of Honor during the Spanish American War. Is there any record as to who were the officers in the U.S.R.C. Hudson awarded the SILVER and who were the crewmembers awarded the BRONZE Cardenas Medal of Honor.

If more info was available as to when he supplied this information, he is easily written off as a phoney. If it is a data entry error, could it have been a researcher going through names and coming up with this Boatswain, and not understanding the difference between the two decorations. It would not be a stretch at all to find a Boatswain USRCS who ended up as a Boatswain USCG after 1915.

More specifics would be good on that name.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mastersmate,

I'm sorry but the news release where I got the information doesn't allow it to be posted on any public board. But to answer the question, it only referes to Boatswain and yes, he claims to have won the Medal of Honor. So the History Project is removing his name along w/ 23 other names of people who claim having won the medal.

Nobody "wins" the MOH.

Here's an article about this from the Navy Times...

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/09/marine_veteranshistoryproject_070917/

Medal of Honor fiction

Library of Congress’ Web site holds 24 bogus valor claims
By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Sep 19, 2007 18:11:31 EDT

The Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, which for the past seven years has been collecting oral and written histories of veterans’ war experiences, contains 24 entries for Medal of Honor recipients that are bogus, according to official records.

Of the 49 purported recipients of the nation’s highest award for combat valor who have participated in the nationwide project by telling their story for posterity, only 25 appear on the official Medal of Honor registry mandated by Congress in 1916, which includes 3,463 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have earned the medal since its inception.

The bogus entries came to light based on a review of Veterans History Project records by Doug Sterner, who maintains an extensive, yet unofficial, online database of valor award recipients, and Mary Schantag, who runs the POW Network, a Web site listing U.S. prisoners of war.

Their review also turned up 47 history project participants who appear to claim unearned service crosses — the nation’s second-highest combat award — and 45 participants who falsely claim to have been prisoners of war.

Bob Patrick, director of the Veterans History Project, said the records are provided by interview subjects voluntarily, and project staff rarely verifies Medal of Honor claims. They do not review entries involving lesser awards for valor or service.

“We in the past have made an attempt to make a review when people claim the Medal of Honor,” Patrick said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. “We did a review some months ago, 18 months, and clearly it is time we do a review again.”

As of Tuesday morning, the Veterans History Project pulled all references to the Medal of Honor from the 24 entries in question.

Based on a list compiled by Sterner and Schantag and provided to Marine Corps Times on Monday morning, the project’s Web site included 32 unsubstantiated Distinguished Service Cross claims and 14 for the Navy Cross. It also includes the profile of Wallace M. Gallant, who was listed as of Monday morning as a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the Air Force Cross and the other two service crosses. No service member has ever earned all three service crosses.

Patrick was hesitant to classify the interview subjects as frauds, and held open the possibility that there were clerical errors along the way.

“We have found cases of transcription errors and some cases where someone just wrote something down wrong,” he said.

Sterner, a Vietnam veteran who was a driving force behind recently enacted legislation setting harsh punishments for those who claim unearned awards, said seeing “lies stamped with the seal of authenticity implied by finding these war stories preserved in the Library of Congress makes me want to throw up.”

He added that the fraudulent claims call into question the credibility of the all the project’s accounts, but Patrick said accuracy is not the project’s primary goal.

“I don’t think the project is compromised because it is not the mission of this project to establish a registry. The mission is to collect the war-time memories from World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

As of Monday afternoon, it was unclear whether any of the subjects could be prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, in which false verbal, written and physical claims to unearned military awards carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Patrick said project members are planning to scrub their Medal of Honor entries, and that “because of the new legislation, perhaps we need to take a look at Distinguished Service Crosses as well.”

But he added that there’s only so far that the project can dig on its own. Verifying the reported awards of “roughly 50,000” veterans who have participated in the project since it was created by Congress in 2000 is “not feasible,” given the breadth of information that would have to be reviewed and the lack of a national database for recipients of awards other than the Medal of Honor, Patrick said.

Instead, the Veterans History Project relies on the public to point out false information and makes “a good-faith effort” to “strike that from the individual’s record” when it is discovered, Patrick said.

Sterner said this case exposes the problem with records relating to valor awards: The government does not maintain a central database of award recipients that, if made available to the public, could easily disprove false claims of valor nationwide.

“The VHP exists because officially, as a nation we have done a poor job of recording and preserving the history of our heroes. They, like myself and others, have seen the need to preserve the stories of our veterans, and have stepped out to do something positive. It is critical, however, that official channels provide them the tools to ensure that the history thus preserved is accurate history.”

Sterner also applauded the project’s goals, adding that “the worst thing we can do because of this problem is kill the messenger” and places the onus on Congress to establish a searchable database that would have prevented this problem.

Several lawmakers who were recently contacted by Marine Corps Times expressed their support for the establishment of the database and hearings to discuss it, but none has yet scheduled a hearing nor drafted legislation.

The following names listed as Medal of Honor recipients on the Library of Congress’ Web site for the Veterans History Project do not appear on the official Medal of Honor registry:

Navy Seaman Anthony Belcastro

Army Sgt. 1st Class Levi L. Bizzelle

Army Maj. Donald Arthur Comes Jr.

Air Force Sgt. Ronald Keith Cook

Marine Capt. Charles Raymond Craynon

Army (E-5) Timothy Rene Dickinson

Coast Guard Boatswain Don Louis Duiven

Marine Col. Thomas McCoy Fields

Army Lt. Col. Wallace M. Gallant

Army Sgt. William L. Gnerlich

Army Capt. Michael P. Guglielmo

Navy Seaman 1st Class Steven Hanson

Navy Capt. Whitney R. Harris

Army Sgt. Roy R. Holt

Army Capt. Richard Plummer Howe

Army Pfc. Edwin R. Kruckenberg

Army Sgt. Douglas A. Kruse

Army Master Sgt. Erwin George Lathrop

Navy Seaman 1st Class James P. McNabb

Army Cpl. Paul B. Oakes

Navy Yeoman 1st Class Woodrow Wade Partin

Army Pfc. Arsenio F. Sanchez

Air Force Lt. Col. Billy Neal Stovall

Marine Col. John J. Windsor

quote:

Originally posted by CHGuns:
Nobody "wins" the MOH.

Seems like some of the lied stories told to get them won them the medal =-)

Absolutely mind-numbing the lack of honor people have.

quote:

Seems like some of the lied stories told to get them won them the medal =-)

Did not understand what you were trying to say. Could you clarify that statement?

A quick search on Zaba revealed this:


DON L DUIVEN Born May 1931 More Information on DON L DUIVEN
6579 BURGER DR SE Map It Recorded: Unknown DON L DUIVEN
GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49546 (616) 949-6826

Wray...

No one "wins" a MOH. Those that say they
won it to newspapers are fakes.

You receive, a recipient of.

DON L DUIVEN: Fake/Poser.

Keko.. can you post the link to that site? or tell us what the name is?

never mind, I found it....

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/marine_veteranshistoryproject_070917/

Wray...

Wray,
What is Zaba? Is it a serch engine to find folks?

yes........

I did the history project at the library here in town, I had all of floyds records etc. the people are trying to get the vets stories writen down before they are all on the wrong side of the ground. The lady who taped me had also taped mothers, fathers, and veterans.

I knew that marine and It is a surprise to me that he risked his life for his fellow brothers, friendly fire or not he should recieive the medal of honor. He was a Motaviter for life RIP brother. We served together with 2/8 Americas battalion He was with fox company and I was with Echo company. CBL. Mejia YUT!!

There are several databases to find folks. This one also does reverse phone and address searches.

http://whitepages.addresses.com/white_pages.php?aid=150&sid=3

Given the continuing cases of stolen valor, our Govt should do more to root these folks out and hold them accountable. This is a case of more than just bragging rights in a local bar, these false claims hurt people. Whether it is fund raising, getting a job otherwise not available to them. being elected, or otherwise gaining something based on a false claim of valor, the people who would have otherwise benefited have been hurt. Whether emotionally or financially, innocent people are affected. Seems to me with today's search engines, false claims could be more effectively disqualified and the claimant held accountable.