{"id":73470,"date":"2025-06-27T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2025\/06\/27\/valor-may-not-expire-but-there-should-be-limits-on-award-recognition\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:30:00","slug":"valor-may-not-expire-but-there-should-be-limits-on-award-recognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/opinion\/2025\/06\/27\/valor-may-not-expire-but-there-should-be-limits-on-award-recognition\/","title":{"rendered":"Valor may not expire, but award recognition should have limits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On June 12, Rep. Darrel Issa, R-Calif., introduced the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/military-history\/2025\/06\/12\/new-bill-would-expand-exception-to-medal-of-honor-5-year-limitation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/military-history\/2025\/06\/12\/new-bill-would-expand-exception-to-medal-of-honor-5-year-limitation\/\">Valor Has No Expiration Act<\/a>, which would waive time limitations for military decorations since January 1940 if underlying records were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/3914\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/3914\/text\">\u201cclassified, withheld from the public record due to sensitivity, or redacted for national security purposes.\u201d<\/a> He claimed this expanded on a 1996 law which waived the statute of limitations for personnel carrying out intelligence duties from 1940-1990. According to Issa, his bill \u201cremoves this arbitrary end date and expands the criteria.\u201d The inspiration was retired Navy Capt. Royce Williams, whose Korean War dogfight was allegedly classified for decades, making him \u201cineligible for the Medal of Honor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the Medal of Honor was authorized in the Civil War, there were no time restrictions or evidentiary requirements. This proved disastrous for the Army, the service that eventually proposed time limitations on the medal. Most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cmohs.org\/recipients\/page\/1?branches%5b%5d=us-army&amp;conflicts%5b%5d=us-civil-war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cmohs.org\/recipients\/page\/1?branches%5b%5d=us-army&amp;conflicts%5b%5d=us-civil-war\">Civil War Medals of Honor<\/a> from the Army were recommended decades late, which the <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/MedalOfHonorUSArmy\/page\/n7\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/MedalOfHonorUSArmy\/page\/n7\/mode\/2up\">Army<\/a> referred to as an \u201cembarrassing abuse\u201d as hundreds of veterans petitioned for the medal \u201cwithout any sound documentation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army referred the matter to the attorney general, who in 1892 ruled that medals should be based on \u201cofficial reports,\u201d not \u201cunofficial evidence [after decades of] unexplained delay.\u201d In 1897, Secretary of War Russell Alger published regulations limiting medal recommendations to within one year of qualifying actions. In 1901, Secretary of War Elihu Root proposed a three-year award limit, since Civil War medal recommendations were taking \u201cmost of the time and attention of the Department.\u201d Congress finally passed Root\u2019s statute of limitations in 1918 for the Army, and 1919 for the Navy, fixing the Army\u2019s awarding of the Medal of Honor and service crosses at three years, and the Navy\u2019s at five years. These were standardized a century later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress originally waived time limitations for most military awards via time-consuming private bills. In 1996, Congress required military departments to first review stale medal submissions. If endorsed by the military, Congress considered waivers for the defense bill. This was no rubber stamp; waivers applied to \u201cappropriate\u201d cases deemed not to be \u201can undue administrative burden.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Issa claims that his bill removes an \u201carbitrary end date\u201d for the 1996 waiver for \u201cintelligence activities,\u201d and extends it to cases impacted by classification. This misunderstands the earlier law, which required submission of stale cases within 30 days of passage. Unlike the intelligence waiver, the Valor Has No Expiration Act has no future time limitation, meaning that it is a standing waiver. Further, Issa misquoted the 1996 law, and also confused the name of the Medal of Honor, which he referred to as the <a href=\"https:\/\/issa.house.gov\/issues\/royce-williams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/issa.house.gov\/issues\/royce-williams\">\u201cCongressional Medal of Honor.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Issa claims his bill is necessary to prevent denials like that of Capt. Williams, who he alleges was denied the Medal of Honor due to record classification. However, Williams\u2019 case is inapposite, since it appears his defect was not classified records, but rather that official records contained no mention of his dogfight. After all, the Navy reviewed Williams\u2019 case in 2022 and determined that his valor fell below the Medal of Honor, presumably after reviewing previously classified records. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Issa and others have repeatedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/1819\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/1819\/text\">introduced bills<\/a> to authorize Williams the Medal of Honor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armed-services.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/fy23_ndaa_joint_explanatory_statement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.armed-services.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/fy23_ndaa_joint_explanatory_statement.pdf\">since 2022<\/a>. This suggests that the purpose of the Valor Has No Expiration Act is not to benefit other veterans, but rather to grant Williams another reconsideration. Repeated waiver submissions ignore that the Navy reviewed Williams for this action twice, resulting in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navy.mil\/Press-Office\/Press-Releases\/display-pressreleases\/Article\/3252851\/secnav-awards-navy-cross-to-retired-korean-war-veteran\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.navy.mil\/Press-Office\/Press-Releases\/display-pressreleases\/Article\/3252851\/secnav-awards-navy-cross-to-retired-korean-war-veteran\/\">Navy Cross<\/a> that Issa called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/congressional-record\/volume-169\/issue-12\/extensions-of-remarks-section\/article\/E33-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/congressional-record\/volume-169\/issue-12\/extensions-of-remarks-section\/article\/E33-2\">\u201can appropriate recognition\u201d<\/a> of Williams\u2019 heroism. Public law permits stale case reconsideration only once, not an unlimited number of times. The intent of this process is to pass a waiver if both the department and Congress agree on the merits, not for Congress to pass waivers to pressure the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No evidence suggests a need for this waiver. The bill is also vague, applying to all cases where records \u201cwere classified, withheld from the public record due to sensitivity, or redacted for national security purposes.\u201d Since the waiver applies to all claimants since 1940, and since most modern military operations require some manner of redaction or classification, this would make tens of millions of veterans eligible for award reconsideration. This would overwhelm the military and simultaneously permit them to award stale medals with a mere report to Congress, significantly reducing oversight. The present administration has apparently awarded only one medal falling under this statute of limitations, a stale <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defense.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4124020\/retired-soldiers-valor-recognized-with-distinguished-service-cross\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defense.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4124020\/retired-soldiers-valor-recognized-with-distinguished-service-cross\/\">Distinguished Service Cross<\/a> awarded to retired Sgt. Maj. Eric Geressy. The Army requested no waiver from Congress as required, which apparently makes the award unlawful. This seemingly justifies strengthening oversight of stale military awards, not relaxing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If deserving veterans were truly denied valor awards as a result of classified records, then there should be a higher burden of proof to obtain a remedy. Further, any waiver of the time limitations should be discrete and tailored to cure the defect, as with earlier remedies from Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Dwight S. Mears is a retired Army major with a military background in aviation, military intelligence and strategic planning. He was commissioned from West Point as an aviation officer and flew and commanded in helicopter and airplane units, and subsequently was selected to return to West Point as a history professor. He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from Lewis &amp; Clark Law School. He is the author of \u201cThe Medal of Honor: The Evolution of America\u2019s Highest Military Decoration.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Editor\u2019s note: This story has been updated.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opinion: The Valor Has No Expiration Act ignores why limitations on valor awards like the Medal of Honor matter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":109643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,25,14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[7189],"class_list":["post-73470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BTWHLC735NHXBPAYQPVE3OOZLM","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/2025\/06\/27\/valor-may-not-expire-but-there-should-be-limits-on-award-recognition\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Valor may not expire, but award recognition should have limits - Marine Corps Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Opinion: The Valor Has No Expiration Act ignores why limitations on valor awards like the Medal of Honor matter.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Valor may not expire, but award recognition should have limits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Opinion: The Valor Has No Expiration Act ignores why limitations on valor awards like the Medal of Honor matter.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/opinion\/2025\/06\/27\/valor-may-not-expire-but-there-should-be-limits-on-award-recognition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marine Corps Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-27T21:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T16:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dwight S. 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