Tommy’s Lies
By 
Electing football coaches to the Senate probably isn’t a good idea under any circumstances. Along with many of them being uninterested and stupid egomaniacs who are used to being little dictators in their programs, they spew bullshit better than anyone. No one can lie like a football coach. Part of the deal. So now that Tommy Tuberville is holding up military promotions and undermining national security in protest of the military allowing soldiers to get abortions, it isn’t too surprising that his defensive strategy of claiming his father’s military service is juuuuuuusttt a bit exaggerated.
This is false. The Bronze Star, the eighth-highest military award, is earned when a soldier “distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service” in combat with an armed enemy of the United States.
Earning five Bronze Stars would be highly unusual; Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II, earned two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars, among other medals. About 395,000 Bronze Stars were awarded to the 11,200,000 Army soldiers who fought during World War II, so about three out of every 100 soldiers earned one.
None of the hundreds of pages of after-action reports on the 746th Tank Battalion, from June 1944 to August 1945, lists Tuberville as a recipient of the Bronze Star even as the reports meticulously list scores of soldiers who were either recommended for an award or received one.
Neither his tombstone nor his widow’s memorial notice makes any mention of Tuberville’s earning a Bronze Star, let alone five.
Stafford provided a photo of a snippet of the report of separation that said Tuberville was “awarded 5 Bronze stars for above campaigns per WDGO #33-40 1945.” He said the report of separation referred to the Central Europe, Ardennes, Rhineland, Northern France and Normandy campaigns.
That photo snippet confirmed Tuberville earned not Bronze Stars, but rather Bronze service stars — which denote that a soldier was physically present during a particular military campaign or engagement. Campaign service stars, unlike the Bronze Star, are not individual medals and do not indicate valor in combat.
Tommy may actually believe this–I mean, his father did win a Purple Heart. But if you are Tuberville, you are going to go for exaggeration at all times because this is how you convinced recruits to come to your school and because this is what boosters wanted to hear. It’s his culture. Well, that and hate.