I agree with the post above regarding how little combat veterans say about it; everyone I've known who was in combat was reluctant to speak of it, and really didn't want to be pressed. I suspect this is similar to my experience when people ask me to tell "war stories" from the ER- I don't mind discussing it with close friends, but not with folks I don't know. And these are sobering experiences, but NOTHING like combat, from all I've ever heard.

Several years back, I recall an incident in which a Navy admiral (Boorda?) was found to have been photographed wearing a decoration he hadn't earned. It wasn't clear, from what I recall, how this happened; whether it was an honest mistake or whether he had deliberately claimed a decoration to which he was not entitled. He blew his brains out. I felt badly for him, and still do, but I thought about it when I read the Supreme Court verdict, and wondered whether his reaction to disgrace wasn't in some way understandable.

As to the idea that fraudulent use of a decoration or falsifying a military record somehow devalues the record of those who actually served with those distinctions, I don't think it does. Lincoln said something about this in the Gettysburg Address: "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." Decorations for military service and combat service are a commemoration or marking of acts of valor; the acts themselves stand on their own. I would also suggest that many acts of valor are not commemorated, for any number of reasons, and that those acts are no less heroic for not being recognized after the fact. And inversely, those individuals who claim recognition to which they are not entitled- whether it is in the military or any other walk of life- know their worthlessness as people, their lack of honesty, and shallow and inflated self-regard.