Veterans’ ‘stolen valor’ attack on Amy McGrath makes no sense

Call me biased, (and you would be right), but everyone knows that valor goes to the infantry; the infantry is The Queen of Battle and everyone else is simply involved to support the queen.

At least that what was drummed into me as a young and dumb Army infantry draftee.

Much older and a little wiser now, I know that valor is shared among each and every veteran who was put into a combat situation. No one who has been there is stealing the valor from anyone else who has been there.

In fact, the ones who survive, share the feeling of the adrenaline as it departs, wracking their bodies and souls afterward.

So pause a minute to consider the recent news coverage of the handful of veteran men who claim the retired Marine officer, woman, combat vet, mother, political candidate is guilty of “stolen valor.”

This woman strapped herself into an explosive seat in the cockpit of an F18 fighter jet, and rode the aircraft at supersonic speeds, into the nests of militant terrorists in Afghanistan who wanted desperately to shoot it down. Not once, but more than 50 times.

That sounds like valor to me.

These guys want to make it sound like she stole the valor from the guy driving, what, 24 inches in front of where she sat?

Can they say who deserves the valor attached to that cramped space under the Plexiglas? Of course not.

The accusers ignore the reality that missiles zero in on the discharge rushing out the poop chute of an aircraft, and once a missile enters the aircraft’s fiery domain through the back door, it delivers its package of doom to the rear seat rider first. Not much sooner, but sooner.

The missile doesn’t discriminate according to which occupant is more valorous.

Then there’s the fact that she was able to drive an F18 down an electronic glide slope, with some guy furiously waving paddles at her, and landed on an aircraft carrier bobbing like the end of my fishing pole when a 10-pound catfish grabs hold of Uncle Clyde’s famous stink bait.

I imagine that she also drank that cheap Navy coffee in the ship’s mess. Just getting through that total butt-puckering experience has some sort of valor attached to it.

Yet, these guys want to have her name removed from the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame.

Come on, give her credit for what she deserves. Stop trying to cheapen it. Her service should be on her resume, and talked about just like everything else. They make it sound like it shouldn’t be mentioned.

And they should stop the “we are not politically motivated” claim. So what if their guy doesn’t have valor to put on his resume? Let him talk about whatever else he can say he’s done.