Spotlight on Maryland’s reporting has established one fact no longer in dispute: Wes Moore did not receive a Bronze Star medal at the end of his Afghanistan deployment in 2006.
A photograph from the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division’s awards ceremony, held on March 1, 2006, shows Moore receiving an Army Commendation Medal, or ARCOM. His immediate supervisor, retired Lt. Col. James “Jamie” Gottschling, said that award was consistent with Moore’s duties, rank and abbreviated time in Afghanistan.
That discovery challenges the narrative around Moore’s deployment.
It is no longer simply about whether Moore inaccurately claimed a Bronze Star on a 2006 White House Fellowship application. It is now a story about how, nearly two decades later, a sitting governor and rising national political figure, obtained a Bronze Star medal through a process that moved with extraordinary speed, while relying on claims that the medal’s paperwork had been lost. Those claims are in stark contrast with the available evidence.
It is also a story that Maryland’s political press corps has largely chosen not to pursue.
Other politicians, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Texas Rep. Troy Nehls and Florida Rep. Cory Mills, have all faced intense scrutiny over claims involving their military records, decorations or combat service. Nehls, for example, was publicly criticized for wearing a Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) he did not earn, when the award he actually received was a Combat Action Badge. He eventually stopped wearing the CIB.
For nearly two decades, Moore allowed the public record to portray him as a Bronze Star recipient when he was not. Yet outside of Spotlight’s reporting, Maryland media have shown little appetite for a sustained investigation into the governor’s military record, the retroactive award or the political machinery that helped secure it. That silence raises its own question: Why?
Spotlight will continue to examine how officials and institutions helped secure Moore’s 2024 Bronze Star to fix a political problem and report on future developments.
Specifically, Spotlight is investigating why then-Sen. Laphonza Butler of California sponsored Moore’s request, who first contacted her or her staff, and what information they were given. Did Butler know Moore had already received an ARCOM for the same deployment?
Did anyone at Army Human Resources Command, or in the Secretary of the Army’s office, confirm the final disposition of the 2006 or 2024 awards with leaders from the brigade’s higher headquarters, Combined Joint Task Force 76?
What role, if any, did Vice President Kamala Harris, or staff from her office, play in connecting Moore to Butler?
Spotlight also intends to examine the role of then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and her staff. Moore’s friend and mentor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel, when he was still on active duty, said he contacted Wormuth’s chief of staff before rebuilding the governor’s award package. Seven days after Butler’s letter reached the Army, the Bronze Star was approved.
Who ordered the request to be expedited? What legal, personnel and chain of command reviews occurred during those seven days? Were Moore’s official records checked against the dates and claims in the reconstructed citation? Who noticed — or failed to notice — that the citation significantly overstated his time in Afghanistan and inaccurately described him as a retired Army captain?
Another fundamental question is how the Army classified the request. Was it the correction of a previously approved but lost Bronze Star, as Moore, Fenzel and Butler represented? Was it a new recommendation? Or should it have been treated as a reconsideration and upgrade of the ARCOM Moore had already received?
The answers to those questions should have determined which process the Army followed, what evidence was required and whether the matter should have gone before the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records, which involves a far more in-depth process than the seven days allowed.
Relevant records requested by Spotlight via the Freedom of Information Act remain hidden. The Army has not released the complete award recommendation for the 2024 award, witness statements, endorsements, legal reviews or decision memorandums. Nor has the public seen the detailed award rationale that federal law required the Army secretary to provide to both the House and Senate Armed Services committees and to Butler.
Spotlight will continue trying to determine whether that report was sent, what it said and why congressional archives have been unable to produce it.
Readers should expect Spotlight to compare Moore’s treatment with that of ordinary veterans. How often are 18-year-old award requests approved in seven days? What documentation is normally required? How many veterans have waited months or years while being asked to locate records that no longer exist and eyewitnesses who are not readily available?
The integrity of the awards system depends not only on whether a medal can be justified, but on whether the rules are evenly applied to everyone. In Moore’s case, it appears they were not.
The public record now provides substantial grounds for an independent investigation. That inquiry could be conducted by the Department of War inspector general, the Department of the Army inspector general, Congress or some combination of the three.
Federal investigators would have a viewpoint not always available to journalists: unfettered access to internal communications and deliberative records, the ability to interview all who were directly involved, and the authority to determine whether material information was withheld, ignored or knowingly false.
Spotlight’s reporting has established key facts through contemporaneous photographs, public statements, military records, witness testimony and official correspondence.
What remains is for investigators to obtain the records unavailable to the public, determine who knew what and when, identify how the award was approved, and take the matter to an appropriate legal, administrative or congressional conclusion.
The unanswered question is no longer whether Moore deserved a Bronze Star.
It is whether political influence and privileged access were used to produce one — using false information — and who inside the federal government made that happen.
Drew Sullins can be reached at dpsullins@sbgtv.com. Spotlight on Maryland is a joint venture by FOX45 News, The Baltimore Sun and WJLA in Washington, D.C. Send story tips to spotlightonmaryland@sbgtv.com or call our hotline at (410) 467-4670. Follow us on X at @SpotlightMDNews, and on Instagram and Facebook at Spotlight on Maryland.
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