Mabus revokes imprisoned veteran’s Silver Star - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Mabus revokes imprisoned veteran’s Silver Star

SAN DIEGO — In a highly unusual move, the Navy secretary has stripped a Silver Star awarded to a retired captain and Vietnam swift boat veteran who is serving a federal prison sentence after admitting to possessing child pornography.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus revoked the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest valor award, which was awarded nearly 20 years ago to retired Capt. Wade Sanders of San Diego.

A spokeswoman for Mabus confirmed the secretary’s decision, which he made in August 2010 following a review and recommendation by the Navy Department Board of Medals and Decorations. Mabus “signed a memorandum in which he revoked the previously awarded Silver Star,” said Capt. Pamela Kunze.

“Had the subsequently determined facts and evidence surrounding both the incident for which the award was made and the processing of the award itself been known to the secretary of the Navy in 1992, those facts would have prevented the award of the Silver Star,” Kunze said.

Sanders, a former deputy assistant Navy secretary, rose to prominence seven years ago as a swift boat veteran who supported the 2004 presidential candidacy of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Sanders in 2008 pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography after an FBI investigation led to his San Diego home and the discovery of pornographic videos on his computers. He received a 37-month sentence as part of a plea deal; he has maintained he isn’t a pedophile and was researching the subject for a book he planned to write.

It’s not clear whether Sanders’ conviction played a role in him losing his Silver Star.

The Navy declined to release a copy of the memo, which Mabus addressed to the chief of naval personnel, who in turn would be responsible for the administrative actions to pull the award from official naval records.

Kunze would not say who or what prompted the review of Sanders’ Silver Star, nor would she say what new information had surfaced about the Silver Star.

“Additional information was brought to light after 1992,” she said. “Those facts could have prevented the award of the Silver Star at that time.”

She gave no specific reasons as to how Mabus or the board came to their conclusion.

The sole authority for revoking a medal rests with the service secretary, according to Chapter 2 of the Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual: “If subsequently determined facts would have prevented the original approval of the award, or if the awardee’s service after the presentation of the award has not been honorable, SECNAV may revoke the award.”

Navy Times could not locate a copy of the Silver Star citation.

Since July 2009, Sanders has been confined in the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution in Anthony, Texas. Although a federal judge has recommended his transfer to San Diego on supervised release, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons opposed the move and he remains jailed. His scheduled release date is March 16, 2012.

‘I was proud to serve’

In a short telephone interview July 7 from the minimum-security prison, Sanders, 70, declined to address details about the Silver Star.

“[The awards] don’t belong to me. They were bestowed to me. They were given to me in trust for those people” he served with, he said of his combat and military awards, which include the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He later said that his military medals “are not mine,” explaining that he feels “the only medal that I actually earned ... was the Purple Heart.”

He said he is proud of his 29½ years of active and reserve service.

“I was proud to serve in the Navy Department,” he said, adding, “I respect Secretary Mabus. I have no animosity with the Navy.”

Sanders, who said he still struggles with combat stress, has hoped he would be transferred to home detention in San Diego, where he has a home and family.

“I am not a pedophile. I have no interest in children,” he said. He said he has been evaluated by mental health experts who have vouched for him.

Mabus’ action is unusual. “I’ve never heard of it,” said Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran and curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor awards database. “I’m sure it’s happened, but this actually shows how rare it is.”

Records of revoked awards are harder to locate and aren’t publicized. Sterner said he knows only of 17 revocation cases involving Navy personnel, and they predate World War I. Most of the 17 cases involve sailors who deserted or had other misconduct that caused the Navy to revoke the Medal of Honor, which at the time was given largely as a peacetime award and in most cases “had nothing to do with valor,” he said.

As a junior officer with the “Brown-water Navy,” Sanders skippered the swift boat PCF 98 in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta during a 1968-1969 combat tour, according to the Swift Boat Sailors Association’s historical website, www.swiftboats.net. He retired and worked as a private attorney and later served as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for reserve affairs in the mid-1990s. He was a senior military and veterans adviser to then-California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi before his conviction.

But in 2004, it was his work on behalf of Kerry that put Sanders in the spotlight and, for a short time, on the other side of a group of swift boat veterans. Those veterans were opposed to Kerry’s candidacy and formed a group called the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth that questioned the veracity of the senator’s Vietnam valor awards and combat action claims. That group disbanded in 2008, according to its website.