Stolen Valour Canada was advised by a number of parties that there was a potential issue with the medals and insignia that Mr Hubert Meyers had been photographed wearing along with his claims of serving alongside the US military during the Vietnam War.
SVC does not act upon unsubstantiated intelligence or malicious tips that are often initiated as a result of petty jealousy, marital misadventure or, sheer vindictiveness.
We will not waste any staff effort on someone’s “gut feel” nor do we do participate in witch hunts. Tipsters must provide evidence (pictures, news articles, social media links) of their concerns before we can move forward.
Prior to investing any research effort into what could become an unfounded wild goose chase; we contact named individuals in order to provide them with an opportunity to sort out the reported situation. Our hope, they would take advantage of our offer to protect their reputation and silence the issue once and for all by providing proof of the medallic entitlements.
To that end, we asked that Meyers, back in July 2018, to provide us with the documentation that would prove his entitlement to wear the Green Beret / hat badge of the Korps Commandotroepen of the Netherlands Army.
We also requested that he prove his lawful right to wear what can only be described as a bizarre group of official and commemorative US military medals including the Purple Heart x 3 and third awards of Air Force Commendation Medal & the National Defense Service Medal.
The Purple Heart recognizes being wounded in action. Meyers wearing this medal is essentially claiming that he was awarded this medal after being wounded three times during the Vietnam War. However, only members of the US Armed Forces are eligible to receive the Purple Heart and Meyers was never one.
Meyers wears the US Air Force Commendation Medal with 2 x stars (on the miniature medal), presumably indicating a third award. Unfortunately, Meyers didn’t pay attention to detail, as the USAF used oak leaf clusters to indicate subsequent awards….
The National Defense Service Medal that Meyers wears has 2 x stars. This indicates that the wearer has/had served on active duty during 3 of the 4 designated eligibility periods. (1) The Korean War, (2) the Vietnam War, (3) Gulf War and (4) the post 9/11 period. He’s not old enough to have served during the Korean War and he emigrated to Canada prior to GW1…
Meyers also wore the Vietnam Service Medal with “Arrowhead” device to denote participation in an amphibious assault landing, combat parachute jump, helicopter assault landing, or combat glider landing by a service member of the US Army or USAF and 2 x campaign stars.
The result of initial inquiry – Meyers immediately scrubbed his Facebook page of any evidence of his claimed military service. This sort of behaviour is quite familiar to our researchers and warrants further investigation of the individual.
So, we contacted our friends in the Netherland’s Commando Association to solicit their assistance in determining whether Mr Meyers (aka Meijers) was ever a badged member of their organization.
Their response – Who?
The brass KCT beret emblem displays a Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife, hand grenade and a ribbon with the unit’s Nunc aut Nunquam (now or never) motto on it. The background of the emblem consist of a gothic typeface “W”, indicating the name Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands from 1898-1948. The beret emblem is worn on a black background with a green border.
Mr Meyers eventually contacted SVC with the goal of sorting out this situation. Long story, made short, he has now apologized for his actions and surrendered the items in question.
Mr Meyers has surrendered the pictured items, SVC will now coordinate their return to the authorities for appropriate disposal action.
Lest We Forget.