Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) is a decorated Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran who served in the U.S. Army for more than 20 years. However, the military community is expressing its distaste for Nehls for continuing to wear a medal that was revoked.
According to Military.com, veterans are joining the call for Nehls to stop wearing the Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB), which he still wears on the lapel of his jacket along with his Congressional pin despite the Pentagon revoking it. The requirements for a service member to earn the CIB are twofold: Be an infantryman or a Green Beret at the time of service, and engage the enemy in direct ground combat. It was revoked last year, as Nehls was not eligible for the CIB as a civil affairs officer in Iraq.
While Nehls has paperwork for two Bronze Star awards and has fairly earned the Combat Action Badge (CAB) — which is for service members deployed to a foreign theater working in non-infantry capacities — veterans say he should take off the CIB out of respect for his fellow service members who have earned it.
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"The veteran community is starting to get to the point now where there's no room for forgiveness at this point because now they see, ‘Hey, this wasn't an error. He's doubling down now,’" Anthony Anderson, an Army veteran who runs the organization Guardian of Valor, told Military.com. "He knows he didn't earn this award."
Earlier this month, multiple Republican elected officials — including others with military experience — called on Nehls to take off the badge, claiming that continuing to wear it even after it was revoked in 2023 amounts to "stolen valor." Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Montana) told the digital news outlet NOTUS "it matters" that Nehls is refusing to take of the medal.
"As a former commander, it matters what you wear on your uniform," Zinke said. "And if you didn’t earn it, you shouldn’t wear it."
Nehls signaled previously that he has no plans to stop wearing the CIB on his lapel. In a post to his X (formerly Twitter) account, the Texas Republican suggested that the Pentagon's revocation of his medal was politically motivated.
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"I disagree with the Awards and Decorations Branch revocation of my CIB, which was awarded by the 101st Airborne Division," Nehls wrote in a letter to the Army he later tweeted. "I further believe this is a concerted effort to discredit my military service and continued service to the American people as a member of Congress."
Frederick Boujaly, who is the national commander of the Combat Infantrymen's Association that supports veterans who won the CIB, maintained that Nehls continuing to wear the revoked medal was inappropriate and that he should "take it off."
"If the Army told me I couldn't wear mine, I'd take it off," he said.
Click here to read Military.com's report in its entirety.