The newspaper, which obtained the document as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, reported that Moore made the claim on the application in 2006 when he was 27.
In a statement, the governor wrote that he had been encouraged to fill out the application for the fellowship by his deputy brigade commander serving overseas in the Army. At the time, Moore said the deputy brigade commander had recommended him for the Bronze Star — and told him to include the award on his application “after confirming with two other senior-level officers that they had also signed off on the commendation.”
Toward the end of his deployment, however, Moore said he was disappointed to learn he had not received the Bronze Star. When he returned home, Moore said he was “focused on helping my fellow veterans, a mission I continue to advance as governor.”
“Still, I sincerely wish I had gone back to correct the note on my application,” Moore, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday. “It was an honest mistake, and I regret not making that correction."
The Bronze Star is awarded to service members for meritorious service in combat zones.
The governor noted in his statement Thursday that he was listed as a top 1% officer in Operation Enduring Freedom in his officer evaluation report.
“My deputy brigade commander felt comfortable with instructing me to include the award on my application for the Fellowship because he received confirmation with the approval authority that the Bronze Star was signed and approved by his senior leadership,” Moore wrote.
The governor also wrote that in the military, “there is an understanding that if a senior officer tells you that an action is approved, you can trust that as a fact. That is why it was part of the application, plain and simple."
The award had been mentioned during interviews with media when Moore was running for governor in 2022, but Moore never said in those interviews that he had not received the commendation. In an interview with the New York Times, the governor said for the first time that he regretted failing to correct the interviewers who had described him as a recipient of the award.
