FBI returns stolen Medals of Honor

At a ceremony aboard the USS Yorktown, Friday morning, in the Congressional Medal of Honor Museum, the FBI presented two stolen Civil War-era medals to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Retired Major General James Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient, and Charleston resident, accepted the medals.

FBI Special Agent in Charge for South Carolina, Dave Thomas, says the recovery of the medals is part of Operation Stolen Valor. The investigation is a nation-wide effort to track down those who steal the medals, and pretend to be recipients themselves.

Thomas said they found a sitting judge, a police chief, and even a town mayor, in possession of other medals…medals he said they did not earn.  He also said there are more out there, especially those which are duplicated and sold on the internet.

Livingston says, in getting back these two Medals of Honor, “we got back a piece of America”.

The two medals belonged to Thomas Jenkins, and George Emmons.

Emmons name no longer appears in the CMOH recipient list. In 1917 new guidelines for “appropriate cause” removed his name.