Wes Moore and the Bronze Star He Claimed but Never Received

When Wes Moore ran for governor of Maryland in 2022, questions about whether he had claimed to have been awarded a Bronze Star for his Army service in Afghanistan hovered over his campaign.

For reasons that remain unexplained, two television interviewers, Gwen Ifill and Stephen Colbert, had wrongly introduced him years earlier as a recipient of the award. Mr. Moore failed to correct them, even as he and his aides insisted he had never told anyone he had a Bronze Star.

But at least once, Mr. Moore, now the state’s Democratic governor, did say he had received the award.

He made the claim on an application for a prestigious White House fellowship in 2006, when he was 27 years old, according to a copy of the document that was obtained this week by The New York Times as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.

“For my work,” he wrote, “the 82nd Airborne Division have awarded me the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge.”