Republican Rep. Cory Mills (Fla.) has on multiple occasions claimed that he was "blown up" twice overseas and campaigned on the biographical assertion that he was "wounded twice while deployed." His story does not, however, add up.
When called out this week for alleged "stolen valor," the scandal-plagued congressman shared a letter from an old comrade in an apparent effort to validate his narrative. This attempt to bolster his account does not appear to have gone as planned.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, then-congressional candidate Cory Mills released a campaign advertisement highlighting his supposed bona fides. A quarter of the way through the ad, Mills refers to his formative experiences in the Middle East.
'Unreal.'
Mills states in the ad, "I was hit not once but twice with improvised explosive devices and explosive formed projectiles. After you take a hit like that, you don't know if you're going to survive or not."
During that stretch of the video, a large graphic appears at the center of the screen stating, "WOUNDED TWICE WHILE DEPLOYED."
Keen observers have questioned the veracity of the "wounded twice" claim in the campaign advertisement as well as Mills' repeated assertion that he was "blown up twice" while serving as a defense contractor in Iraq.
Mills' congressional bio states, "While serving abroad, he was struck twice in 2006, once with an improvised explosive device (IED) and once with an Iranian explosively formed projectile (EFP), which resulted in numerous casualties."
RELATED: Cory Mills' Bronze Star document raises serious concerns about stolen valor, Rep. Mace says
Mills told C-SPAN in 2023 that he "was blown up twice by roadside bombs in 2006."
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.) shared a video of Mills' claims to X on Monday, writing, "Beginning to think nothing Cory Mills says is true. This guy has been parading himself around as some sort of U.S. Army special ops covert Ranger sniper James Bond 007 elite commando for years and it's not even remotely close."
'Was it some severe maiming wound? No.'
"He was an ambulance driver mainly in the motor pool," continued Mace. "Medics work hard to save lives! Why wasn’t that good enough? But instead he fabricated his resume, and stole stories from men who either gave their life for their country and can’t speak now or can’t speak for themselves due to their injuries."
"Total Stolen Valor. And this guy sits on the House Armed Service committee?" added Mace. "Unreal."
Mills' "blown up twice" claims appear to be in reference to two incidents that took place in Iraq: a roadside bombing that occurred on March 15, 2006, and a roadside bombing that took place on April 19, 2006.
Blaze News previously confirmed that Mills was present at the first incident. However, photographic evidence and sources have called into question the congressman's recollection of events and alleged injuries.
Mills, discussing the first incident, revealed the extent of his injuries in his April interview with Blaze News.
"I ended up hitting my head," said Mills. "Was it some severe maiming wound? No. I've got the actual document that shows where I was hit."
RELATED: Stolen valor? Veterans dispute Cory Mills’ record: 'He fooled a lot of us'
"I had a concussion. So a concussion isn't being wounded? Knocking your head off an actual armored vehicle door and having to go get treated and have three days down, that's not being wounded, right? So what is your definition? Do I need to lose an arm? Do I need to be shot in shrapnel? Just tell me. Tell me what your definition of wounded is. Because apparently, [traumatic brain injury] is not an external wound," said Mills.
After Mills suggested that he had sustained a Purple Heart-qualifying wound, Blaze News asked Mills for clarification whether he had indeed suffered a traumatic brain injury.
"No, actually I just got reviewed by the PA and the doc there, and they basically told me, 'Monitor yourself over the next 24 hours,' and then — which I did — and then 72 hours later, I was cleared to be able to return back to work."
"So you weren't wounded, then," said Blaze News.
"According to them, I had a severe concussion. That's all they wrote up," said Mills.
'That blood on Cory was not Cory's.'
When Blaze News later pressed Mills on the twice-wounded claim and asked whether, in the second incident in which a vehicle was hit by an explosion, he was in the affected car, Mills answered, "No."
"We were on the team that [was] actually there," said Mills. "We helped to try and pull everyone out and actually get the bodies transferred."
"Were you wounded then?" asked Blaze News.
"No, I wasn't wounded on that," said Mills.
Scott Kempkins, one of Mills' then-colleagues who suffered injuries in the second incident, previously told Blaze News that Mills was "absolutely not wounded."
"I got hit in the shoulder, the neck, and the leg," Kempkins said. "And then the guy in the turret took a little bit of shrapnel to the side of his face. That was it. Cory's vehicle was already around the corner and about 50 yards down the street. It would have been impossible for him to be wounded."
While Mills has referred to blood on his pant leg in a photograph taken after the mission as supposed confirmation of an injury, one of his colleagues told Blaze News that the blood did not belong to Mills.
In response to Rep. Mace's Monday tweet, Mills shared the photograph of him apparently wearing another man's blood along with a July 16, 2025, letter from Paul Sovitsky, Mills' team leader in Iraq when he was working for DynCorp International on the State Department's World Personal Protective Services program.
'If Cory is claiming he was wounded in both, that's probably a stretch.'
Sovitsky's letter did not support the "twice wounded" claim but gave Mills a possible out regarding his "blown up twice" narrative.
"I understand that there may be a question as to what 'blown up' means to the military contractors that served in Iraq and Afghanistan," said the letter. "It refers (in contractor speak) to being in a motorcade struck by improvised explosive devices."
"It does not necessarily mean that you are physically 'blown up' or even seriously wounded," added Sovitsky.
Sovitsky, who was in the vehicle with the congressman when their motorcade was ambushed by a command-detonated IED, subsequently told Blaze News that "with all of Cory's train wrecks, no one needs to lie about what he did."
"I don't think there was any question about the first explosion," said Sovitsky, who indicated he had asked for the letter not to be made public, and called Mills a "human train wreck."
Sovitsky lent credence to Mills' claim of an injury in the first roadside attack, telling Blaze News that the congressman complained of a "throbbing" head after their Suburban was raked with bullets and swept by a shock wave.
Sovitsky cast doubt, however, on whether Mills sustained an injury in the second roadside bombing, referring to indications that he was around 50 yards away at the time.
"If Cory is claiming he was wounded in both, that's probably a stretch," Sovitsky told Blaze News. "He did provide aid. He even got blood on his pants treating — I believe it was Scott Kempkins, who got a big wound in his shoulder."
When Blaze News noted that Mills had shared the photograph where his pant leg was bloodied as if to insinuate that was his injury, Sovitsky said, "No, no, totally a lie."
"That blood on Cory was not Cory's," added Sovitsky.
Blaze News has reached out to Mills for comment.
While Sovitsky acknowledged that the congressman proved effective and helpful at the time, he noted, "If the beef on Cory is that he has lied about his military service and exaggerated his contractor service, you can't fix that by then telling a lie."
"In court, the minute you can impeach some part of, you know, a witness' testimony, their entire testimony ... has to be questioned," said Sovitsky. "And I want Cory to pay the price for his lies and screwing people over."
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A Western Michigan player's jersey is grabbing the attention of fans instead of his play after the college football kickoff last weekend.
A rivalry game between Michigan State University and Western Michigan University saw the Spartans win 23-6 at home, but one Broncos player stood out among the crowd in the losing effort.
'This is still America right.'
Along with wearing the somewhat unique No. 0, it was not Mustafi Al-Garawi's two tackles that viewers took note of, but rather that the nameplate on his jersey was written in Arabic.
An East Tennessee State transfer, the senior defensive tackle submitted a request to Western Michigan in the summer asking if he could play his final season with Arabic writing on the back of his jersey.
According to Detroit News, Al-Garawi was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after his father was granted U.S. citizenship for rebelling against his own country (Iraq) during Saddam Hussein's rule. Rashid Al-Garawi allegedly assisted U.S. forces in the Second Gulf War.
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Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor and school officials approved the Arabic writing, seemingly following an NCAA rule that allows players to "celebrate or memorialize people, events or other causes, subject to school and/or conference approval," according to CBS Sports in 2020.
The messages can vary from player to player.
After a college football fan page with 150,000 followers posted an image of Al-Garawi's jersey, it was met with mostly negative reactions from fans.
"That's awful," one Texan wrote on X.
"Why is that cool. This is America. Nobody can read it," another user said.
"This is still America right," another fan replied.
At least a half-dozen X users called for Al-Garawi's deportation, while some other fans even called the writing "gay."
REALTED: English alone won’t cut it in a global economy
While this may be the first time a player name has been written in Arabic in an NCAA football game, there have already been two players who have had their names written in Chinese.
First, Arizona State University's He Peizhang, aka Jackson He, had his name written in Chinese in 2020. He came to the U.S. from Guangdong, China, at 17 years old, according to South China Morning Post.
In 2025, Charles Du of Notre Dame grabbed headlines and social media attention when he had his name written in Chinese during the Sugar Bowl on January 2.
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What passes for intellectual heft at the Atlantic is any criticism of President Donald Trump. In the Atlantic’s pages and its digital fare, you can read the now-discredited musings of David Frum, who helped bring us the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the inane foreign policy arguments of Max Boot; the interventionist prescriptions of Anne Applebaum; and now, the democracy promotion of political science professor Brian Klaas, who, in a recent article, blames President Trump for killing “American democracy promotion.”
If Klaas is correct, that is one more reason that Americans need to thank President Trump.
Klaas’ first priority is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights.
One would have thought that the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq would have humbled our nation’s democracy promoters — but they haven’t. One would have thought that the failed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter would have humbled those who wish to make “human rights” the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy — but it didn’t. One would have thought that the chaos facilitated by the so-called “Arab Spring” would engender prudence and introspection among the democracy promoters — but it is not so.
Professor Klaas wants the world to become democratic and for U.S. foreign policy to lead the effort in bringing the globe to the promised land.
The Trump administration, Klaas writes, has “turn[ed] against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion.”
Perhaps Klaas has never read George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy based solely on the nation’s interests. Or perhaps he missed John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address, in which he cautioned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and reminded his listeners that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own.
Perhaps Klaas believes that Wilsonianism is a “long-standing” American tradition, but in reality, it is mostly limited to starry-eyed liberal internationalists and neoconservatives.
Klaas mentions the “democracy boom” under President Bill Clinton, which was nothing more than a temporary consequence of America’s victory in the Cold War. Yet Klaas thinks it was the beginning of “shifting international norms” where freedom and democracy triumphed in “the ideological battle against rival models of governance” and “had become an inexorable force.”
Here, Klaas is likely referring to Francis Fukuyama’s discredited theory of the “end of history.” We have since discovered, however, that history didn’t die and that democracy is fragile, especially in places and among civilizations that have little democratic experience.
Fukuyama was wrong, but Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote about the coming “clash of civilizations.” One wonders if Klaas has read Huntington or Toynbee — or Spengler for that matter. Or, even more recently, Robert Kaplan’s “The Tragic Mind.”
Klaas criticizes Trump for praising dictators, but President Woodrow Wilson praised Lenin and President Franklin Roosevelt praised Stalin. Klaas says that Trump is indifferent to democracy and human rights. No, Trump simply refuses to make them the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, which is a “long-standing” tradition that stretches back long before Wilson to our founding fathers.
However, neither Wilson nor FDR wanted America to right every wrong in the world, as Klaas does. Klaas wants his “human rights” and democracy agenda “backed by weapons.” He laments that authoritarian regimes no longer need to fear the “condemnation” and the “bombs” of the American president.
Klaas’ leftism is revealed when he condemns the United States for helping to replace Mossaddegh with the pro-American shah of Iran, overthrowing the Marxist regime of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, helping to overthrow Allende in Chile, and cozying up to other authoritarian regimes.
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The professor also might want to read Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards” to learn that sometimes doing these things is in America’s national interests. Klaas’ leftism jumps off the page when he refers to the illegal aliens removed by the Trump administration — many with criminal records — as “foreign pilgrims.”
Some of those “foreign pilgrims” raped and killed Americans. But Klaas’ first priority is not America or its citizens; it is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights. He is anti-Trump precisely because Trump’s foreign policy is America First. Let’s hope Klaas’ style of democracy promotion is dead.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was asked in a recent interview about joining the military in the wake of 9/11 and her 2004 deployment to Iraq.
After reflecting on her friend's slaying by an IED and on the terrible prices paid by some of her other fellow service members, Gabbard told Miranda Devine, host of "Pod Force One," that their "memories, their service, their sacrifice, the sacrifices of their families motivates the work that we do every day to make sure that the president has the best, most objective, relevant intelligence so that he can make the best-informed decisions."
The DNI noted that she knows firsthand from the Iraq War "what the implications are when you have intelligence weaponized and in that case manufactured ... to start a regime-change war that I served in and that so many of my friends served in and too many of my friends and too many Americans lost their lives in."
'James Clapper was on the team that created that manufactured intelligence assessment that led to the Iraq War — about the WMDs.'
Gabbard identified one of the individuals responsible for the deceit that greased America's way into Iraq: former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Before Clapper settled into former President Barack Obama's inner circle, he served as former President George W. Bush's director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon unit responsible for analyzing spy-satellite photos as well as other technically gathered intelligence, including soil samples.
Bush established the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2004 to investigate the intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq.
The commission's March 2005 report to the former president stated:
On the brink of war, and in front of the whole world, the United States government asserted that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, had biological weapons and mobile biological weapon production facilities, and had stockpiled and was producing chemical weapons. All of this was based on the assessments of the U.S. Intelligence Community. And not one bit of it could be confirmed when the war was over.
When assigning blame, the report noted that it was partly a "failure on the part of those who collect intelligence — CIA's and the Defense Intelligence Agency's spies, the National Security Agency's eavesdroppers, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's imagery experts."
Clapper readily admitted in 2018, "My fingerprints are on the infamous national intelligence assessment of October 2002" that set the stage for the American invasion.
He told CNN's Dana Bash in 2018 that the intelligence community "built a case in our own minds, a house of cards, it turned out, that led us to the conclusion with pretty high confidence that they were there, and it turns out they weren’t."
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The commission's report noted that much of the intelligence that these agencies collected was "either worthless or misleading."
That misleading data set the stage for a 20-year conflict that claimed the lives of 4,599 American service members, over 3,650 American contractors, 15 Pentagon civilian personnel, 52,337 Iraqi national military and police, 324 allied troops, roughly 210,038 civilians, 282 journalists, and 64 humanitarian workers, according to the Watson School of International and Public Affairs.
'You see someone who has no problem whatsoever politicizing, and manufacturing, and weaponizing intelligence for a political outcome.'
"James Clapper was on the team that created that manufactured intelligence assessment that led to the Iraq War — about the WMDs," Gabbard told Devine. "He writes about it in his book, saying that he and his team of intelligence analysts created something that was not there."
"When you look at his actions then and you look at his actions in 2016 as Obama's director of national intelligence, you see someone who has no problem whatsoever politicizing, and manufacturing, and weaponizing intelligence for a political outcome," added Gabbard.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently declassified the appendix from the 2023 Durham report, which Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) promptly released to the public.
The appendix revealed that Clapper was one of a handful of top Obama officials briefed at the White House on Aug. 3, 2016, regarding credible intelligence that the Clinton campaign planned to smear Trump, falsely link him to Russia, then have law enforcement and the intelligence community carry the ball down the field.
Ratcliffe both named Clapper as one of the intelligence officials who "pushed the known fake Steele dossier into intelligence community assessments and as the basis for Crossfire Hurricane and all that," and accused the former DNI of manipulating intelligence "to get Trump."
Although cognizant of a possible Clinton plot to push the Russia hoax, Clapper published the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, which served to legitimize the false narrative.
According to the House Intelligence Committee majority staff report recently published by Gabbard, the ICA was a work of fiction comprising misquotes, unreliable reports, lies of omission, and straight-out falsehoods.
Clapper's fingerprints aren't just on the false pretext for a 20-year war and the Russia collusion hoax. He was one of the 51 signatories of the infamous Oct. 19, 2020, "intel" letter that suggested the news concerning the Hunter Biden laptop had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
After it became clear in recent weeks that the Trump administration is serious about bringing those involved in what Gabbard characterized as an alleged "treasonous conspiracy" to account, Clapper indicated that he would "lawyer up."
Blaze News was unable to reach Clapper for comment
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Is Donald Trump a warmonger? It’s a simple question, and yet an increasingly popular accusation from corners of the political class and commentariat that once saw him as the clearest alternative to globalist foreign adventurism. But such an accusation also defies the record. Whatever else one might say about Trump, he has been — consistently and vocally — against needless foreign entanglements.
To suggest that he has suddenly pivoted toward militarism is to misunderstand either the man himself or the moment we are in. Trump is not easily swayed from his core convictions. Trade protectionism and anti-interventionism have always been part of his political DNA. On tariffs, he is unbending. And when it comes to war, he has long argued that America must stop serving as the world’s policeman.
Is Iran another Iraq, or is it more like Poland in 1980?
So when people today accuse Trump of abandoning his anti-interventionist principles, we must ask: What evidence do we have that he has changed? And if he has, does that mean he was misleading us all along — or is something else happening?
If you’ve lost your trust in him, fine. Fair enough. But then the question becomes: Who do you trust? Who else has stood on stage, risked his life, and remained — at least in conviction — largely unchanged?
I’m not arguing for blind trust. In fact, I strongly advise against it. Reagan had it right when he quoted a Russian proverb during nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union: “Trust, but verify.” Trust must be earned daily — and verified constantly. But trust, or the absence of it, is central to what we’re facing.
The West is being pulled in two directions: one toward chaos, the other toward renewal. Trust is essential to renewal. Chaos thrives when people lose confidence — in leaders, in systems, in one another.
We are in a moment when clarity is difficult but necessary. And clarity requires asking harder questions than whether someone is “for or against war.”
Too many Americans today fall into four broad categories when it comes to foreign conflict.
First are the trolls — those who aren’t arguing in good faith, but revel in provocation, division, and distrust. Their goal isn’t clarity. It’s chaos.
Second are those who, understandably, want to avoid war but won’t acknowledge the dangers posed by radical Islamist ideology. Out of fear or fatigue, they have chosen willful blindness. This has been a costly mistake in the past.
Third are those who, like me, do not want war but understand that certain ideologies — particularly those of Iran’s theocratic rulers — cannot be ignored or wished away. We study history. We remember 1979. We understand what the “Twelvers” believe.
Twelversare a sect of Shia Islam whose clerics believe the return of the 12th Imam, their messianic figure, can only be ushered in by global conflict and bloodshed. Iran is the only nation in the world to make Twelver Shia its official state religion. The 12th Imam is not a metaphor. It’s doctrine, and it matters.
Finally, there are the hawks. They cheer for conflict. They seek to project American power, often reflexively. And they carry the swagger of certainty, even as history offers them little vindication.
The last few decades have offered sobering lessons. Regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria — none produced flourishing democracies or stable allies. While America is capable of toppling regimes, we’re not so good at manufacturing civil societies. Real liberty requires real leadership on the ground. It requires heroes — people willing to suffer and die not for power, but for principle.
That’s what was missing in Kabul, Baghdad, and Tripoli. We never saw a Washington or a Jefferson emerge. Brave individuals assisted us, but no figures rose to power with whom nations could coalesce.
That is why I ask whether Iran is simply the next chapter in a tired and tragic book — or something altogether different.
Is Iran another Iraq? Or is it more like Poland in 1980? It’s not an easy question, but it’s one we must ask.
During the Cold War, we saw what it looked like when people yearned for freedom. In Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, dissidents risked everything for a chance to escape tyranny. There was a moral clarity. You could hear it in their music, see it in their marches, feel it in the energy that eventually tore down the Berlin Wall.
Is that spirit alive in Iran?
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We know that millions of Iranians have protested. We know many have disappeared for it. The Persian people are among the best educated in the region. They are culturally rich, historically sophisticated, and far more inclined toward Western ideals than the mullahs who rule them.
But we know Iran’s mullahs are not rational actors.
So again, we must ask: If the people of Iran are capable of throwing off their theocratic oppressors, should the United States support them? If so, how — and what would it cost us?
I am not calling for war. I do not support U.S. military intervention in Iran. But I do support asking better questions. Is it in our national interest to act? Is there a moral imperative we cannot ignore? And do we trust the institutions advising us?
I no longer trust the intelligence agencies. I no longer trust the think tanks that sold us the Iraq War. I certainly don’t trust the foreign policy establishment in Washington that has consistently failed upward.
But I do trust the American people to engage these questions honestly — if they’re willing to think.
I believe we may be entering the first chapter of a final, spiritual conflict — what Scripture calls the last battle. It may take decades to unfold, but the ideological lines are being drawn.
And whether you are for Trump or against him, whether you see Iran as a threat or a distraction, whether you want peace or fear it’s no longer possible — ask the tougher questions.
Because what comes next won’t be determined by slogans. It will be determined by what we truly believe.
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If President Trump truly believes in 'no more stupid wars,' now is the time to prove it.
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