This article uses the concept of stolen valour as a metaphor to examine recognition, attribution, and integrity in intellectual property, research, and start-ups. It explores the difference between honour that can be shared and credit that must be earned, arguing that while recognition can be gifted, it only retains meaning when grounded in truth. When attribution is misused, generosity curdles into erasure.

Contents

1. Introduction

There is a particular anger that surfaces whenever someone is caught wearing medals they did not earn. Soldiers call it “stolen valour.” It is not just fraud; it is a desecration of sacrifice. To wear the insignia of courage without ever having faced the fire is, to those who did, almost unthinkable.

But what makes stolen valour powerful as a metaphor is that it forces us to ask bigger questions. What exactly is honour? Can it be transferred? Can it be gifted? Or is it always bound to the person who paid the price for it?

And in the world of start-ups, research, and intellectual property, the same question takes another form: when does shared credit become generosity, and when does it tip into theft?

2. Stolen Valour in Military and Law

The term “stolen valour” has its roots in the United States, where the Stolen Valor Act (2005, revised 2013) criminalises falsely claiming certain military honours for material gain. The law doesn’t stop you from bragging in a bar. But if you use false claims of medals to get money, benefits, or jobs, you can be prosecuted.

In the UK, the law is more ambiguous. There is no specific “stolen valour” statute. Wearing medals you didn’t earn is not itself a crime. But if you do so for gain, you could be caught under the Fraud Act 2006. That gap is why campaign groups like the Walter Mitty Hunters exist: volunteers who publicly shame impostors online. For many veterans, that reputational punishment is more fitting than legal sanction.

What unites both approaches is the moral charge. Veterans often describe an almost physical disgust when they see impostors: “You didn’t do the miles. You didn’t bury your mates. You didn’t earn this.”

3. Can Valour Be Given Away?

This is where it gets interesting.

Medals are sometimes passed down from parent to child. A decorated soldier may even ceremonially pin their medal on another. Yet even then, everyone understands: the courage belongs to the one who acted, not the one who wears. Valour can be honoured, remembered, displayed. But it cannot be transferred.

That makes it unique. Most human recognition is shareable: we can vouch for a colleague, write a reference, nominate someone for an award. Reputation can be lent. But valour is not reputation. It is bound to the act.

So when it is stolen, it hits harder.

4. Intellectual Property and Recognition

This is where the metaphor extends.

In research, startups, and creative industries, attribution is our medal system. We put names on patents, bylines on papers, credits on products. It is our way of saying, this person did this work; they faced this risk; they made this contribution.

And just like valour, the integrity of attribution matters deeply.

• Adding someone’s name to a patent when they contributed little may feel generous, but it dilutes the meaning.
• Excluding someone who shaped the invention is more than oversight; it feels like theft.
• Accepting recognition for something you did not build is a kind of professional stolen valour: wearing medals you did not earn.

The damage is the same: it erodes trust in the system.

5. Borrowed Honour vs. Stolen Credit

There is nuance. In military life, soldiers often say: “This medal belongs as much to my unit as it does to me”. They recognise shared sacrifice. In research and business, too, leaders often gift credit to their team, even overstating others’ contributions. That is borrowed honour, and when done reciprocally, it builds trust.

But reciprocity is the key. If the gift of attribution is not honoured, or if one party accepts recognition without acknowledging the hands that helped them, the gift curdles. Borrowed honour turns into stolen valour. Generosity turns into erasure.

6. When Institutions Wear Medals They Didn’t Earn

A subtler form of stolen valour occurs not when individuals boast, but when institutions quietly absorb credit for work they did not do.

This often happens through proximity rather than authorship. An organisation hosts the meeting, provides the logo, secures the funding, or inherits the platform, and over time, the narrative shifts. Delivery becomes sponsorship. Sponsorship becomes ownership. Ownership becomes authorship.

The people who did the work are still present, often still contributing. But their role is slowly backgrounded, while the institution steps forward as the face of delivery.

This is rarely done through explicit falsehood. It happens through press releases, award submissions, bid documents, and casual language: “we delivered”, “we built”, “we led”, where the verbs do more work than the facts.

The effect is the same. Credit is detached from labour. Risk is detached from reward. And those who carried the weight are left watching someone else wear the medals.

7. Conclusion: Recognition and Integrity

Stolen valour in its military sense is shocking because it violates the very idea of courage. But the metaphor speaks more widely. Recognition, whether in the form of medals or patents, only has meaning if it is attached to truth.

Valour cannot be given away, only honoured. Intellectual property can be shared, but only with honesty. When the balance tips, when generosity is met with silence, the result feels the same: betrayal of sacrifice.

Honour, in any field, is not a trinket. And delivery is not something you inherit by standing nearby. It is a marker of risk, labour, and integrity. It should never be stolen, because it can never truly be transferred.