The Victoria Cross is the highest award of the United Kingdom (UK) honours system. It is awarded for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" to members of the British armed forces.

Here it is.

That's a real big deal.

On Jan. 15, former PAP candidate for Aljunied GRC, Victor Lye, wrote a Facebook post celebrating a Singaporean man who lived in Hougang.

Here is his post.

Nothing wrong there, it's always great celebrating a man who did so much with his life.

The problem though is that the above caption wasn't what he went with in the first place.

This is the change in caption:

Yup, he changed Victoria Cross to a more generic "veterans combat medal".

What's the big deal?

As mentioned above, the Victoria Cross is a rather prestigious medal.

And since it was established in 1857, the award has only been given out 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients.

Of those medals, there are only 10 living recipients of the Victoria Cross.

Here they are.

There's no one called Henry, or anyone from Singapore.

Although there is one recipient from Malaysia, which is pretty cool.

Why does this matter?

Well, someone from the HardwareZone forum picked it up, and soon found out that the man could not have received a Victoria Cross.

That led to some people doubting the credibility of the man.

And that is the problem with all of this.

Personally, we have no reason not to believe the man's story.

The part about the Victoria Cross might have easily been miscommunication, or him mistaking the name of the medal.

Which is completely understandable.

After all, he was at a hawker centre, relaxing and having a quiet day.

The issue is that the entire story and, more importantly, the man who so bravely deactivated land mines across countries, lost his credibility online due to overlooking such an easily Google-able fact.

The problem lies in the person who crafted the post, be it an intern, a social media manager, or Lye himself.

So, shine the light on the brave Singaporeans of certain constituencies if you want, but make sure due diligence is done so their stories can be properly appreciated, and not deconstructed and mocked by an audience they never asked for in the first place.

Top image from Victor Lye's Facebook

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