John Hagler believes he was the first American to receive the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
The 77-year-old Raleigh resident says he received the award from then-Gov. Terry Sanford in February of 1964 in the old Senate chambers of the Capitol.
But he says he was not the first to be inducted. He believes that honor goes to several Laotian and Vietnamese officers who were undergoing specialized training at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg.
He contacted Dome after learning that former Gov. Mike Easley gave out more than 4,000 awards, including one to his in-laws.
"I'm certain that the award was then not what it later was supposed to signify and become," he wrote in an e-mail to Dome. "And I'm terribly sorry that during the administration of Governor Easley it obviously became something like a prize out of a Cracker Jack box which significantly lowered it's value and meaning."
Hagler, who later worked at the N.C. Office of Archives and History, said he never could find definitive information about how and when the award was created.
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