FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Jack Jacobs can proudly — and truthfully — say he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor in Vietnam. After a recent Supreme Court ruling, anyone else is free under the First Amendment to make the same claim, whether it's true or not.

Some military veterans say they consider the ruling a slap in the face. For Jacobs, though, it was the right decision. He said he wore the uniform to protect people's rights — even if he doesn't agree with how they exercise those rights.

"There are lots of things people do that revolt me, but I'm happy that I fought for this country not to give them the right to do something stupid, but for the majority of the people to do the right thing," said Jacobs, 66, who earned the Medal of Honor in 1969 for carrying several of his buddies to safety from a shelled rice field despite the shrapnel wounds in his head, the streaming blood clouding his vision.

"I'm a free speech guy," he said.

The high court ruled 6-3 on Thursday to toss out the conviction of Xavier Alvarez, a former California politician who lied about being a decorated military veteran. He had been charged under the 2006 Stolen Valor Act, which made it a crime to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor and other prestigious military recognitions. The decision invalidated the law, as the justices ruled Alvarez's fabricated story was constitutionally protected speech.

For 87-year-old Murel Winans, lies about service can cause real harm and lead people to doubt the veracity of claims made by people who actually served during wartime. He said he didn't buy the free speech argument.

"You feel like you never earned it, because when you tell someone what you've done, they'll say, `you're lying just like those other guys,'" said Winans, 87, who described himself as a "fresh young hillbilly from West Virginia" when he landed on Normandy's Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 — his 19th birthday.

The law was inspired by the 1998 book "Stolen Valor" by B.G. "Jug" Burkett, a Vietnam veteran. The government had argued the law was a needed tool to protect the integrity of military medals.

The ruling was issued the same day as the high court's landmark decision upholding President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul. While much of the nation watched with rapt focus on what would become of the law that requires every American to have health insurance, many people in military communities were more focused on the ruling on the Stolen Valor Act.

Emotions ran high in Fayetteville, home to the 251-square-mile Fort Bragg. About 38 percent of North Carolina's population is either currently in the service, a veteran or a dependent of one, according to the N.C. Department of Administration. The state is also home to the sprawling Camp Lejeune, known for its training in amphibious assaults like the one at Normandy.

"My boys are out there giving their heart and soul," said Rose Moore, whose son is stationed in Afghanistan. "To have someone say they did it and they didn't do anything — it's a lie, it's dishonest."

Army Capt. Albert Bryant acknowledged that he was disappointed, saying the lies can detract from people who earn something like the Medal of Honor. However, his disappointment was somewhat tempered.

"I know it's the First Amendment, but maybe you need to have an amendment to the amendment to protect our enlisted men and women," Bryant said. "Very few things in life are black and white so you have to take certain things in context, but there has to be some kind of common sense applied."

The decision doesn't give anyone carte blanche to lie about their service record in an effort to get free perks, however. Anyone who fabricates any honors can still face fraud charges, which is what happened to former Marine Sgt. David Budwah in 2009. He was demoted to private and dishonorably discharged after pretending to be a wounded war hero to get free seats at rock concerts and sports events.

Twenty-year Army veteran Raymond Hunt said the justices made the right move in protecting free speech. He said it's enough that Alvarez has been publicly shamed.

"For the rest of his life he has to walk around with that look on his face and know that he was the biggest liar in the country on something that is so sensitive to our country," Hunt said.

Retired Army Lt. Hal Fritz said the court treated those medals as something abstract. But for him, it's a memory.

Fritz was leading a seven-vehicle armored column down a Vietnam highway in 1969 when enemy combatants launched a surprise attack from all sides. Fritz was seriously wounded in the crossfire, but ran through the machine gun blasts to rally his troops. After his platoon survived the first wave, Fritz charged into a second enemy advancement armed with only a pistol and a bayonet. He was seriously wounded, but refused medical attention until all of his men had been cared for. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1971.

"We would disagree with the majority saying lying about receiving the medals doesn't devalue them," said Fritz, 68, who now lives in Illinois. "I would say go back with me to Vietnam dragging the dead and dying off the battlefield."

The Medal of Honor is among the rarest of honors: Only 81 of the 3,457 recipients since the Civil War are still living. Of those, only three are younger than 35, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Of those interviewed, the Medal of Honor recipients agreed that Congress should try again to pass a similar law that would survive judicial scrutiny. That didn't ease the anger of people like Vietnam veteran Richard A. Pittman, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1968.

He had left his platoon to help Marines under fire, exhausting several machine guns before hurling his final weapon at the enemy: a grenade. His actions halted the Vietnamese advancement and bought time that saved many of his wounded companions.

"I'm supportive of the Constitution, but in this case I just think they're wrong," said Pittman, 68, who now lives in California. "I wonder what the Supreme Court would think if part of my resume said I was a member of the Supreme Court or I answered my phone `Justice Pittman.'"

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AP Writer Chris Carola contributed from Albany.

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Allen Reed can be reached on Twitter at: http://telecomadvisors.biz/twitter.com/Allen_Reed

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson's daughter says she was inspired to be an actress after seeing her father in the film "Moonwalker."

"My dad was in the movie 'Moonwalker' and I knew he could sing really well, but I didn't know he could act," Paris Jackson told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, according to a transcript of the episode to air Thursday. "I saw that and I said, 'Wow, I want to be just like him."'

The film featuring Jackson's signature dance move and other videos was released in 1988.

Paris said her father encouraged her and did improvisation sessions to develop her skills. The 13-year-old has been cast alongside Larry King in a film based on a new children's book, "Lundon's Bridge and the Three Keys," which is in early stages of development.

The Internet Movie Database, known as IMDB, shows the film is tentatively scheduled for a 2013 release, although filmmakers have not presented the teen's proposed acting contract to a Los Angeles court as required because she is a minor.

Paris also talked about the lengths that her father took to protect her identity for an episode that will air on Thursday.

She said her father protected her and her two brothers from the media, such as by placing them in masks or dressing them in costumes when they were in public. She said she initially thought wearing the mask was stupid, but later came to realize that it was for her and her brothers' protection.

She said no one recognized her when she began attending school after her father's death in June 2009.

"I was like, yes, I have a chance to be normal," she said.

Jackson's children have since been in the public eye, appearing onstage at their father's televised memorial service, the Grammy Awards and other television appearances.

If you missed the final launch of the Space Shuttle, or the first private spacecraft rendezvous with the International Space Station, fear not. A new documentary to be released late this year promises you a fiery, 3-D, launch-pad view of these historic flights.

A preview (above) of the film, Space Shuttle & The New Pioneers, was unveiled at the SETICON II conference June 22 in Santa Clara, California. The film chronicles the final days of the Space Shuttle program, from inside NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

But since executive producer David Knight felt he "couldn't end the movie by saying 12,000 people were laid off," the film also follows the beginnings of the private space flight boom, as companies like SpaceX blast up to orbit.

The movie's makers are crowdsourcing some of their funding through the website Kickstarter until June 30. The film, planned for limited theatrical release, will be available on 3-D Blu-ray, as well as 2-D high-definition DVD, and will be provided for free to educational institutions, in the hopes of exciting kids about science and technology. Wired talked with Knight at SETICON about the film and the future of manned spaceflight.

Wired: Why did you decide to make this movie?

David Knight: When we started, it was a notion that somebody ought to cover the last missions of the space shuttle program. There had been many, many documentaries that tell you what the space shuttle is and about the astronauts and the crews, but nobody was covering the end of the space shuttle program and why it was ending. It wasn't a simple answer, like Congress forgot the money. And what comes after it? It turns out a plethora of things are coming after it that aren't just what SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is doing.

Early in the process I found myself standing underneath the Shuttle Discovery with Charles Bolden, the head of NASA, and I realized that there couldn't be a more important mission than getting young people excited about science and technology.

Wired: How did you first get involved in the spaceflight scene?

Knight: Back in 2003, I was visiting my parents and my brother had brought a stack of magazines. There was a copy of Wired, and on the cover was this crazy bug-eyed looking machine — a thing called SpaceShipOne, developed by the famous aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Burt Rutan was building this using financing from the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen. And they were going to compete for the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

Three weeks later I found myself sitting on a jet with X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. I stopped working on the nascent tech venture I was about to start and decided I was going to join these X Prize guys.

Standing next to SpaceShipOne right after it returned from space — when the engine was still crackling — is a spectacular memory. Roll forward a number of years. Again I found myself standing by the countdown clock at Kennedy Space Center, about to watch the big one, the space shuttle. And next thing you know, I've decided to drop everything and make The Movie About the Space Shuttle.

Wired: You said nobody else was making this film. Why do you think that was?

David Knight: The people I asked told me, "Well, all the shuttle stuff's been done." And I said, "It hasn't."

Wired: Why did you choose to make the movie in 3-D?

Knight: I got to meet James Cameron and he told me something extremely valuable: He said, it's not that much more costly now to do things in 3-D, by filming two side-by-side high quality images. You're filming historic events. These things are never going to happen again so why don't you record them using redundant technology?

Wired: Who else was involved in making this movie with you?

Knight: James Cameron had this person that was sort of his right arm, named Haley Jackson. When I decided I was going to get into film production, I said, "May I borrow you to go to a space shuttle launch?" Another person who got involved is Buzz Hays, who at the time was the senior VP of technology at Sony Pictures and developed their 3-D technology center.

Wired: You started off wanting to make this iconic film about the end of the shuttle program, and at some point, it evolved into "what's coming next."

Knight: Yeah, I realized that we couldn't end the movie with "12,000 people were laid off." It just wasn't going to be a happy ending. Look at all the cool stuff that people are doing. So we sort of called it "the hopeful future," which includes all these amazing people that are taking their deep fortunes and spending them on building spacecraft. "Hopeful future" was a bit wishy-washy sounding, so I eventually decided to call these people "the new pioneers." I thought about calling them the "new mavericks," but I didn't want them to be confused with Tom Cruise in "Top Gun."

When you start looking at the panoply of spaceflight, it's actually humongous. I said, let's just talk about the new pioneers that are doing orbital spaceflight with the possibility of putting people up there.

Wired: Your movie has footage from a camera on the space shuttle's boosters. Is that in 3-D?