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Douglas Stringfellow – Old School Stolen Valor

by Steve Balm••35

It behooves us to be acquainted with one of the earliest widely publicized cases of stolen valor.

This is Congressman Douglas Stringfellow, who lied about being in the elite OSS and claimed to have been a POW and awarded the Silver Star.

BarStoolSports writes:

A Congressman Faked Being A Paralyzed War Hero For 2 Years

Douglas Stringfellow knew that a surefire way to earn the love of the American people was to have a military record. Luckily, he had one — a WWII hero and a Silver Star winner. Or at least, that’s what he told people.

Stringfellow claimed that he was a member of the elite OSS intel intel agency & undertook a mission to save nuclear scientist Otto Hahn from the Nazis, only to be captured and tortured by the Germans until he was left paralyzed from the waist down.

In reality he had only been a private in the Air Force. The OSS thing and the Silver Star were BS too. But the most shocking lie of them all? He wasn’t paralyzed. Not even a little bit.

So there you have it – Private Stringfellow was stringing his fellow citizens along.

The video version of the story is here, beginning at the 1:11 minute mark:

Back in those days, it was much harder to fact check these stories. Safe to say that Stringfellow broke new ground and paved the way for many to follow his lead.

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35 thoughts on “Douglas Stringfellow – Old School Stolen Valor”

  2. Time article dated 25 October 1954:

    https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,823567,00.html

    “VETERANS: The Hoax”
    “Last week the Army Times, an unofficial military journal, said that the Stringfellow story would not hold water. He blustered about a libel suit and asked President Eisenhower to open secret CIA files. Next day Stringfellow was called into a huddle with Utah’s two Republican Senators, Arthur Watkins and Wallace F. Bennett (both fellow Mormons). Under their questioning, he caved in, and that night he told the TV audience the truth.”

    “Like many other persons suddenly thrust into the limelight, I rather thrived on the adulation and new-found popularity … I began to embellish my speeches with more picturesque and fanciful incidents. I fell into a trap, which in part had been laid by my own glib tongue…I wish before my Heavenly Father that I might undo this wrong.”

      2. Most of us would like to know whether this fellow was really infantry and subject to a mined battlefield where he was wounded by an antipersonnel mine or was a PFC in the Army Air Corps. If he was in the AAC as a PFC, it seems highly unlikely he would have served anywhere but on a very secure airfield, not walking through a German minefield. I could see him serving on a bomber crew and being wounded by enemy fire. But the likelihood he would only be a PFC as a fully trained aircrewman seems unlikely.

        Ninja, is there anything out there on his true service in WWII?

        1. rgr769:

          Am researching a bit more on his claims.

          Since we have his serial number, may request FOIA. Still cannot find his discharge papers…but have not given up.

        2. If he was a PFC he would not have been an air crewman. In the ETO, at least, all air crew members were promoted to NCO ranks because this accorded them better treatment in POW camps. That’s why when you see lists of air crewmen they are almost always Corporals, Sergeants, Staff Sergeants or else the technician equivalents of those ranks (T/3, T/4 or T/5.) (Note: WWII enlisted grades went the opposite way current enlisted grades do, with grade 1 being the highest grade, Master Sergeant, and Grade 7 being the lowest, Private. T/3, T/4 and T/5 were the technician equivalents of Staff Sergeant, Sergeant and Corporal, respectively.)

    2. According to Wikipedia: “At the time of his death he was living in obscurity and working as a landscape painter.”

    1. The more I think about it, I bet his picture in hanging in the lobby at All-Points Logistics HQ in Merritt Island, Florida.

  8. I don’t think he had any of that stuff. If he was in the Air Force, he was not in armored infantry, so that on the gravestone at least is wrong. And if that is wrong, what else is nonsense.

    1. He might have been Army Air depending on the time frame as the AF did not start until 1947.

      1. Green Thumb:

        That is what happened.

        Stringfellow may have had “Daddy” issues, i.e. trying so hard to please Daddy so that Daddy would love and accept him.

        Have seen this in other “Stolen Valor” cases. Stringfellow is not the first nor will he be the last.

        Mental Illness Is A Terrible Disease.

    2. He went to Basic Training at Fresno, California at the Army Air Force Training Center.

      “The base was designed to take newly enlisted recruits into the Army Air Corps, and train them in basic military issues before sending them on for further training in specific areas”.

      Other articles mentioned he was with the “62nd Armored Infantry Division”.

      His wife penciled on the 1966/1967 VA headstone application the BSM and the PH.

      Utah has other info about his WW2 experience.

      His Army Serial number is public information. There is a possibility his WW2 records are still available for release under FOIA.

      This is interesting. Trying to see if we can find his name in this book:

      https://14thad.org/62ndaib/index.cfm

      So sad that one has to lie or embellish. Must be something in the drinking water? He is not the first of his faith to embellish his service….and get caught. Myron Brown of Utah and that faith lied to Jason Chavez that he received a DSC. There are others.

  10. A little off topic but I’m going to pee in this pool. And just putting it out there: not carrying water for the OK.

    But these morons are projecting some deep insecurities onto the group.

    Rhodes (no relation) hasn’t been proven to have done anything wrong other than be surrounded by cringy LARPers. The org does have a good premise but seems to cast too wide of net and glowies are rife through the org.

    If these 3 are truly concerned with the Constitution and proper application of law, attacking the OK may be fair game, but the ‘bigger fish’ is the over-actions and over-charging by the dotgov.

    1. The problem with this type of organization is that it tends to attract the LARPer types. We have seen any number of them exposed as POSers or embellishers. Moreover, it is relatively easy for the fan belt inspectors to recruit infiltrators. Exhibit A is that alleged kidnapping plot of the MI governor.

      1. Bingo. I don’t have a problem with F.I.B. doing a limited amount of fishing for lawbreakers, so long as the authorizations are dotted and crossed really, really well.

        Without order we don’t have society, but with too empowered investigators and directed -Law the same results.

        Ideally, I’d prefer them to be fair and assertive on ‘all’ ‘political’ ‘sides’, and so far they’re rating about a D-, imho.

        These groups tend to operate open and honestly, which makes them the ‘highest nail’ for the ugly hammer. Maybe antqueefa has a point….

        1. Since antqueefa and bee-elem have become the SA of the D-rats, you will not be seeing them hammered by the STASI of the deep state. They just had over 70 cases arising from the 2020 summer of love dismissed by federal prosecutors.

          1. And hence you get an affirmation of the OK’s ’cause’, the very thing the video commenters seem to deride them clowns on.

            Transparency and fairness in all things could/would end this cycle, yet the DAs, Fed Persecutors, Attorneys General, etc seem intent on creating an insurgency (for want of a better term…).

            I don’t like any of this. Failing to acknowledge a problem is incongruent with solving it. Dunno where the motive be at, or them mens rea is, but Hanlon wept: his Razor was a warning, not an invitation.

  11. This is a bit tangential, but can you guys imagine the sheer number of POSer assclowns that must have been running around in the years immediately following WW2?

    Holy shit.

    1. Probably more than we want to imagine, Mick. I know of several that rocked their lies to the grave and the family was only made aware of their lies when they were turned down for a VA Grave Marker. Or their “War Hero” stories turned out to be embellished when the records came back after they applied for a Marker.

      Cocksucker!

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