Author: Jonn Lilyea

Someone sent us their work on this Heeather MacKay person who claims that she’s an Air Force veteran in Strong Fitness Magazine;

Heather Mackay was a 22-year-old firefighter in the US military when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her disease, she was told, was caused when small brain injuries during her service activated a rare gene mutation that causes cancer cells to produce rapidly. She was given a medical discharge and underwent chemotherapy and radiation, then finally brain surgery, during which, she slipped into a coma.

When she woke up, Heather had no recollection of the last seven years. She didn’t remember anything about herself, including her one-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. She had also lost the ability to walk and talk. She had to start from scratch. Within a month or two, her memories of her family started to return, but she would spend the next year and a half in rehabilitation re-learning everything from speaking to using a fork to feed herself.

After rehab, Heather returned to the military as a K9 handler, but a year and a half later she experienced symptoms of sickness and lethargy. “As a military person, you don’t want to admit weaknesses,” recalls Heather. “Back then it was really hush-hush. You didn’t come out and say when things were wrong.”

When asked for her military records, the Air Force and the National Personnel Records Center responded “Who?”

According to the Orange County Register, Roger Giese, who skipped out right before his trial on charges of being a tickle monster, will be extradited from the UK to face those charges.

He was a choirmaster who molested boys in the choir for years – and oh, yeah – he pretended to be a member of the elite Delta Force;

Prosecutors said Giese befriended the boy’s family in 1998, attending church with them and inviting the boy and his brother to his house for overnight visits.

Giese pretended to be a member of the elite military unit Delta Force and molested the teenager under the pretense that the boy could join the unit by providing samples of bodily fluids, prosecutors said.

He was arrested in 2002 and released on bond. He appeared in court until March 2007, shortly before his trial in Orange County Superior Court. Giese cleaned out his bank accounts, authorities said, and fled the country.

He is facing charges including lewd acts on a child under 14, penetration by a foreign object, and oral copulation of a person under 18, with a sentencing enhancement for substantial sexual conduct with a child.

It’s funny (odd funny not ha-ha funny) that so many of these valor thieves are child molesters.

WISC reports that Howard Gordon Clewell, the historian of the Wisconsin Department of the American Legion and the husband of the Department Commander, resigned his position when he was busted for wearing badges that he didn’t earn while he was in the Army;

Howard Gordon Clewell served in the U.S. Army decades ago, but numerous pictures submitted to Legion officials recently showed him wearing a hat displaying a Special Forces Pin, a Ranger tab, a Special Forces Unit Patch, a Combat Infantryman Badge and Master Parachutist Wings that he did not earn during his time in the service. He was serving as the Legion’s historian when he gave up his position and his membership with the Legion.

[…]

“Unfortunately, Mr. Clewell embellished his military service and was caught,” wrote Amber Nikolai, the department adjutant, of The American Legion in Wisconsin, in an email to News 3. “When (he) was questioned about his military service and whether he had earned the badges/insignias displayed on his cap in photographs, he immediately offered an apology, tendered his resignation and canceled his membership with the American Legion.”

At least in Wisconsin, veterans are vigilant in regards to stolen valor.

The reporter, Adam Schrager, sends us an update to the story, his wife’s point of view;

“(He) had built a stellar veteran career on a foundation of lies–that he had not only fought in Vietnam in Special Forces but that he had received meals for his heroics,” she wrote. “ALL lies and he finally admitted he has been lying since high school.”

“Howard Clewell was actually an Army veteran who was stationed in Germany as a caseworker. He dropped this bomb, packed his bags and walked out of our lives.”

[…]

Laurel Clewell, meanwhile, said any assertion she “should have known” is misguided and that she’s disappointed by how she’s been treated within Legion circles, even by her mentors, as a result. She said she has been fighting cancer this year and that battle gives her the strength to persevere.

“(His) deceit and lies have affected my kids, grandkids, family and friends,” she wrote. “I will never recover from the lies and the disrespect that Howard has shown the veterans who work hard to accomplish what he has stolen.

“In the end, all I have is the truth. I’ve survived cancer this year, a difficult work environment and now the epic lies of a life partner. At this point, I don’t much care who believes me. I’ll live.”