The staff at militaryphony.com send us their case on Girard Pugsley. It seems that many people were under the impression that he was a Navy SEAL.
He is active in the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts community). For some reason people got the impression that he completed training to become a Navy SEAL, our guess is its things like this that probably had something to do with it:
There are many other reasons for all this misunderstanding.
Of course his records and their investigation show something entirely different.
Apparently, Mr. Pugsley did attempt to become a Navy SEAL. That is more than most can ever say. However he was dropped from the program before he completed the basic school required to serve as a Navy SEAL. Probably the claim of him being a Combat Diver is some kind of misunderstanding as well. In any event, QM2 Pugsley has come forward to admit that he was not a Navy SEAL and should have been more pro active about correcting the claims that he was.
You can see the rest of their case on this guy HERE.
We are just glad that we have this opportunity to help him clear all that up. As of yesterday, he seems to be very concerned about people having the false impression that he served as a Navy SEAL.
Someone sent in this article about Stolen Valor. A guy named Jonn Lilyea was interviewed:
“It’s pretty disgusting, because I have friends who are in Arlington who only got to wear their medals as they were being buried, and these guys just pin them on like they’re buttons or decorations,” John Lilyea, a former platoon sergeant in the U.S. Army who tracks stolen valor cases, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “That’s what sets off most veterans, because we know people who didn’t come home.”
It appears this Lilyea character has been dealing with cases of fake and embellished military service claims for a while now.
Lilyea has tracked down and investigated stolen valor cases on his website — This Ain’t Hell, But You Can See It From Here — since 2008, compiling hundreds upon hundreds of alleged fraudsters through tips and extensive research.
Another guy named Doug Sterner was interviewed as well. It seems he has been around for a really, really, long time.
Doug Sterner, a former Army sergeant and military historian, who runs the Military Times’ Hall of Valor database of medal recipients, said stolen valor cases take “time away from typing up the citation of legitimate heroes.”
“It’s a far bigger problem than anybody realizes,” Sterner told TheDCNF.
It is a well done article that sheds some light on many of the Stolen Valor issues we are facing today. A huge thank you to KATHRYN WATSON for doing all the work on the article. If you like the article please drop her a note. It sounds like a few hoses and tubes can’t keep an old Platoon Sergeant down, or at least quiet anyway.
In St Paul, MN officers were called to respond to a home invasion. Officers found one of the suspects DDR (Dead Down the Road) and the other was transported to the hospital.
People in San Jose, CA take their Taco Bell-KFC seriously. An armed man attempted to rob the store when customers attacked the robber and shot him with his own gun.
Jonn posted about this Hoover/Cipriani person last year at this link.
Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks has announced that an Ohio woman has been sentenced to close to 20 years in prison for burglary and fraud charges that included submitting false applications for a driver’s license and vehicle registration, as well as falsely claiming decorated military veteran status. The sentence ensures the defendant will serve 728 days in the Washoe County Jail consecutive to a prison term, which has parole eligibility beginning after 7 years has been served.
The entire Press Release is available HERE
Hoover was arrested in Oregon last year and extradited to Nevada for trial. The people over at Guardian of Valor did a lot of the work on the case initially. Back then, FBI agent Jerry Mullen said that civilians often put on a uniform to get a free drink or to impress others. The FBI takes other cases, like receiving military discounts and defrauding military benefits programs, much more seriously. “The notion” said Mullen “that this is somehow a victimless crime is absurd.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Once again the folks over at militaryphony.com have posted another guy who claims to be a Navy SEAL.
It appears Paul Allen Martins has claimed to be a Navy SEAL a whole bunch of times.
No need to list them all, I think you get the picture and the rest of them are here. Some of them you might find a bit disturbing, like this one:
Making those kind of claims where real Navy SEALS read them will lead to getting a FOIA for records. Martens is not listed in the UDT/SEAL database as having completed SEAL Training.
Paul Allen Martins was a Disbursing Clerk and an E-4 at discharge. He should have just been proud of the service that he did have.
Someone sent us Mike Sleeper. He has a cool man cave in his garage. Apparently he collects campaign memorabilia…including his own. We have reports of him claiming to have been deployed to Iraq during Desert Storm.
Mike also likes to tell people he was a Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment during conversations. He backs up those kind of claims with pictures on his FB profile.
It sounds like some actual Desert Storm veterans found discrepancies in his stories.
Evidently, he is on the School Board in Columbia County, GA and according to his twitter account he also likes to play trivia games.
We thought a little Trivia of our own would be nice, so we ordered his official records through a FOIA request.
That one page alone tells us all we need to know. Not a Ranger, No deployment to Desert Storm and he was discharged after a few years as a Private. He spent his time in Alaska as an 11B Grunt and he was not a Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment. His only award listed is the Army Service Ribbon. It appears the Army got tired of dealing with Pvt Sleeper and sent him back home early.
Private Sleeper should probably come clean with some people who are under a false impression that he is something that he is not. Particularly the kids in his school district.
UPDATE
Mike Sleeper called me. We had a frank conversation. He has an opportunity to come forward and set the record straight. Rarely do we post all the information we have on a case in order to give people an opportunity to man up. Mike is insistent that he served with the 75th for a period of time. That very well could be, but its not in his official records we were provided. What is a fact is Mike was never a Ranger.
As I stated in the blog, we have reports that he has made claims we know are not true.
