Category: Phony soldiers

Someone sent us their work on this Daniel Dwayne Reed fellow who claims that he was a Ranger with the 1st Ranger Battalion in Savannah, Georgia;

I don’t know how he thinks that people would believe that he was stationed with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky and the Ranger Battalion at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, a few hundred miles apart, at the same time but there you go.

His Facebook photos contain little gems like this one;

Tineye says that the picture is at least four years old and it’s a stock photo. Also, Mr Reed claims that he was with the Rangers back in 1990 – the tan berets weren’t around until until 2001. All of the soldiers in that picture are wearing Ranger Tabs and Combat Infantryman Badges – Mr Reed has neither.

Here’s another picture that Reed claims is him;

Tineye says this stock picture has been around at least ten years – it’s a book cover and it’s been used 93 times on the web;

Mr Reed was in the 101st, he was a 5-jump chump, and his career in the Army only lasted 18 months and he left as a Private First Class (E-3).

No Ranger training, no Ranger assignments, no combat.

Loki sends us a link to the Clarion-Ledger which tells the story of David Thomason of Canyon Lake, Texas, who claims that he was a Recon Marine who ran covert operations in Central America, and, of course, he was the lone survivor of his platoon.

Thomason said In that recently taped conversation obtained by the Clarion Ledger that he served in the Marine Force Reconnaissance in Colombia in the 1980s.

When the operation ended, “Oliver North pulled me out of formation and shook my hand,” he said. “He pulled me out of formation because I had lost six of my squad. We were one of the eight-man Lotus squads in Colombia. Me and my sergeant, Terry Brown, he shook both of our hands. He pulled us out of formation because we were the only two to survive that day.”

In a June 14 letter, the National Personnel Records Center said it conducted an “extensive search of every records source and alternate records” and found no military records on Thomason.

His first wife, Vicki, said he never served in the military.

Thomason also pretends to be a pastor who ministers to veterans suffering from PTSD. He bilked Bryan Todd Sympson out of $336,590 in donations, plus an RV park;

“I feel like a fool, but I’m an honest guy,” Sympson said. “I always try to find the good in people.”

After his accountant informed him that he couldn’t deduct his contributions because the charity wasn’t registered, he said he confronted Thomason, who has since registered the charity with the secretary of state’s office.

Sympson’s lawsuit alleges “Thomason does not run, nor has he run, a genuine Christian ministry. Thomason and (his wife) Sheila Thomason used the funds provided by Sympson for personal gain and personal expenses.”

After Sympson stopped donating, Thomason put a notice on Sympson’s door: “Hello, Brother in Christ, Brother in blood and a true brother as a friend. I am respectly (sic) asked (sic) that we sit down and break bread together and cast the Demon out that has fiercly (sic) tried to devide (sic) us.”

When Sympson wouldn’t meet with him, Thomason put up another notice: “You have 72 hours to vacate this property.” A follow-up notice claimed Sympson, who gave Thomason the RV Park, owed him $15,600.

When the Clarion Ledger called trying to contact Thomason for comment, his wife hung up the phone.

Thomason is also connected to a convicted serial killer, Felix Vail, who is serving a life sentence in Louisiana for killing three women. One of Thomason’s ex-wives is believed by the Clarion-Ledger to be a victim because she drowned under suspicious conditions.

Someone sent us their work on this Cori LeCinda Pierce person, now going by Cori Byrd, who claims that she is a veteran, and of course, for proof, she has a service dog;

She spent a whole 41 days in the Army before they kicked her to the curb;

Last time I checked, it takes more than 41 days at Relaxin’ Jackson for someone to be considered a veteran. She must’ve caught the PTSD that day that the PX ran out of Skittles and LCDs (little chocolate donuts).

Skidmark’s conversation with her;

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work with us on this fellow Michael Deon Border who claims to his friends that he is an Army veteran of the mission to Beirut after the October bombing of the Marine barracks there.

He claims that he was on patrol with his platoon and they were ambushed and he was the sole survivor. He regained consciousness as the evacuation helicopter lifted off. MP had a conversation by email with someone who was questioning Mr Border – you can click over and read that exchange.

But, Mr Border did serve in the Army, enlisting in October 1983, only a few months before he claims that he was sent to Beirut. His entire career lasted less than two years and his highest award was the lofty Army Service Ribbon.

Not even so much as an Overseas Ribbon – denoting service outside of the Continental US.

70-year-old Keith Hudson pleaded guilty of defrauding the Department of Veterans’ Affairs of $197,237 in benefits after falsely claiming to be a military veteran of combat in Vietnam according to the Department of Justice.

Court documents presented during the hearing established that in 2015, Mr. Hudson applied to the VA in Charleston for benefits. He used a falsified form from the Department of Defense, called a DD-214, (“Report of Separation from Active Duty”) which is a Department of Defense form given to members of the military who are separating from service. In the form, he said that was a veteran of the war in Vietnam. He represented that he was in the Navy and saw combat as a medic, suffering wounds and other trauma. He claimed that he served from August 1, 1967 through October 31, 1971 and said that he received two Purple Hearts.

The investigation conducted by the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG) showed that this DD-214 was forged and false. For instance, Mr. Hudson’s rank was listed as HN and E-4 (in the United States Navy, HN is actually the equivalent of E-3). In the awards section, it stated that he received a Combat Medic Badge. However, this is an award which is only given for service in the United States Army. It also did not list the proper citation for a Purple Heart. And the form stated Mr. Hudson received the Fleet Marine Force Medal with Marine Device. There is no such medal. It also had a stamp from the Alaska State Defense Force, which is suspicious as that group is not an official military organization, being comprised of volunteers. Additionally, the service branches do not permit their records to be combined with or loaned to other entities, including National Guard units. And, the typeset of the Social Security number on the DD-214 was different from the rest of the document.

In fact, Mr. Hudson never was in the military.

I guess Mr. Hudson wasn’t aware that the government keeps records;

Additionally, employment records for him from 1967 through 1971 established that he worked at a variety of jobs in New York and in Maine. In two of them, he applied for employment and was fingerprinted. These fingerprints were still on file and matched his prints. As such, he was in the United States during the years 1967 through 1971. Therefore, Mr. Hudson was never in the United States Navy nor did he ever see combat in Vietnam.

The investigation also showed that he had previously been prosecuted for the same scheme using the same DD-214 form in 2005 in Connecticut, where he had been placed in a pretrial diversionary program.

United States Attorney Sherri A. Lydon claims that VA fraud is on the rise;

“VA fraud is on the increase and so we are grateful for the work of the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General for their investigative work on the case.”

Statistics bear out what the United States Attorney said. Between April of 2017 and October of 2017 alone, the VA Office of Investigations made 80 arrests, and recovered $2.9 million in restitution, fines and penalties relating to things like VA health-care benefits fraud. This is more than twice the amount recovered in the same period a decade ago.

The growth of our Stolen Valor archives also bears this out.

Thanks to SJ for the tip.

We wrote about Jerry Harrell almost three years ago when someone spotted him panhandling in Boston, Massachusetts. He was passing himself off as a Vietnam veteran, and the truth is that he has no military service, according to the National Personnel Records Center;

Well, he’s back at it again and journalists at the Tuft’s Daily News don’t have access to Google, apparently;

Somerville has become an increasingly expensive area to live in, with an online estimate by Zillow citing an eight percent increase in housing costs in the past year. At the same time, nonprofits like Spare Change News and the SHC have worked to help individuals throughout the area, including formerly homeless veteran Jerry Harrell.

Born and raised in East Boston, Mass., Harrell left the city in 1970 to fight in the Vietnam War. After years in combat, Harrell found himself back in the United States as a war veteran with nowhere to turn.

That “Spare Change” newspaper in his greasy little dick-beaters was created so the panhandlers would have something to give their benefactors on the street. Our tipster has contacted Spare Change as well as the Tuft’s Daily about Harrell and he was treated to the full-throated cricket chorus from both.

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this Christopher Deane fellow who claims to be a Force Recon Marine, like in this article from Yawkey Baseball;

In that article, Deane claims that he was a Force Recon Marine and “stationed” in Iraq and Somalia with nine years of service. He’s also made verbal claims that he was a POW. He loves his tattoos;

Well, the truth is that he spent no time on active duty, according to DoD Manpower folks. His FOIA is full of “N/A” probably because he enlisted on the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) and then never showed up for boot camp;

So, he’s really not a Marine, and he’s proud enough to put USMC tattoos all over his body and tell wild tales about his service, but not proud enough to put his feet in the yellow footprints.