One of our Canadian fans sent us some of the information on this real Canadian sergeant major by the name of Richard Fancy, he was the Regimental Sergeant Major of the Halifax Rifles, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him. He pretended to have served in Somalia, West Asia and Afghanistan and he claimed that he was a paratrooper with the Airborne Reconnaissance Troops. He was illegally and fraudulently wearing the Canadian Somalia Medal, the General Campaign Star (South West Asia) and, the Canadian Forces Parachutist Insignia.
So, when he was busted, they called him back from his retirement and court martialled his ass and busted him – a largely symbolic gesture because he didn’t lose any retirement pay according to our source. he was fined $100 for each fraudulent medal.
That’s him on the far right, front row;
And that’s him in the middle holding the trophy on your left of the trophy;
Of course, there’s a vest and tattoos involved, because what stank-ass hippie doesn’t have a DD214 tattooed to their body?
He also claims a second award of the Combat Infantryman Badge and a Combat Action Badge – that’s one combatin’ MFer.
Well, the truth is a little different and doesn’t lend itself well to body illustrations. He was a finance clerk and didn’t enlist until the Vietnam War was over and in the history books;
He did rocket to the rank of Private E-2 in his six years of service. It looks like he did a tour of Korea which is close to Vietnam on my map, so maybe he was just confused.
The Boston Globe writes about this Mary Gallagher person who is a former Air Force Reservist in the information management field of endeavor and until the other day she was an employment coordinator for the Massachusetts State Department of Veterans’ Services. Over the last few years, she’s made claims about earning a Purple Heart for her combat-related wounds. They also say that she claimed a Bronze Star Medal. According to the Globe, the Air Force tells them that she has neither.
She claims that she was wounded in an RPG attack and that a Sergeant Martinez was killed by her side. The Army says that no Sergeant Martinez was killed during that time frame, according to The Globe. She has told various stories about her injuries. In one, she was raped and sent home, in another she was shot in the shoulder and treated and released at the local medical facility.
“Gallagher recalls a badly injured little girl she was helping . . . amidst a fierce exchange of gunfire,” the Patch reported. “Gallagher was lifted right off her feet by the powerful blast, and the next thing she was aware of was waking up in a hospital in Germany, where she was treated for her injuries. Gallagher returned to the United States at Christmas 2009.”
Another version of the attack was reported in October 2011 by the Boston Business Journal.
The Journal reported that Gallagher “was escorting contractors working on infrastructure at an air field in Baghdad, when insurgents breached the concrete barriers and shot her in the shoulder. She was treated quickly at a combat hospital and sent home soon after.”
Well, anyway, she resigned from her post with the State Veterans’ Services after questions about her claims of medals.
The resignation occurred after the Globe raised questions about the prestigious decorations, which were mentioned in Facebook endorsements this year for her campaign for state committee, and about accounts of her overseas service that she gave to the news media during the last several years.
The Air Force Reserve has no record that Gallagher received the Purple Heart, which is awarded to service members who are killed or wounded, or the Bronze Star, which is granted for heroism or meritorious conduct in combat.
Gallagher did not respond to requests for comment.
The folks at Military Phony send us their work on this Caleb McGee fellow. He’s some sort of local celebrity in Norman, Oklahoma. His problems began last year when he made a claim to a local newspaper about his time as a combat-experienced Marine;
In a personal interview, McGee, no stranger to guns as a former marine and desert war veteran, told Red Dirt Report that he has no problem with people who legal have or carry guns, but worries the court’s decision may have a negative impact on festival attendance.
According to Military Phony, he got a whiff of folks looking into his claims, so he beat everyone to the punch by coming clean during one of his performances;
Good thing because his file came back from National Personnel Records Center and, he was indeed a Marine, but for only about ten months. He was discharged as a Private and he was trained as an Aviation Supply clerk – he has no deployments and he was stationed in Mississippi.
Then his wife decided to defend him, which is always a Top Gun move. And with that, he submitted the most obviously fake DD214 since Jesse MacBeth.
I’ve seen better looking DD214’s written in crayon. In reality, his service was less PJ and Pilot for 30 years, and more 35 day basic training washout.
The comments from his noble wife and champion Heidi were AWESOME:
Heidi Smith Whipple · Okemos, Michigan
I am Lance ALLAN Whipples wife. Not lance allEn wife. Got to tell you there were only 4 people at his wedding. His mom and dad would never post those photos since we burried Dad yesterday. Lance and I dont have those photos since his ex wife left him and took everything. Im pretty sure I can crop her out jussssst a bit more for a great wall pick. Other than that, Military Affairs, Jag, a personal attorney and looking at Michigan State Police. As his wife….Im not letting this go. Who ever started this, I promise to bring to military law or my state law. I promise you I will not stop. I will push every button I can to get to the bottom of this. Then there is another court…Its called CIVIL. We receive a pention from the military for what he did. Momma is not done with you. just know.
And…
Heidi Smith Whipple · Okemos, Michigan
You have it wrong sir. And Yes as his wife. Im coming for you. And all involved. Unfortunatly for you Lances RECRUITER owns a PX store and is now looking at our son. I guess his recruiter can call and verify to you as a recruiter. Mail me back ill make it happen for you. We have nothing to hide. Im coming for who gave you this false information. Every month we collect his pention you idiot. I am from Peach Creek West Virginia and I will not stop untill you pay for what you have done to us. He was a PJ then NCO to Officer and those dd214 are authentic. I even agreed to mee with you. At this point sir, its not going to be good for you. I trusted you. I gave you things. You screwed me for what? Why did you do that? I notice your site asks for donations……is that it? Should I pay you more than the person that did this to us? U spelled his name wrong. But the guy u spelled wrong…awww was kinda of a hero…. u will find out later on that one. I tried to work with you. You and I both know where those pictures came from. You have no valor yourself. You are a paid whore.
The word, madam, is gigolo. It is “Jonn Lilyea, European (and Asiatic, Innuit and Middle Eastern) gigolo”. Besides, what exactly is a “paid whore”? If you don’t get paid you aren’t a whore, isn’t that kind of redundant?
But, as with all heroes, their time comes. In Lance’s case, it was when the pararescueman/pilot suppurating lesion on the ball sack of humanity decided to carry some weapons, despite being a felon.
>
And so we last left you. With a big court date coming up, and potentially years in prison. Best served cold and all that…
Except, he ended up with 2 days in prison. Two days.
If, as Charles Dickens suggested, “the law is an ass” than Lance Whipple here is the orifice. He’s like the Lindsay Lohan of Stolen Valor. Every time he tries some new BS he gets a slap on the wrist. It’s positively infuriating.
Mark my words, he’ll be running scams again in no time. And Heidi will be there standing by her man.
PS: According to the prosecutor, he did not try to use his fake military service to get leniency. When you only get two days for being a felon in possession of a gun, I have to wonder what leniency would look like in Michigan. Turn down and room service in the Holiday Inn that you serve your two days in?
In late April, we talked a bit about James Nieder. He claimed, during the heat of his campaign for Hampton, Virginia city council that he had earned a Purple Heart medal during the operations in Grenada. Later, he admitted that he lied. Nieder claimed that he had served for six years in the 1980s, but we couldn’t find a record of his being on active duty during that period. The reason is that he doesn’t have much service. He enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program in November 1983 (a month after Grenada), went to Basic Training in December, then he went to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) as an 05C radio operator in March, 1984, then, suddenly, he was out on the street in June, 1984.
AverageNCO found this article at the Alton Telegraph about Alton, Ill. veteran Richard Lee Carr who claims that although he was a auto mechanic in Vietnam, he was shot down and became a prisoner of war for several months until he escaped and spent weeks getting back to US forces;
Carr, 70, was a sergeant and helicopter door gunner in the 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam from 1967-1968. For approximately seven months of that time, he was a prisoner of war after being captured when his helicopter was shot down.
“It landed in the river and somehow I got on the wrong side,” he said. “I actually thought we were gone.”
He was able to escape, and eventually walked into a friendly military encampment. Carr said he was unsure exactly how far he traveled.
“You lay in by day and travel by night,” he said. “You’re scared to death of booby traps, so you travel by inches instead of miles.”
The irony was that he was supposed to be a wheeled-vehicle mechanic and stay on the ground.
“We had a sergeant who would take out a few of us and fire different weapons,” he said. “We thought it was fun. But when I got over there, I was classified as a multi-weapons expert.”
When he arrived in Vietnam, he was given his orders and told to get his equipment.
“They came back with a machine gun and two cans of ammunition,” Carr said, noting that he looked around at the time, somewhat confused as to who indeed was supposed to receive the gun and ammo.
The supply clerk’s answer was a shock — “You do,” Carr was told.
When he finally was on board the helicopter and test-firing the gun, he asked the pilot what the life expectancy of a door gunner was.
“Seven minutes, you’re on borrowed time,” came the reply.
“You don’t think about it,” Carr recalled. “We had gone into hot LZs (landing zones) to extract infantrymen who had been hit. Your job is to get them out as best you can.”
Well, he was busted before for the same stuff, so it was just a simple process to find the FOIA we already had. He was indeed in Vietnam from February 1967 – January 1968 as a mechanic. He spent three years on active duty and three years in the Reserves and he got out as a Private First Class, not sergeant.
The only DPAA listing for an Army POW named Carr is Donald Gene, an O-3 whose remains were returned late last year;
I guess it wasn’t enough that he served when most of his generation wouldn’t.
Our buddy, Andy Kravetz, alerts us to the story of William R. Jones in Geneseo, Illinois. Jones is facing Federal charges for “theft of government funds and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to support payment of disability benefits” according to the Department of Justice;
The indictment alleges that Jones, 66…made false statements claiming that he served in Vietnam in the 1970s when in fact, Jones never served in Vietnam. According to the indictment, in July 2013, Jones submitted a form containing false information to the office of U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin to support his claim for veterans disability benefits. The form indicated that Jones had served in combat in Vietnam in 1972; that he was assigned to Special Operations in Vietnam; and that he was shot down in enemy territory and rescued three weeks later by U.S. Marines. In fact, according to the indictment, Jones never served in Vietnam.
In May 2015, on two occasions, to support his request to start veterans disability benefits on an earlier date, Jones allegedly made false statements to employees of Veterans Affairs as follows: that he had an updated military form, a fabricated document Jones allegedly drafted and procured to deceive the Department of Veterans Affairs, that reflected his combat medals; that he was assigned to 10th Special Operations in Vietnam; that he was assigned to conduct drug interdiction missions in the Golden Triangle area of Southeast Asia, and that he was wounded by shrapnel caused by a mortar round while he was a crewman on a Spectre Gunship. In fact, as Jones knew, he was never assigned to any military unit in Vietnam and never served in Vietnam.
I’m not sure how a Spectre gunship crew member would be wounded by a mortar round.
I guess he did his research for the role on Netflix – it’s a Hollywood story. For one count of theft of government funds, Jones is looking at a maximum ten year sentence. For the three counts of making false statements it’s five years each. Both also carry a fine of a quarter-million bucks.
