Category: Phony soldiers

Someone sent us their work on this fellow Brian J. McCarthy of Aurora, Colorado, who claims to be a Navy SEAL. He even provides photos of his adventures like this one;

According to Tin Eye, McCarthy snagged that photo from a collection related to Special Boat Unit 20 and that the people in the picture are Pete Spooner and CPO Sweeny;

And another – this time he’s diving the USS Oriskany on the Great *Carrier* Reef;

The picture seems awfully similar to the bottom photo in this collection.

Some of his pictures are snagged from Pinterest and Map Quest.

In addition to Don Shipley’s verification that Brian McCarthy is not a Navy SEAL, the National Personnel Records Center has never heard of him and his expansive ass;

Someone sent us their work on this Brian Freeman fellow who thinks he was a Marine Raider. He was using that persona to attract fitness clients. He was fired from his job at Equinox because of his lies;

His excuse to his boss was that this persona was to help him deal with stress related to his job as a muscle head personal trainer.

The Marine Corps, when asked about his records, replied “Who?”

Our partners at Stolen Valour – Canada send us the news that Robert Kelly has apologized to them for his fakery. Well, sort of;

He thought he’d earned all of those medals, he thought that he was a paratrooper, you know, even though he doesn’t remember jumping from an aircraft while in flight. He thought that he had served during World War 2 and Korean War.

There’s this guy in Los Angeles who says that he’s a US Navy Lieutenant Commander, by the name of Ray Rodriguez. He shows up at most veteran events and the local politicians are more than eager to attach themselves to him. Politicians like Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard;

And the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors;

But at Topix, some of the locals seem to think that Lieutenant Commander Rodriguez is nothing but a Sea Cadet title;

The Navy and the National Personnel Records Center ask “Who?”

Someone sent us their work on this Fellow, Russell Jeffers from Bountiful, Utah. He has authored a self-help book Bricks of Trials. He claims that he had been a POW when he was captured during a secret mission to North Korea. He awarded himself a POW Medal as well as a Defense Meritorious Service Medal, a Meritorious Service Medal and his highest award, the Soldiers Medal with a “Valor” device.

He also flaunts Iraq and Afghanistan campaign medals as well as a Combat Field Medical Badge.

He was in the Army for six years as a 91D operating room medic, including a tour at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. No overseas assignments, no combat deployments to either Iraq or Afghanistan. There is no “Valor” device for a Soldiers Medal. It’s a valor medal all by itself – he doesn’t have the Soldiers Medal, anyway. He was never a POW. He left the Army as a specialist (E-4) not a Sergeant (E-5).

The Miami Herald reports that Scott Edward Davis has been arrested for impersonating a Homeland Security agent as well as a veteran. He’s locked up in the Indian River County jail after deputies found him flashing a badge and for having a veteran designation on his drivers’ license;

According to the police report, the case began back in December 2017, when Davis reportedly started a verbal disturbance at a Ford dealership in Vero Beach when the suspect presented a badge and “repeatedly identified himself as a representative of the Department of Homeland Security.”

On his person was a driver’s license that listed him as having a veteran designation.

He’s been at it for a while according to WPTV;

Police in Austin, Texas say Davis was arrested twice in 1992, in which he made over 20 traffic stops on unsuspecting victims while impersonating a law enforcement officer. He was found in possession of emergency lights, a siren, an unauthorized fire department badge, and he admitted he might have had a firearm during these traffic stops.

Davis was also arrested in 2005 in Clay County, Florida for impersonating a law enforcement officer. According to a Clay County report, he reportedly conducted a traffic stop with blue lights in his personal vehicle. He was near a military base and identified himself as Major Scott Davis.

During the investigation of the disturbance at Velde Ford in December, investigators noticed a document in his driver’s license file which appears to have come from the Veterans Administration and showed years of service from 1984 to 2006 and an honorable discharge. The document was used by Davis to obtain the veterans designation on his license.

Investigators became suspicious that someone with Davis’ felony arrest history would have remained in the military. Veterans Administration records revealed that the document was fake and Davis had actually been in the U.S. Army from 1987 to 1989 and was discharged under other than honorable conditions. The Veterans Administration confirmed that Davis is not eligible for benefits, nor is he considered a veteran.

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow, William Gallagher who claimed to be a Chief Petty Officer (E-7) and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War for his sea cadet organization.

The folks at MP say that they confronted him a few years ago and Gallagher promised to behave himself, but phonies gotta phony and he was back at it. He’s 60 years old, therefore too young to have participated in the Vietnam War. He enlisted a few weeks after the US evacuated Saigon, so he missed the war.

I don’t think he’s authorized the National Defense Service Medal, but it is in his records;

He left the Navy as an Electrician Mate (E-6) not a CPO, not a Vietnam combat veteran.

And he resigned from the sea cadets (sorry I got caught);