Category: Phony soldiers

According to the Nevada Review-Journal, Mack Miller, a Republican candidate for the state Assembly, deserted his unit while they were deployed to Iraq in 2007. He came to the States from the deployment on mid-tour leave and never bothered to return to his unit. Miller tells the story that he got an email from unit while he was on leave to not bother returning to Iraq because of an injury.

Miller said that while he was on a 14-day mandatory “rest and relaxation” leave a sergeant emailed him to say “don’t bother coming back.” Miller could not recall who sent the email or provide a copy of it.

But Eric Owens, who was Miller’s platoon leader, said he was not notified of any injuries.

”I cannot recall an instance where he reported an injury to his leadership because we would have sent him to get checked out,” said Owens, who is now out of the Army and lives in Atlanta.

“He made no statement that he was injured. He just left us in Iraq during quite possibly one of the most difficult lives in our lives.”

After he was arrested by civilian authorities in Los Angeles and sent back to the Army, Miller appeared in a court martial and convicted of desertion, sentenced to 18 months confinement, reduction in rank to Private (E-1) and a bad conduct discharge.

Miller, who also pleaded guilty last year to impersonating a police officer, said he never again saw the soldiers he served with in Iraq. But they see him campaigning for Assembly and posting tributes to a fallen comrade. A post on Memorial Day enraged those soldiers who said 16 lives were lost in Iraq while Miller was AWOL.

“It seemed he was trying to score political points off of someone who died for us,” said Kyle Spletter, a former Army specialist who now lives in Wisconsin. “Miller ran from battle. He left us. Our leaders didn’t leave us.”

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this Paul Joseph Anderson, Junior who claims that he’s a retired Navy SEAL and Master Chief. And he’s single, ladies, even though he has most of his teeth;

The Navy disagrees;

Based off of Paul’s summary sheet, he did 6 months and 9 days. Paul attended Sonar Technician Basic Submarine “A” School but was dropped for Physically Disqualified for Sub Duty and Academic Reasons. Looks like he was only there 4 days and was discharged as a Seaman (E-3). In conclusion, NOT a SEAL, NOT SWCC, NOT a Master Chief, NOT a Combat Veteran and he did NOT do 18 years in the Navy. Regarding the FBI claim — we didn’t waste our time looking into that claim.

When we last talked about Phil “Drager” Haberman, known in some circles as GI Jerk, he was farting around in Houston, Texas telling tall tales to hurricane victims, as if they haven’t suffered enough already. Today we learn that he has been trying to rescue stray animals in Jordan under the auspices of his organization. According to our sources, he would run around trapping dogs and cats, charging 4-500 JD (500 JOD = 705.22 USD) a piece to vaccinate and send animals home.

Apparently, he has been wandering around Jordan with an expired CAC card, and the military folks got tired of him;

Maybe this will give him something to do besides send me messages through our Facebook page.

We’ve been after Stafford Township, New Jersey mayor John Spodofora for six years. He has been pretending to be a secret squirrel Navy SEAL for at least that long. Well someone defaced one of his campaign signs with the words “Stolen Valor” and he’s in a snit according to the Sandpiper;

The insult alludes to a controversy that began shortly before the 2015 election, when retired U.S. Navy man and stolen valor activist Earl Galloway accused Spodofora of exaggerating his military service, by describing himself as a Vietnam War veteran in his professional bio on the town’s website. All along, the mayor has said his security classification prohibits him from talking specifically about his involvement in that war or being able to prove he ever set “boots on the ground” in Vietnam. He nonetheless changed his bio to read Vietnam Era veteran.

In the mayor’s defense, [Township Administrator James] Moran said Spodofora legitimately served eight years in the Navy and received a medal for being under enemy fire during the Vietnam War.

I wonder which medal that is; the Good Conduct Medal or the National Defense Service Medal, because those are his sole awards. He was stationed in Puerto Rico and the Canal Zone, but never anywhere near Vietnam;

The Vietnam War ended 43 years ago. The biggest secret of World War II, the US possessing the Enigma Machine, was declassified 25 years after that war ended, but I’m sure Spodofora’s secret service was more important than the Enigma Machine.

If his service in Vietnam was so secret that he can’t prove he was there, why was he highlighting his service in Vietnam on his public website?

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow, Rob Pearson, who claims that he was wounded in combat while he was a Marine for 25 years. He wears a Purple Heart, a Combat Action Ribbon, a Bronze Star Medal and the rank of Master Sergeant;

According to his records, he has never heard a shot fired in anger, he never deployed, and he left the Marine Corps as a Sergeant (E-5);

Most of Robert Pearson’s claims are not supported by his official military records. He was a Marine that served for over 10 years… but his records do not show that he served for 25 years. The service stripes that he wears on his sleeves to not match what is in his records.

He got out as an E-5 vs. an E-8. No CAR, no Purple Heart, and no Bronze Star medal. Ironically, we could not find support for having three stars on his Good Conduct Medal.

Pearson has a career in the Marine Corps that anyone would be proud of. It appears that he took liberties with the truth as many of these claims are unsupported. If he has supporting documentation as to many of these claims, we would be glad to help set the record straight but it’s not looking too good.

Last week, we talked about Alex Wolpert, the fellow who confronted an aging Laotian man and accused him of stolen valor. The Sacramento Bee reports that Wolpert, who claimed he was a Marine, has admitted that he was not a Marine;

Wolpert gained public notoriety after a viral video of the incident was shared on Facebook on May 13 by someone claiming they were posting it on behalf of their parents, who live in Sacramento.

“I’m a Marine, I fought for my country,” Wolpert says in the video, pointing at the elderly man. “And this m———– is going to wear that s—?”

Wolpert said he comes from a military family but admitted to lying about his status as a U.S. Marine.

“I was caught up and emotionally upset,” he said.

Poor little fella. Snake actually tracked down and verified that Wolpert’s father was in the Army. Wolpert was born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma;

Wolpert said he was currently taking classes at a rehabilitation center in light of the incident. He and his family have received death threats, he said.

They always claim that they’re getting death threats. When I see someone being arrested, I’ll believe it. There aren’t enough classes to get that BS out of Wolpert’s system.

More than two years ago, we wrote about Richard Hollingsworth a valor thief at Pocatello, Idaho’s VFW Post 735, who pinned a bunch of stuff on his skin tight uniform that he didn’t earn during his term of service in Vietnam;

I’ll forgive him wearing the Sergeant stripes. It’s probably pretty tough in this day and age to find sew-on Spec 5 rank, maybe not, I don’t know. But what I can’t forgive is the Combat Infantry Badge, the Blue Infantry Cord an Army Commendation Medal that aren’t in his records. There’s also the Army Achievement Medal, Overseas Ribbon and the Army Service Ribbon none of which existed until about ten years after he left the service.

Apparently, valor theft doesn’t mean much in Idaho, because they made him the post commander and he’s still wearing his bogus bling;

Some members of the post don’t like it, but apparently the majority are valor thief huggers.