Category: Phony soldiers

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on John Wyatt Dawkins who claims to be a Desert Storm veteran and a Navy SEAL in social media. He tries to get by with fictitious BUD/S classmates and when that doesn’t work, he goes secret squirrel. Dawkins claims that he can’t get his records from the Navy;

Yeah, well the folks at MP got his records. He spent time in the Navy and the Navy Reserves, then he went to the Army for a year – he was in Basic Training during Desert Storm.

In the Navy he was a Fireman Apprentice (E-2) and in the Army he was an Infantryman (E-4).

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow, Greg Quillen, who claims to be a Navy SEAL.

Perhaps more incredible is his claim that he was struck by lightning seven times.

There was a fellow who was struck by lightning seven times – Roy Sullivan;

In case you’re wondering, the odds of getting struck by lightning are about one in 280,000,000. The odds of getting struck by lightning seven times are 4.15 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

When Sullivan did pass away, it was a bullet, not a bolt, that did him in. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1983 at the age of 71, perhaps tired of constantly fearing a fatal strike.

Since Quillen isn’t Sullivan, we have to doubt his claim, otherwise he’d be Sullivan-famous.

Anyway, Quillen is not a SEAL – he was a PR1 when he retired after twenty years – a parachute rigger E-6.

No SEAL training.

Last month, I told you that Sheldon Shepherd was not a Navy SEAL despite what his obituary said;

Our Partners at Military Phonies beat us in the race to get his FOIA. Folks tell us that there is a DD214 out there that support the claims in the obits that Sheldon was a SEAL, that he earned Bronze Stars for Valor and that he’d been wounded and awarded a Purple Heart. The FOIA doesn’t support that nonsense;

Not only was he not a SEAL, it looks like he never set foot in Vietnam. He was on the USS RB Anderson which was off the coast of Vietnam in 1970-1971 while he was aboard as a Radioman. It looks like he returned to Vietnam on the USS Horne in 1971-1972. No Bronze Star Medals (only 2 bronze service stars on his Vietnam Service Medal). No Purple Hearts. There is nothing that indicates that he “spent many months in the hospital recuperating from a headshot” as it has been claimed.

It looks like he was busted from E-2 to E-1 and then promoted to E-2 again just before he was ultimately discharged. But he wasn’t a SEAL.

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this John Epling fellow. He claims that he was wounded while he was serving as a combat engineer in Iraq while he spent five years on active duty;

He spent a few months on active duty when he was mobilized from his Army Reserve unit to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, but he didn’t deploy, he didn’t encounter any IEDs and his knee is just fine. And, oh, his ex-wife didn’t get his veterans’ compensation – he never got any to begin with;

Someone sent us their work on this Jamie Renee Waltrip person. She claims that she was a staff sergeant in the Army and that she served on deployments to the war on terror;

The last picture is from a slide show she made for her church group during a Veterans’ Day presentation claiming that it’s her on patrol. The picture is actually from Getty Images and it is a picture of Lance Corporal Kristi Baker on patrol with 1/8th Marines in Afghanistan and used in several media articles, like this one from Fox News;

Waltrip was in the Army for 2 years and four months, she made E-3 once but she was busted a few months before her early discharge to Private E-2. Waltrip was a medic with the 172nd Support Battalion in Alaska, but she never deployed to the GWOT;

Our partners at Stolen Valour – Canada share their work on this portly fellow, Steven Martens.

Major (Retired) Steven A. MARTENS CD
CADET INSTRUCTOR CADRE

The Great Imposter of Vernon Army Cadet Camp!

While serving as a Senior Officer with Regional Cadet Support Unit (Pacific) and during employment at Vernon Army Cadet Camp, he wore the following medals and insignia without lawful authority.

The Order of St John,
The Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal,
The UN Force in Cyprus Medal,
The UN Emergency Force II,
The Fire Services Exemplary Service Medal, and
The Canadian Forces parachute insignia.

Mr Martens was awarded the Canadian Forces Decoration for long service and “good conduct” This is his sole lawful medallic entitlement.

He claims he was “verbally” reprimanded for his fakery and allowed to submit a request for his voluntary release from the CAF in July of 2013. He then slipped quietly out the back gate when he should have faced charges under s419 CCC / s129 NDA.

So, the question becomes, why was this matter not dealt with in an open, transparent and public manner?

He certainly wore the medals and insignia in public!
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“I am very ashamed and embarrassed for my actions and admit that I put up uniform items to which I was not entitled to put up. I offer no excuse other than I totally knew better and was galactically stupid for doing so. This was a very expensive decision on my part that resulted in being disciplined and having to resign from the military”

Mr S Martens

Everyone wants to wear jump wings, no one wants to hump their parachute to the turn in point.

Wilbur Steve Hardee comes to us from a fellow who moderates a Facebook page for Grenada veterans. Steve tried to join, hoping they wouldn’t ask him any questions;

He claims he was in 3rd Battalion, 75th Rangers in Vietnam and Grenada. There was no 3rd Battalion Rangers in Vietnam and they were reactivated October 4th, 1984 – a year after Grenada.

Hardee has a couple of Facebook pages and the two I’ve seen say that he was a sergeant in 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade;

The National Personnel Records Center says that he spent five months at Relaxin’ Jackson and the Army kicked him to the curb. No Rangers, no Vietnam, no Grenada, no jump school;