This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Phony soldiers

  • IVAW’s SF trooper

    StrikeFO found another IVAW member, but this one borders on a phony soldier. Michael Bailey of the 21st Chemical Company of the 7th Special Forces Group – except that the 21st Chemical Co. is part of the 82d Airborne Division, not the 7th SFG. According to Global Security, their mission is to provide “direct smoke and decontamination support to their respective brigades” not what Bailey says about his job;

    Whatever the hell is “Sensitive Site Exploitation Operator, Forensic Chemical Analyst, Exploitation Ananlysis [sic] Cell Technician” yeah, those are allin the MPs’ job description not a chemical operations specialist. In fact according to the Army, Bailey’s job was described thusly;

    Skill Level 1 MOSC 74D1O. Operates and performs operator maintenance on smoke generating equipment, NBC identification/detection and decontamination equipment, performs NBC reconnaissance.

    Nice try, Mikey.

    When my commanders, my senior NCOs, and my team cannot truly define why they are still fighting, I had no choice but to turn to introspection.

    Yeah, that’s what a lot of privates do when they think they’re smarter than their leaders. Usually their answers are vacuous and selfish.

  • Another IVAW loser

    We used to go hunting indivual IVAW members and kind of got off that after awhile when they changed their website, but StrikeFO went diving into the IVAW profiles and sent us this clown, Josh Carmona, who was apparently a Marine Corp journalist – another Iraq veteran Against the War who hasn’t been to Iraq or Afghanistan, but still opposes the war and gets to wear a T-shirt that makes people think he’s done something besides sit in Barstow, CA and complain about his recruiter;

    Apparently, he was fat and happy in high school until a recruiter came along and screwed up his life by getting him some employment. Now that his time is up, because that recruiter screwed him up so bad, he’s getting his meals from a dumpster; “I fill a lot of my time drinking and digging through dumpsters for “midnight pizza”. I joined IVAW because I have tons of skill and charisma. I want to end bullshit wars and I can’t sit right with myself doing nothing but watching Return of the Jedi over and over and over again.”
    (more…)

  • Sentinel-Echo responds to criticism

    Frankly Opinionated emailed the managing editor of the Sentinel-Echo, Carrie Dillard, about their false reporting of Curtis Barger’s awards that I wrote about yesterday. Here’s their response to him;

    On behalf of the Sentinel-Echo news staff, I would like to express our apologizes for the error regarding the medal of honor statement in the article on Mr. Curtis Barger. We have run a correction in regards to this error (see below).

    In the article “Heroes Welcome: Local veteran honored at July Cruisin’ event” in Wednesday’s edition, 84-year-old Curtis Barger was incorrectly listed as a medal of honor recipient. He, in fact, received a silver star and purple heart. We apologize for the error.

    No disrespect was intended, and again we send our apologizes.

    —
    Carrie Dillard
    Managing Editor
    The Sentinel-Echo
    123 W. 5th St.
    London, KY 40741

    I commend Carrie on her quick response, except that no one said anything about a Medal of Honor, it was the Distinguished Service Cross, his rank and the drill sergeant badge with which we had issues. So the correction and apology rings hollow since obviously the editor never read the article, or Frankly’s email for that matter.

  • Makes you wonder what’s in people’s heads

    Meet 80-year-old Curtis Barger, a combat veteran of the Korean War. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star in his 21 months of service in the Army. And he left the service as a Corporal. Thanks to Doug Sterner, we have his FOIA;

    However, here’s an article written about him the other day in his hometown;

    Barger entered the military in 1951 in Kentucky and fought in the Korean War. He said he didn’t have the pleasure of driving a vehicle like the one he owns today, but traveled by foot through the mountains as a part of the Second Inventory Division.

    “I like my silver star the most because it’s not the highest, but I remember well the day I was awarded that,” he said.

    Yeah, the 2d Inventory Division, my old unit when I was in the 10th Messkit Repair Company. That was probably the journalist’s fault though, I don’t blame Barger for that. What I do blame him for is wearing a Distinguished Service Cross, he’s not listed in the Home of Heroes and it’s not in his records. He’s also wearing Sergeant First Class rank (and it looks a little small to be for a male uniform), and the Drill Sergeant badge with just 22 months in service. At least 12 of those months had to have been in Korea, and six months of entry training and movement to Korea, when did he find time to to be a drill sergeant.
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  • Phony soldier Rick Duncan\Strandlof resurfaces

    You may remember the phony we helped uncover in Colorado Springs who had fooled IVAW and VoteVets and going by the name of Rick Duncan, but was actually Richard Strandlof. He was charged with Stolen Valor Act violations and the Ninth Circuit Court gave him a pass saying he had the right to free speech which included his claims of awards of the Silver Star and Purple Heart.

    Well, it seems that karma is a bitch. The Denver Post reports that he has resurfaced in a new disguise – as a Jewish lawyer.

    Last October, a man named Rick Gold, a 30-something lawyer who said he lived in Denver’s trendy Highlands neighborhood, appeared on the social scene and slipped comfortably into a welcoming circle of young Jewish professionals.

    He attended Passover meals and Sabbath dinners, knew enough Hebrew to participate in the prayers and joined several faith-based organizations as he told friends of his Israeli heritage and sought to reconnect with his religious roots.

    Through parallel social networks, online and in person, a lot of people got to know Rick Gold.

    Except that they didn’t.

    Last weekend, many of his friends concluded — to their shock and disbelief — that Rick Gold is, in fact, Rick Strandlof, the fake military hero whose unmasking in 2009 triggered an uproar and criminal charges.

    Here’s screenshot of his LinkedIn account. it includes a picture of him posing with Colorado Senator Mark Udall from back when he was posing as Rick Duncan the decorated Iraq veteran;

    He seems to continue his romance with military service since he has now taken on service with the israeli Defense Forces. His fantasies continue; He’s a martial arts instructor, a member of GOProud, the conservative gay advocacy group

    So I wonder if the 9th Circuit will be as forgiving with Duncan\Strandlof\Gold when he poses as an officer of the court as they were when he posed as an officer of Marines. Maybe if the courts continue to let this moron manufacture identities, they’ll see him sitting on the bench next to them in a few years.

    I can state authoritatively from this experience that irony tastes like a banana split with extra chocolate sauce.

  • Anders Behring Breivik

    So this weirdo, Anders Behring Breivik, has taken over the news cycle since yesterday and at last count cost 91 92 people their lives and several injured. That’s him in the picture above sent to me by Scott who says it a US Marine uniform and the picture was in his 1500 page word manifesto. I see a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, South West Asia Theater medal, a Valorous Unit Citation, Meritorious Unit Citation and I think there’s a Vietnam Medal in there, too.

    At Weaselzippers, they say he considered himself a “Marxist hunter” This is supposedly the video he put on the internet along with the 1500 page word manifesto about how he didn’t like the way the world was changing around him.

    If that is his video, I think it’s a little strange how it’s all in English, as if he thought all of us Englich speakers would stand behind him or something.

    I guess he spent an hour and a half blasting people, and not the little brown people he claims his whole demonstration was all aboute. At Stars & Stripes they intimate that SWAT helped him in his endeavor to kill copious numbers of innocent people because they decided to drive to the scene instead of taking their helicopter. I guess he surrendered as soon as the police confronted him…too bad they couldn’t have done that sooner.

    As much as you believe Wikipedia, the gun laws in Norway are fairly restrictive. You have to have a reason like hunting or sporting to own a weapon. Self-defense isn’t an approved reason to on a weapon in Norway. And you have to have clean police record to get a permit and the police are allowed to search your house to insure you have your weapons stored properly – after they give you at least 48 hours notice that they’re on their way.

    The last line of the Wikipedia entry might change in the near future;

    There is no apparent public desire to introduce a concealed carry permit at this point in time, and there is no such license available to civilians.

    UK’s Daily Mail takes advantage of this opportunity to take pot shots at Norway’s gun laws;

    The fact that Breivik was able to perpetrate this monstrous deed is partly a reflection of the extremely liberal gun laws that operate in Scandinavia.

    We can probably expect the same blather to come from the US press.

  • The real Master Sergeant Soup Sandwich

    UPDATE: Nicholas Androsky died on Saturday February 22, 2014.

    I know you remember this guy – half of the blogosphere recognizes him thanks to your 6700 clicks of the Facebook “Like” button on that post;

    Yeah, his buffoonery bumped our traffic up to the stratosphere. For that I’ll always be grateful to him. But that gratitude won’t stop me from posting his records, compliments of the good folks at POW Network. It looks like he spent four and a half years as a C130 Loadmaster at Pope AFB until fate took a hand;

    For those of you who felt sorry for him because he looked like a fricken ritard – this might be the reason why; he was busted for using percoset, mushrooms and huffing “shoe cleaner” and nitrous oxide as well as dealing Ecstasy;


    It looks like they dropped one charge of stealing percocet from his Air Force buddy, one charge of huffing shoe cleaner and one charge of selling meth.

    So he got the Big Chicken Dinner and 5 months in whatever the Air Force uses for the brig. And from the looks of him, I don’t think he completely kicked his “shoe cleaner” habit.

  • “Rock” Harris’ records

    The folks at POW Network sent us their FOIA results on Michael Jeffrey “Rock” Harris. We wrote about the super-soldier here, here, here, here and here. In the interview that he did with Jane Moon of the Fayetteville Observer, he claimed the following list of awards and medals;

    3 PH
    2 SS
    1 BSM
    23 ARCOMs
    31 AAM
    6 Overseas Service ribbons for combat

    His records say a little different;

    His records say he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal with a “V” device for service in the Gulf War, however, his BSM award says that he was received it for merit not for valor – there’s a difference;

    He claimed he was a sniper in the Ranger Regiment, but his records say he was a 13B artilleryman in an artillery unit;

    So that’s almost like being a Ranger sniper – only completely different. And, oh, yeah, during his exploits in Somalia, he was an NBC NCO in a National Guard unit in High Point, NC – almost as dangerous as a sniper in Mogadishu, wouldn’t you say?