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

Category: Phony soldiers

  • Sheldon Shepherd was NOT a Navy SEAL

    Sheldon Shepherd was NOT a Navy SEAL

    One of our ninjas spotted a couple of news articles about Sheldon Shepherd in the South Carolina press. He passed away at the age of 67 in his home. Both articles (here and here) claim that he was a Navy SEAL in Vietnam;

    We commend the Combat Veterans Association MC for their efforts to memorialize Shepherd for his apparently legitimate claims to be a veteran, but they should know that Don Shipley says that he is neither a Navy SEAL nor UDT. That brings up questions about his war wounds and his valor awards mentioned in the articles.

    Honor him for his real service not for something he didn’t accomplish.

    We are requesting his FOIA, but the MC should ask to see a DD214 in the interim.

  • Tyler Latvala; phony Green Beret

    Tyler Latvala; phony Green Beret

    Our partners at Guardians of the Green Beret share their work on this fellow, Tyler Latvala who claims to be special forces medic and he texts real time situation reports over his secure cell phone to his commander;

    Until he gets busted and fesses up;

    According to the Guardians, he’s an E-2 that graduated from Basic Training at Ft Sill, Oklahoma in October, 2015. There are many more hilarious text messages at the link above.

  • David Eugene Christie; stolen Vietnam valour

    David Eugene Christie; stolen Vietnam valour

    Our Partners at Stolen Valour – Canada share with us their research on this fellow, David Eugene Christie, yet another Canadian who falsely claims service alongside US troops in Vietnam.

    At Medium, he claims that “They called me their angel from the sky” because he thinks that he was a medic for US Marines. At Comes a Soldier’s Whisper he whines about his PTSD and his war injuries.

    According to SV-C, Christie had just three months in service and he never deployed to Vietnam, if you couldn’t tell by his amateurish scribbles. The Canadians didn’t feel obligated to send troops to Vietnam because of the American draft dodgers hiding out in Canada – that’s just stupid.

  • Arnold LePotvin; Vietnam stolen valour

    Arnold LePotvin; Vietnam stolen valour

    Our partners at Stolen Valour – Canada share their work on this Arnold LePotvin (with two FB pages) fellow who claims that he served in Vietnam 1963 – 1965 with the Special Forces – Recon Division and the 82d Airborne Division where he made eighteen combat parachute jumps on “search and kill” missions. The 82d was in Vietnam 1967 – 1968 and they made no parachute jumps while they were there. The only combat parachute jump in Vietnam was made by the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Operation Junction City in 1967.

    When he came back from Vietnam, LePotvin says that he was sent to Fort Bragg, Virginia and after that he was sent to Cyprus while he was assigned to the United Nations special forces.

    In keeping with American traditions, there is a motorcycle and a vest involved;

    The National Personnel Records Center says “Who?”

    From Stolen Valour – Canada;

    SV-C is pleased to report, that with encouragement of the local veterans community, Mr LePOTVIN has surrendered the bogus medals and they will be disposed of in an appropriate manner.

  • Sherry Boggs; phony Air Force pilot

    Sherry Boggs; phony Air Force pilot

    Someone sent their work on this Sherry Boggs person who claims that she was one of the first female F-16 pilots and the first woman to fly F-16s in combat and that she was a flight instructor at Laughlin, AFB. There are a number of very attractive women who are F-16 pilots, but, oddly enough, the only mentions on the entire internet that Sherry Boggs is one of them, are her own;

    She owns a company, the 48th Maintenance Company, where she claims that she’s a Civil Air Patrol educator;

    The National Personnel Records Center says “Who?”

  • Kent Billingsley; phony SEAL

    Kent Billingsley; phony SEAL

    Our Partners at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Kent Billingsley whose friends, for some reason, think he’s a Navy SEAL;

    There are many more examples of his obviously confused friends claiming that Kent is a Navy SEAL at the Military Phonies link, but the Navy has never heard of him;

    I hope this helps Kent prove to his friends that he’s not a SEAL, because I’m sure their confusion keeps him up at night.

  • Staff Sergeant Joshua Stokes; active duty NCO alters records

    The Army Times tells the story of Staff Sergeant Joshua Stokes who faked his way into the 82d Airborne Division despite the fact that he hadn’t attended the Basic Airborne Course. He even had performed parachute jumps. The director of the Defense Military Pay Office told investigators that Stokes had never received jump pay.

    Stokes had put a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantryman Badge in his records, even though he had never deployed to combat.

    After pulling records from EMILPO, the investigator discovered that in one instance, 10 records had been added to Stokes’ file on one day in 2007, many of them for events years earlier.

    They included an Army Commendation Medal, a Good Conduct Medal, a Combat Infantryman Badge and two Overseas Service Ribbons. When contacted, the clerk who inputted the decorations said that, per policy, she only added awards into the system when she had physical documentation to support them.

    “It is likely that SSG Stokes was able to produce false documents … to have these put into his records,” according to the report.

    It’s a good, long, complicated story that you should read at the link.

    The upshot is that Stokes has been administratively separated from the Army, but they won’t discuss the character of his discharge.

    Thanks to AW1Ed for the link.

  • Abel Cáceres; phony wounded Marine

    Abel Cáceres; phony wounded Marine

    Someone sent us their work on this fellow, Abel Cáceres, who claims that he was “scared, wounded, wandering in the desert” at about 15:00 in this video in which he was addressing graduating students last Spring in Colorado. At about 20:50 he says that he was cut off from his unit in Kuwait, that he was in “a fierce firefight, wounded and afraid. Alone. I was able to rejoin my unit”. Nevermind, I edited the video down to the relevant parts.

    According to his records, he did participate in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was a supply clerk in Headquarters Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion of the 2nd Force Service Support Group. He doesn’t have a Purple Heart Medal or even a Combat Action Ribbon which would verify that he was involved in a “fierce firefight”.

    He left the Marine Corps as a Lance Corporal after four years of honorable service. It looks like he was a supply clerk the whole time, not that there’s anything wrong with that – unless you start making up stuff that you didn’t do and start using it to impress high school graduates.