Category: Phony soldiers

Governor Bobby Jindal awarded Andrew Irvin Bryson the Louisiana Medal of Honor last year in a lavish ceremony during tales of his daring-do included the one in which ,wounded already, he mowed down the insurgents who had killed his team mates. But some of the students in the Student Veterans of Louisiana State University organization, which Bryson founded, doubted the tale and eventually booted Bryson.

Friday, Bryson wrote to the Navy Times;

“I wasn’t a Navy SEAL,” he said, explaining how the governor’s office had sought veterans’ stories to recognize publicly with the state’s medal. “So I kind of just gave them a story.”

“I falsified a story to try to help out vets. It’s just grown into a massive [nightmare],” he said. “Almost every single month since this has happened, I’m not able to sleep a lot because of it.”

Bryson said he created himself into a Hollywood-like character to draw more attention to the experiences of combat veterans attending college after their military service. It’s why he first organized LSU’s student vet group, he said. “I was really trying to help out vets at LSU,” he said.

So, ya see, he did it for us to bring our phony stories to the fore. We needed an aircraft mechanic to get medals and accolades for his phony stories so people would recognize what real SEALs do.

No, it doesn’t make any f’n sense to me either.

Thanks to 1stCavRVN11B for the link.

A group of real Marines tracked down another pretend Marine named Skyler Whalen who claims to be a gunnery sergeant, but looks about twelve years old. The Marine Times records some of their exploits;

Like wildfire, a painstakingly researched PowerPoint presentation detailing Whalen’s fantasies was e-mailed, posted, distributed and discussed on popular military forums and websites.

Before long, “Gunny Whalen’s” Facebook and MySpace pages both vanished.

The Marine Corps confirmed in an e-mail that there is no record of Whalen, a teen who appears to live in Kingman, Ariz., a railroad town of 25,000 near the California border.

Several calls to his family’s home in Kingman were not returned and e-mails went unanswered.

I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t email me, but better late than never, here’s the PowerPoint presentation;

I’m always up for some phony soldier shit. These Facebook Rangers seem to be multiplying. I know I get a lot of hits from searches on how to fake a DD214.

An obituary of a veteran;

According to Capi Lynn of the Statesman Journal, that obituary was written by Marion Jimmie Ballinger’s widow against the advice of friends, based on stories he’d told her all his life, . And it’s mostly false.

Ballinger’s lies were uncovered a couple of years ago when he became ill, couldn’t afford medical care, and friends tried to help the family find out if he was eligible for veterans health benefits.

These friends went to his church, they were fellow veterans, and they tried to get him to come clean.

“He stopped coming to church after that and stopped talking to us,” Lake said. “It was pretty sad.”

Yup, quit going to church and that’ll cure the whole thing. After all it’s those pesky questions that are the problem, not the lies.

Carter said the eulogy was filled with the same false claims as the obit, and then some. Ballinger was described as a drill instructor (his records list him as a wheel mechanic, rifleman and scout driver) and as someone who carried out secret missions in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand (his records show he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., and in Hawaii.)

Shitting on his buddies and fellow veterans even while he’s embalmed.

Even so, Ballinger was inducted to the Oregon Military Hall of Fame in the spring of 2008, along with 95 other POWs. He was just one of three Vietnam POWS in the group. Officials later were alerted to Ballinger’s false claims, and his name has since been expunged from the hall of fame.

Inducted into a hall of fame, standing right there with 95 other real POWs and stealing their valor and strength and looking them right in the eye.

I noticed among the survivors in Ballinger’s obituary that he has two grandsons listed as Marine corporals. One just returned from Afghanistan, according to their father, and the other is headed there.

No shame what-so-ever. Shitting on the service of his own grandsons.

Here are his real records;

Ballinger Records

Terry Fredricks has been regaling the Farmington, NM folks with the tales of his daring-do over the Pacific and China a member of the famed “Black Sheep” squadron. The problem is that the Marine Corps never heard of him and he was too young to have served as a pilot any-damn-way;

Terry explained to us that any attempt since the theft to recover his most important records were futile because of a massive fire some years ago in St. Louis that destroyed many such documents.

We were aware of that fire from previous research over the years and knew that such a fire did occur.

However, once we further pursued Terry’s claim about his own documents, military officials told us that in that fire, records attached to the Marine Corps were not among those destroyed as they were for other branches of the service, and that most such records, though some were damaged, still exist.

That’s why I don’t trust any of these douche-bags when they tell me their records were lost in a fire. There was indeed a fire, but it has become an excuse for many of the phonies of the earlier time periods.

Perhaps most defining in researching Terry’s story: Military sources said that no Terry Fredericks, using either the service ID number he provided and/or both dates of birth he provided, ever served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II.

Damn Marine Corp keeping records like that which only serves to suppress phonies’ freedom to express themselves.

Bill Wenzel, once a post commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8036, pleaded guilty to altering his DD214 and got off with 50 hours of community service;

On Wenzel’s military discharge papers, known as DD-214, additional merits and awards were typed onto the form with a different typewriter than had been used for the rest of the form, according to the anonymous whistleblowers.
According to his DD-214, Wenzel was stationed in Okinawa, Japan in 1972 and worked in a warehouse, where he supposedly earned two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and, one of the most coveted military medals, a Silver Star.

That must’ve been one tough warehouse.

Our friends at GlockTalk wrote last year that the controversy pretty much destroyed Wenzel’s VFW Post;

Wenzel was asked by one of his detractors to bring his medals into the post and Wenzel reportedly has not shown his face since.

These allegations have resulted in some VFW members being physically assaulted and some members quitting the post, citing a desire not to be a part of a “dishonest organization.”

Wenzel’s detractors claim his DD-214 is an obvious forgery: different type fonts, with his training as a warehouseman stationed in Okinawa, Japan in 1972 not consistent with his decorations. And the form is signed by the same lieutenant colonel who signed another DD-214 form from another Post 8036 member. However, the two men were discharged years and miles apart.

When a whistle-blower at Post 8036 showed what he called the obvious forgery to the post commander, the person was demoted and kicked out of the post while Wenzel was promoted, again.

But there are no victims of Stolen Valor and Shame on those guys who were suppressing his right to be a bald-faced liar.

In with the new year and in with the new phonies. Meet a one Mr, Woytek, Jason thanks to POW.net.

But according to his records he is not even have half of these awards. In fact that his highest award is the Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal.

Oh with the CIB with two stars and the CAR with three stars was not a dead give away. But then again perhaps one should explain how unit awards are given and when one has a silver oak leaf on every single award is a big eye raiser, I do not know what is.

It seems that he is facing other criminal charges of pawning off stolen laptops.

Jason “Dakota” Manning, 32, applied for his job at Vision Matters in Cincinnati, OH highlighting his military service according to the Daytona Daily News;

In a resume provided to Vision Matters, Manning, 32, of Cincinnati, claimed to be the recipient of two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star with a Cluster and a list of other military honors, according to police records.

Now authorities looking for Manning — in connection with allegations that he embezzled more than $5,000 from Vision Matters, a Warren County-based provider of services to developmentally disabled — also suspect Manning is guilty of stolen valor.

Yeah, a Silver Star with a cluster…a cluster of what? Police say, despite the fact that Manning claimed he had eight years of service, turns out he had three months of service.

“Had precise missions to combat foreign hostilities in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia,” Manning said in the resume obtained by Clearcreek Twp. police during their investigation.

It also indicates he was an executive officer for more than a year and graduated from a variety of training schools.

“In charge of tactics, intel and communications for the Joint Special Operations Command (Southern Division),” according to the final line of the resume’s education section.

Under medals/awards/achievements, Manning listed “Two Purple Hearts, Silver Star w/Cluster, Army Distinguished Service Cross,” as well as Defense Distinguished Service and Joint Service Commendations medals and a medal for prisoners of war in Bosnia.

I wonder how he escaped from that Bosnian POW camp.