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

Category: Phony soldiers

  • Denver Post goes squishy on Duncan/Strandlof

    Back in May, when Rick Duncan/Richard Strandlof was first exposed as a phony veteran who had starred in VoteVets commercials and headed money raising schemes ostensibly for veterans, the Denver Post led the posse to put Standloff on the gallows.

    A few days ago, some half-witted and unknown band of lawyers from Virginia called the Rutherford Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Strandlof’s case that said, in effect, that calling yourself a veteran and claiming certain awards and accolades as your own, is protected speech and that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional.

    Today, to prove to us how enlightened they are, the editorial board of the Denver Post declared that they agree with those nimrods of the Rutherford Institute like good members of the Liberal Bobblehead Brigade.

    Upon arresting him, federal authorities said he claimed to be a wounded Marine veteran who had received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.

    Reprehensible? Yes. But criminal?

    We have doubts about the constitutionality of the 2006 Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to merely say you had received certain military decorations when you hadn’t.

    The First Amendment protects even deplorable, distasteful speech, particularly in cases where that speech doesn’t injure someone else.

    Strandlof’s alleged deception began to unravel in May, when members of the group he founded, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, began checking out his claims of having served three tours in Iraq, surviving the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and suffering a brain injury from an improvised explosive device.

    It has not been alleged that Strandlof lied to gain anything for himself other than publicity. He is accused of using his created persona to solicit donations on behalf of veterans.

    We are not defending the alleged lies, but there hasn’t been a case made that he was making such claims to line his own pockets.

    You might argue that the “injured party” is really the integrity and honor associated with the awards — that they are cheapened by frauds who falsely claim them. Frankly, if anyone is injured by such false claims, it would be the person who is lying.

    The veterans community that Strandlof had so integrated himself into turned on him, and for good reason, once they realized he wasn’t who he said he was.

    The Stolen Valor Act, introduced in the U.S. House by Colorado’s Rep. John Salazar, broadened the provisions of prior U.S. law that prohibited the unauthorized wearing or manufacturing of military decorations and medals. Salazar’s website says the congressman supported the measure because “These imposters degrade the meaning of medals earned in service to our nation and sometimes use their ‘standing’ as a medal recipient to commit further fraud and more dangerous crimes.”

    Pursuing fraud charges against those who make false claims to enrich themselves or hurt others is one thing. But criminalizing the mere act of lying is entirely another. Would truth police squads pursue all lies?

    Weasel words if any were ever written. I guess the Denver Post wouldn’t mind if I started calling myself a Pulitzer Award winning former editor of the Denver Post and put that in my bio. Lord knows, I wouldn’t make any money from it (the way you guys won’t click my Google Ads) – and my use of occasional profanity and odd sexual references wouldn’t reflect poorly on the Post at all, would it?

    So what is the solution for veterans? The Post says we should make the government put all of our records up for public scrutiny so that we’ll all know who the phonies aren’t. Isn’t that a bit like putting all of the personal information online of everyone who HASN’T committed a crime so we know who the criminals aren’t?

    We hope the judicial system will recognize the value of free speech, even when it’s not popular.

    When Strandlof led the Post and several other “journalists” down his merry path of anti-war activism, they were calling for his nuts on a skewer . Now since they’ve cleansed themselves of that, the Post wants to shove veterans under the bus and encourage the Rick Strandlofs to continue their behavior, at the expense of real veterans.

    Strandlof’s stories of his four dead Marines and stories about his experiences were meant to damage the war effort in this country and only benefited the anti-war movement. His stories about being gay make me wonder if there are really any gays in the military these days. All of the utter phonies we’ve outed have also claimed to be gay. Aren’t there any real gays who want to tell their stories?

    In short, because Strandlof supported the anti-war and anti-DADT platform and used his lies only for good (supporting Democrat candidates), the Post has determined he hasn’t done any real damage.

    Maybe he hasn’t done any damage up until now, but he’s exposed the Post for being a bunch of hypocritical Leftist ideologues who’ll take any bait tossed them from a bunch of no-name lawyers in Virginia.

    Fuck you, Denver Post, you spineless cum bubbles.

  • Guantanamo’s last holdouts

    soltz-camerino-filner

    While Anthony Camerino and some guy who looks like Michael Scott from “The Office” were in the office of Bob Filner the other day trying to get Guantanamo Bay detainee facility shut down, look what the Obama Administration announced according to the New York Times;

    The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday.

    However, the administration has decided that nearly 40 other detainees should be prosecuted for terrorism or related war crimes. And the remaining prisoners, about 110 men, should be repatriated or transferred to other countries for possible release, the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the numbers.

    So where are the mobs in the street vocally condemning the president for continuing the Bush policy of holding criminals without trials? The only people concerned about it are leftovers from the last decade who don’t know anything else. Do you honestly think that this administration would do something that really that unpopular? Where are the active duty troops that are worried they’re going to be killed by new recruits who fill the ranks of the Taliban and al Qaeda because of the continued operations at Guantanamo?

    Of course, Air Force Major (promotable) Anthony Camerino still clings to the atrocities of Guantanamo – that’s his only claim to fame. He’s stuck in the aughts. So is Soltz and his crowd – they have to stay in business and raise money without pissing off their MoveOn masters in regards to their President. Anything they can do to keep Bush Derangement Syndrome on life support helps them.

    But on my last foray to VoteVets, they had the guts to call me a “troll with a political agenda”. And the Bush detainee program is beginning to look like the only viable solution to a complicated problem. Camerino and Soltz are just wrong.

  • Meet General Ballduster McSoulpatch

    wanted-stolen-valor

    1STCavRVN11B sent me this photo from our friends at POW Net. I immediately fired it off to a bunch of other MilBlogs to see if we can ID this numbnuts. The picture was taken at Democrat Annise Parker’s victory party last month in Houston. How this doofus thought it was a good idea to dress up as a two star general is beyond me. Aside from that he’s wearing infantry brass and an infantry officer’s blue lapel (Generals aren’t affiliated with any branch), those totally unauthorized ball dusters on his chin, and the fact that he looks about ten years too young to be general, let’s look at a close up of his chest;

    mmm_3962a1

    Yes, that’s an SAS cap badge at the top. How he thinks he can wear a cap badge on his uniform if pure doofusery. Of course, what phony hero wouldn’t have a CIB with two stars or Senior Master Jump Wings with a combat star? I’m having trouble with medals, but the top row has a Distinguished Service Cross, a Distinguished Service Medal and a Silver Star.  There’s also a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. That’s enough to toss his ass in the hoosegow in Houston.

    This guy is worse than our own General Baxter. How many of you would have spent a night in jail for popping this obvious fake at the party? With Baxter we at least had to do some research to prove he’s a phony.

    Anyway, a bunch of milblogs decided to pig pile this clown, so you can read what others have written about him at this list I’ll update through out the day. We’re hoping someone can identify this douche so we can report it to the authorities and get his punk ass off the street. If you recognize this clown contact us or POW Net.

    BlackfiveBoston MaggieBouhammerCDR SalamanderFrom My PositionHooah WifeKiss My GumboLittle DropsA Soldier’s PerspectiveKiss My Gumbo

  • AWOL Mom charged

    A lot of you sent us links back in November about Alexis Hutchison, the mom who went AWOL instead of deploying because her family care plan was weak. Our buddy, GI Korea, wrote a lot of good background in November. Well, the Army filed charges against her today.

    The story goes like this; Specialist who joined the Army childless, was ordered to deploy with her unit. She activated her family care plan, took her one-year-old son to live with Hutchison’s mother in California, who, after a week, decided that she couldn’t handle taking care of the child along with a sickly mother, a sickly sister and a sickly daughter. And, oh, grandmother also runs a day care center for 14 children in her home. How can she be expected to care for her grandson?

    It seems to me that someone might have considered the additional burden on Mom before it all fell apart. So when deployment time came, Alexis hid out in her off-base apartment, according to her, remaining in contact with her commander. I’m sure the commander was thinking of nothing else but Alexis while he was deploying to war with 100+ soldiers.

    I’m sure that the first thing out of everyone’s mouth was “What about that woman who showed up at Benning with her kids?” Well, Lisa Pagan was an IRR soldier who had already served her active duty time, and Pagan didn’t miss movement. Pagan’s cause wasn’t taken up by IVAW, VFP, Courage to Resist, GI Voice – because Pagan wasn’t a resister.

    Hutchinson isn’t a resister either, but she’s been made into one by the disingenuous Far Left straw-graspers. DoD says they have 70,000 single parents on active duty, why does this one think she’s so special that she can use that status to avoid going to war.

    I’ve found things that connect her lawyer, Rai Sue Sussman to the National Lawyers Guild which puts her on the same level as James Branum. She also interned last summer with the Military Law Task Force, the NLG arm which Branum co-chairs. Oviously, the anti-war clowns are going to wave Hutchison as their latest bloody shirt. Despite the fact that she’s not against the war in any political way.

    I guess my main question is “Where is the father?” All of this could have been avoided if she’d chosen to have a child with a more responsible man. So that’s a few bad choices she made for which she expects the Army to make allowances.

    Why is it the Army’s responsibility to cave into all of these interests and Alexis Hutchison’s demands when no one else seems to be accepting their burdens here. Why doesn’t lawyer Sussman, the recent law school grad, take the child for a year if she’s so damned concerned about her client’s welfare, for Pete’s sake. All of this talk about the Army forcing her to abandon her child – she abandoned her child at the moment of conception.

  • Jamail leaps to Rapper’s defense

    Dahr Jamail the pusillanimous little turd from Truthout who regularly calls the troops cowards and retards has leapt to the defense of Marc Hall in his latest excretion. Of course, true to form, Jamail neglects to mention that Hall threatened in his ditty to lock and load “30 rounds” on all of the “E-7s and above” in his chain of command.

    Hall, (aka hip hop artist Marc Watercus), who is in the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, was placed in Liberty County Jail for the song (click here to listen to “Stop-Loss,” by Marc Watercus), in which he angrily denounces the continuing policy that has barred him from exiting the military.

    Military service members do not completely give up their rights to free speech, particularly not when they are doing so artistically while off duty, as was the case with Hall.

    What does freedom of speech have to do with communicating a threat? Artistically or otherwise. Jamail shows his biased ass by making that editorial comment in the middle of his article.

    Jim Klimanski, a civilian military lawyer, member of the National Lawyers Guild and the Military Law Task Force, who is closely following Hall’s case, told Truthout that he feels the military is overreacting to the case, and that it is simply a matter of free speech and that the Army’s actions violate his First Amendment right to free speech.

    “It’s a political case, and the military should know that,” Klimanski explained, “I think they are overreaching and overreacting because of Maj. Hassan (who went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood on November 5), and I can understand that to some degree, but cooler heads should prevail and they should deal with stop-loss, and maybe we’ll get the case thrown out. One would hope that common sense would prevail.”

    Hall is opposed to the occupation of Iraq, and had told his commander he would not deploy if ordered. His unit deployed to Iraq without him in mid-December, but this is not why Hall is in jail, as he was jailed before his unit was sent to Iraq.

    A political case? How? There are no politics in the military’s decision to deploy soldiers into combat.

    Oh, and to answer someone’s question from yesterday, it appears that Klimanski is a fellow traveler of fat little cry baby James Branum with his membership in the NLG and Military Law Task Force – Branum is a co-chair of MLTF.

    Surely,the fact that Hall threatened to kill his chain of command and then mailed the CD to the Pentagon shows some measure of intent to do bodily harm.

    But, if you’re worried about Hall, don’t. It seems that Jason Hurd is rushing to his defense as well. Hurd testified at Winter Soldier that he ALMOST shot an Iraqi woman…but then he didn’t. How atrocious, huh? And then he weeped at the thought.

    Jason Hurd, an Iraq war veteran who has been assisting Marc Hall, told Truthout that he believes the military is overreacting to Hall’s song due to the November 5 shooting at Fort Hood.

    “It really frustrates me that they [military] are reacting in such an excessive way,” Hurd, a member of Iraq Veteran’s Against the War, told Truthout, “When you are talking about communicating a threat, a threat has to be at something or someone. If you listen to Marc’s song, he’s not saying he wants to kill someone in his chain of command, he makes broad artistic expressions of anger….”

    Excessive? Really? Let’s look at those lyrics again;

    “[Expletive] you colonels, captains, E-7 and above
    You think you so much bigger than I am? …
    I’m gonna round them up all eventually, easily, walk right up peacefully
    And surprise them all, yes, yes, y’all, up against the wall, turn around
    I got a [expletive] magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire down
    Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor
    I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more.”

    Nah, I can’t see where he threatens to kill anyone in his chain of command – well if I close the browser, I can’t see it.

    “From a military that has us, while we’re jogging, chant in cadence about killing babies, to then come down on someone for writing an angry song, is ludicrous,” Hurd added, “Marc is just expressing the anger that 13,000 soldiers are feeling right now, because there are currently that many who are stop-lossed. All he did was make his opinion heard.”

    Yup – cadence and threatening to kill your chain of command and MAILING THEM THE CD – same thing. How many of those 13,000 soldiers threatened their chain of command? I’m guessing – ONE.

    Klimanski said that by nature, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end, and Hall’s song expresses concern over the possibility of his never being discharged from the military.

    “He’s over there saying I have no control over my life. I could be in here forever. We’re not talking about a war that is going to be over next year. We’re talking about a war that could go on forever. So poor old Marc Hall could possibility be in the military forever. Once enlistment starts dropping, the Army maintains troop levels by keeping the ones they have.

    Seein’s how you’ve never been in the military, Klimanski, let me tell you what saves soldiers’ lives; experience. I’ll question the Army’s wisdom to consider this bonehead’s experience valuable, but they must’ve had a reason. There are folks being rejected for military service EVERY DAY – they don’t have a retention problem.

    Besides, Hall signed on for eight years. We had a guy return from an overseas assignment the day before we got called up for Desert Storm – they put his ass on the next plane back and he went to Iraq with us with a minimum of bitching. He understood the eight year thing – why can’t you wrap your noggin around it. Ever take contract law?

    “It’s a song, and he puts it out to the public,” Klimanski told Truthout, “We’re not talking about a Major Hassan who is quietly plotting violence … this is political hyperbole. This is his rant on stop-loss. It’s political speech.”

    You’re spouting legal hyperbole, Klimanski.

    Hall, according to his profile on AKO, is a 91-series mechanic from Echo Co. 703rd FSB attached to an infantry company.

  • Don’t worry about Marc Hall, Pt. II

    A local DC TV station, WJLA, did a report on Marc Hall, the latest IVAW celebrity who was stop-lossed and threatened to kill all of the “E-7s and and above”. Here’s the video which includes his bonehead lawyer, James Klimaski, defending Hall’s threat as art;

    I guess it’s just his tough luck that he wrote violent lyrics, sent the CD to the Pentagon and his local leadership and it all happened just after a Fort Hood soldier slaughtered his fellow soldiers. Too bad, Marc, just a matter of timing, I guess.

    Thanks to Jerry920 for the link.

  • Navy SEAL admits he wasn’t really a Coastie

    Oh, wait I got that wrong – he was Coastie who claimed he was a SEAL. Funny it almost never happens that way, though, so you understand my confusion. From the Navy Times;

    Barnhart served a combined 21 years in the Navy and the Coast Guard. He joined the Navy in 1969, then moved to the Coast Guard 10 years later, retiring in 1990. He entered the Coast Guard claiming to be a SEAL who had completed diving school and High Altitude-Low Opening parachutist school, according to court records.

    He also claimed to have earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star with “V” for valor, Purple Heart with four stars, a Combat Action Ribbon and Vietnam War-era awards. The Coast Guard clerk bought the story and added the awards to Barnhart’s DD 214. Later DD 214 alterations would add a Navy Commendation with “V” device, Presidential Unit Citation with three stars, and Vietnamese Medal of Honor First and Second Class.

    He fooled the Navy, the Coast Guard and the VA, but he didn’t fool our pals at POW Net.

    The case against him began when Mary Schantag of the POW Network got wind of the bogus claims. She began an exhaustive investigation that ultimately led to the state’s attorney’s office looking into the matter.

    Good shootin’, Mary.

  • Nah, don’t worry about Marc Hall

    Last month I wrote about newly-minted IVAW member Marc Hall who was “stop lossed” in the Age of Obama at Fort Stewart, GA so retaliated by writing a violent rap song – which in turn got him tossed in the hoosegow by the Army. The Stars and Stripes reprints the violent verses;

    “[Expletive] you colonels, captains, E-7 and above
    You think you so much bigger than I am? …
    I’m gonna round them up all eventually, easily, walk right up peacefully
    And surprise them all, yes, yes, y’all, up against the wall, turn around
    I got a [expletive] magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire down
    Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor
    I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more.”

    Pretty explicit about his intentions. The Army explains why they locked him up;

    “The chain of command has a legal obligation to the citizens of the United States to investigate and deal fairly with SPC Hall’s alleged misconduct,” Kevin Larson, a spokesman at Fort Stewart, said in an e-mail. “Anything less would be irresponsible to our citizens and soldiers.”

    Of course they have a legal obligation to protect soldiers and their families from crack pots. But Hall’s lawyer, James Klimaski, doesn’t see it that way;

    Hall’s song is just a song and should not be taken literally, the lawyer said.

    “Listen to rap songs,” Klimaski said. “I mean there are a whole bunch of rap songs talking about killing people all the time. Nobody gets killed from them.”

    Klimaski also downplayed the allegations that Hall made additional threats.

    “The problem with threats is they can’t be contingent,” he said. “ ‘I will do this if …’ Well that’s not a threat because if ‘if’ doesn’t happen, then there’s no threat. Like, let’s say, ‘I’m going to shoot the battalion commander if I’m deployed.’ Well he’s not been deployed, so he’s not going to shoot the battalion commander, so there’s no threat.”

    Klimaski also said the definition of rampage means to run around like a crazy person. “That’s not a threat,” he said.

    Yeah, all you hep cats get with it – rap is cool. It’s just art and no one ever gets killed because of it. Well, except all of those rappers and people who attend rap concerts and rap promoters. And Hall won’t shoot his battalion commander if the commander doesn’t send him Afghanistan – problem solved. Of course, that wouldn’t have any long term effect on the military, will it?

    “Maj. Hasan didn’t run around and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to blow people away at the hospital, or the infirmary today.’ Or the bomber going into Detroit says, ‘Oh, I should tell everyone I’m on this plane and blow the plane up,’” he said.

    So people who make wild-assed statements can now be ignored and we start worrying about people who DON’T communicate threats. That sounds feasible.

    I thought about making a threat here on the life of James Klimaski, but then I realized, he might not think of threats against his life the same way he thinks about threats against the lives of military people.

    But then again, if I make a threat against his life, that would make me less likely to actually do anything against him…this is all so confusing. We should hire James Branum to take Klimaski to court and make Klimaski give us all classes on how not to be perceived as a threat to other people.