Someone sent me an article from Mother Jones entitled “Zip it, Soldier” which celebrates the bravery of the IVAW members who go against the grain of the military. Of course, they include two of our favorites, Army Sergeant and Adam Kokesh both of whom visit here from time to time.
But what made me dredge all of this ancient history up was Sharrock’s last paragraph in which she wrote;
[Kokesh] testified before Congress last May about his experience and has participated in numerous IVAW events—in uniform.
Like he was brave for continuing to wear his uniform even in front of Congress. Well, unfortunately for Ms. Sharrock, me and my camera were at the testimony, too;
What military uniform is that?
Other protests she might have been talking about;
Oh – a hat. That must be what she’s talking about. He wore his hat without fear. At least she didn’t call him Sergeant Kokesh.
Meet Joshua Casteel, just another disingenuous IVAW member. Here’s his profile at IVAW;
He’s also been to the Vatican to convince the Pope to urge soldiers to become conscientious objectors;
In his profile at IVAW, he tries to make you think he’s an officer with this line;
Joshua Casteel first enlisted in the US Army Reserves at the age of 17, received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point at 18, but at 25 was honorably discharged from Active Duty as a conscientious objector.
Someone sent me this article about some clown in Florida who claimed he was an Iraq war veteran which gave him the “right” to steal as many M&Ms as he wanted;
I called the Fort Pierce, Florida Police Department to see if they’d verified his veteran status and the helpful young lady told me that they hadn’t but she pointed me to this article in the local news, which identified the man as Eric T. Ambrose.
Handsome devil, isn’t he?
The first thing I did was check Military.com‘s Buddy Finder and found no Eric T. Ambrose with a military record;
So I asked the good folks at POW Net to help out. Their initial check of his records makes his claim as a veteran very doubtful since he has an extensive arrest record including domestic violence and cocaine possession;
ERIC T AMBROSE 09/10/1977 CIRCUIT FELONY
Select 562002CF002112AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 09/10/1977 CIRCUIT FELONY
Select 562004CF003466AXXXXX ERIC AMBROSE 10/18/2004 09/10/1977 CIRCUIT FELONY
Select 562007CF001334AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/15/2007 09/10/1977 CIRCUIT FELONY
Select 562007CF001335AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/15/2007 09/10/1977 CIRCUIT FELONY
Select 562002CT000580AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 02/09/2002 09/10/1977 CRIMINAL TRAFFIC
Select 562003CT003781AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 07/20/2003 09/10/1977 CRIMINAL TRAFFIC
Select 562003CT003781AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 12/17/2003 09/10/1977 CRIMINAL TRAFFIC
Select 562007CT001382AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/09/2007 09/10/1977 CRIMINAL TRAFFIC
Select 562008DR002258AXXXHC ERIC AMBROSE (RESPONDENT) 08/04/2008 09/10/1977 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Select 562003MM005203AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 11/13/2003 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562003MM005203AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 12/18/2003 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562007MM001187AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/09/2007 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562007MM004004AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 08/07/2007 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562008MM001032AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 02/29/2008 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR Yes
Select 562008MM001775BXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 04/21/2008 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR Yes
Select 562008MM001776AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 04/21/2008 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562008MM004044AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 09/11/2008 09/10/1977 MISDEMEANOR
Select 562007TR011425AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/09/2007 09/10/1977 TRAFFIC INFRACTION
Select 562007TR011426AXXXXX ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE 03/09/2007 09/10/1977 TRAFFIC INFRACTION
Charge Count 1 OBTS 5601041828
Offense Date 05/04/2002 Arrest Date 05/04/2002
Arrest Charge POSSESSION OF COCAINE Arrest Class F-3, 893.13(6)(a)
Pros Charge POSSESSION OF COCAINE Conviction Charge POSSESSION OF COCAINE
Dispositon Adjudicated Guilty Plea Plea: NC – Before Trial
Case Number:
Ticket Number: 2003CT003781
501621X Defendant Name ERIC THOMAS AMBROSE
PORT SAINT LUCIE FL, 34953
Race:
Sex: WHITE
MALE Date of Birth: 09/10/1977 Violation Date: 07/20/2003
Date Entered:
Filed Date: 07/31/2003
07/22/2003 Charge: DRIVE UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Verdict: GUILTY (Court Only)
Charge: VIOLATION OF PROBATION
Verdict: GUILTY-MANDATORY IMPRISONMENT
POW Net has filed to check if he has any military record, though it seems more of a fantasy at this point – as soon as they get back to me, I’ll update this story – but so far, it looks like this clown is trying to wrap himself in the same flag that he’s never done anything to defend.
The cocaine charge was a year before the Iraq War – it’s pretty doubtful he has any service since then.
Feel free to hate in the comments.
UPDATE: Now see this is what pisses me off the most about this story. In this article, WPBF TV an ABC affiliate just takes for granted that Ambrose is a homeless veteran without a bit of research;
They don’t question his claim that he was in Iraq or that he was a veteran (even though a few hours of checking around from my home computer has cast some credible doubt on the claim) – just his claim that he should get free candy. They admit in the story that he lied to police about whether he had purchased the items he stole, but he must be telling the truth about being a homeless veteran. I hate the media.
By now you all have heard. Would it surprise you to learn that the Gold Star Mom that started all this is with Code Pink?
From CNN:
One of the family members who favors lifting the ban is Karen Meredith of San Francisco, California, who wrote Obama urging him to order the change.
Lt. Ken Ballard left for Iraq on Mother’s Day in 2003. He came home in a casket on Memorial Day 2004.
“I wanted the nation to grieve with me, and if we don’t see those images we don’t know that these young men and women are dying,” she told CNN.
“And to me its an honor to have an honor guard at Dover when they’re bringing these men and women back through the mortuary. But we’ve never been able to see those pictures of the honor being given.”
She’s become friendly with advocacy groups like the Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and Code Pink. She was asked recently to appear at a counter-military recruitment event, but begged off because it took place on Mother’s Day (although she is quick to note that Mother’s Day started as an antiwar holiday).
She recently participated at a gathering in Berkeley and also traveled to Arlington West, a project by the Santa Barbara Veterans for Peace to re-create the grave sites of soldiers killed in Iraq. Later this month, on Memorial Day, the anniversary of Ballard’s death, Meredith plans to return to Washington to again visit her son’s grave at Arlington.
Gold Star mother Karen Meredith came here from Mountain View. Her son Ken Ballard died last year.
Karen Meredith, Gold Star mother: “Sometimes things don’t feel quite right to me. They don’t feel wrong, but maybe that’s how they do it in the marketing business.”
ABC7’s Mark Matthews: “You feel you’re part of a marketing business?”
Karen Meredith: “Possibly. Yeah I think so.”
Here is her blog here. She can’t make it a full para on any given post without mentioning her loss. And everyone should know about her loss.
Paul Rieckhoff thinks this is a swell idea as well:
““Less than 1% of the American population has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. There has never been a greater disconnect between those who serve in harms warm and those back home. All too often, the sacrifices of our military are hidden from view,” Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “The sight of flag-draped coffins is, and should be, a sobering reminder to all Americans of the ultimate sacrifice our troops have made and the high price of our freedom.”
Other groups disagree:
But a spokeswoman for a military family group expressed disappointment. “This is a complete disregard for the will of America’s military families and the need for their privacy during this solemn moment,” said Meghan Tisinger, spokeswoman for Families United.
My Opinion:
Had I died over there, my Dad would have made the decision (my mom died the day I joined the Army.) Now, I love my Dad, but we discuss 2 things, New England Sports Teams, and the weather in Maine. My Dad was a delegate for Ted Kennedy. To his credit, my Dad would NEVER openly say something about the War in front of me. And when I had a flag flown over Bagram on the day the Pats won the Super Bowl, my dad refused to fly it from the front porch, but instead went out and hired a guy to put a huge flag pole in the back yard. My Dad loves me, loves the country, but he’s a liberal, and he knows little about what I would have wanted. I would like to think he would have told them to screw off, but I don’t know. I sincerely hope that SRP from now on includes some sort of living will type document where the troop gets to voice his opinion on whether to be pictured or not. I also wonder what happens when one divorced parent supports, and one does not. Or the Mom and Dad want the pictures taken, and the Spouse does not. How do they iron that shit out?
SHIT: I called and asked my dad. I shouldn’t have asked.
“There’s no one left to call me ‘Mom,’ ” Meredith told a teary-eyed congregation at First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco on Sunday. “He left the day after Mother’s Day, and he said he’d make it up to me when he returned. Today is my third Mother’s Day that I will not pick up the phone and hear his voice.”
Karen Meredith (center), who lost her only son in Iraq, hugs activist Pablo Paredes as Sean O’Neill, who served twice in Iraq, stands by at San Francisco’s First Unitarian Universalist Church. Chronicle photo by Brant Ward
Military deserter and anti-war Left poster boy Pablo Paredes has been denied conscientious objector status. His request for Other than Honorable discharge in lieu of a court-martial trial has also been denied.
The good folks at POW Net and 1stCAVRVN11B forwarded this picture and they’re wondering if anyone knows this clown. I’m not even going to try to identify that shit – he’s just a fake, that’s all we need to know;
Look at this goofy shit – his highest award is a Good Conduct Medal with a star device, Bwa-ah-ah-ah. The Purple Heart and Silver Star make him a candidate for jail, though.
Yeah, if you see this guy, conk him in the head and call the cops.
Like a dog with a bone, the mainstream Left, is still clinging to the Bush impeachment imprisonment farce. The call went out yesterday from that centrist organization After Downing Street for AG Eric Holder to name a Special Prosecutor for the perfectly reasonable investigation;
We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial [sic] investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.
Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.
I like the last paragraph best. They “see no need for…lengthy or costly” prosecutions – “Awright, boys, let’s string ’em up!” Oh, and the “groups” that endorse this message look like America (below the jump);
Someone sent me this article from Palm Springs’ Desert Sun that tells us that former colonel Ann Wright gets *surprise* an award from the Geezers For Peace;
Wright will be recognized today in Palm Springs with a Silver Helmet Award by the local chapter of Veterans for Peace at its annual banquet.
“We admire her integrity, courage and dedication to the cause of peace,” Veterans for Peace President Tom Swann said in written statement.
For those of you who don’t who Ann Wright is, she resigned her post with the Bush State Department in protest of the war in Iraq. Her posting was in Mongolia, so I’m sure she was a real valuable asset to the State Department and they were sorry to see her go. That was sarcasm, by the way. I’m pretty sure State doesn’t send important employees to Mongolia.
She claims that while she was in the military she was stationed in Afghanistan, Granada, Nicaragua and Somalia. I’m having a little trouble believing all of that, which is why I’ve had a FOIA request in for her records since last month. But, her reasons for resigning on March 19, 2003 were;
In her resignation letter, Wright listed four reasons she could no longer work for the U.S. government under the Bush administration:
* The decision to invade Iraq without the blessing of the U.N. Security Council
* The “lack of effort” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process
* The “lack of policy” in regard to North Korea
* The curtailment of civil liberties within the United States.
So the reason she resigned was because President Bush didn’t allow her and her cohorts to make policy for the United States. In other words, she won’t be missed. She just generally makes a pest of herself since her resignation, interrupting Condoleeza Rice’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relation Committee in 2006 and sleeping in a ditch with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, TX in 2005.
In her interview in the Desert Sun she tells us;
It’s the responsibility of us, as U.S. citizens, to question our government. We have the responsibility to look closely at our government.
So I wonder when she’s going to start speaking out against this Democrat government. I won’t hold my breath.
She also says;
I never really got any “You’re a traitor” or “You’re unpatriotic” because I worked for the government for so many years. To call me unpatriotic didn’t make any sense. Very few people approached me in that manner.
Alger Hiss worked at the State Department for fourteen years. No one with a bit of common sense could deny he was a traitor – it’s not your length of service, Wright, it’s what you do while performing that service.
And now the Geezers for Peace give her the Silver Helmet Award. I’d really hoped it was me that got the award for exposing so many phonies in VFP’s ranks, but it was not to be this year – maybe next year after I expose Ann Wright.
Spc. Kristoffer Walker, 28, was scheduled to board a flight at Austin Straubel International Airport in Ashwaubenon this morning to return to Atlanta, where he was scheduled to rejoin the 353rd Transportation Unit deployed to Iraq in October. Walker has been home on leave the past two weeks.
Lt. Col. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said Walker did not follow military procedure by filling out paperwork to list himself as a conscientious objector.
“His unit is counting on him,” Banks said. “He’s actually turning his back on his battle buddies. By just not reporting, you’re letting down your teammates. When you raise your right hand to defend the country, you knew there was a time you could possibly be deployed.”
How’s he letting down his team mates? Well, leave is granted on a rotational basis – so one of the guys he works with won’t be able to go home and visit his or her family. That makes him a Blue Falcon.
Walker did a tour in Iraq as an active duty soldier in 2004 and this tour he was sent with a transportation unit. He claims he’s not a conscientious objector because “the Army’s definition is a little different from mine”. Different in that Walker doesn’t believe war is immoral.
According to the AP story;
He said he now views the Iraq war as “an illegitimate, unnecessary campaign,” and he feels that by making him take part, the government broke the contract under which he agreed to defend the U.S.
“I feel absolutely justified in doing what I’m doing now based on their breach of the initial contract,” he said.
I don’t understand this at all. He was in Iraq during one of the toughest periods of that war in the toughest job in the Army. And now that he’s in transportation, he thinks the war is immoral and unjustified. He wasn’t even man enough to face the members of his unit to announce his intention to screw them;
Walker said he sent e-mails this morning to his company sergeant and commanding officer in Iraq, but hasn’t heard back from them. He said his wife received a text message from a member of Walker’s unit in Iraq so he knows the unit is aware of his decision.
