Category: Phony soldiers

Last week, the Citrus County Chronicle wrote about Jose Rolon, who told them that he was a Navy SEAL until 1994 when he left the Navy with two Purple Hearts and ended up homeless.

Jose Rolon doesn’t consider himself a victim and doesn’t want pity.

A disabled, blind Navy Seal veteran with two Purple Hearts, he has a passion to see that veterans get better treatment, from the VA to local help agencies in communities across the nation.

He credits organizations like Nature Coast Ministries for stepping in when other places had turned him away.

Recently, the Citrus County-based Nature Coast Ministries filled Rolon’s new apartment in Hernando County with furniture after learning he was sleeping on the floor.

Well, this week after a conversation with Don Shipley, the Chronicle had to walk their story back, because Jose isn’t a SEAL;

Shipley, who lives in Cambridge, Maryland, called the Chronicle early Tuesday morning, Aug. 29, when he read a story on Page A3 of the Chronicle about Jose Rolon, who said he is a former Navy SEAL.

Citrus County-based Nature Coast Ministries had learned about [Rolon], that he was blind and living in an apartment in Brooksville without furniture, so the nonprofit ministry gave Rolon furniture.

As Shipley explained, whenever a story is published containing keywords such as “former Navy SEAL,” “ex-Navy SEAL,” “retired Navy SEAL,” he and others get a Google alert.

“It’s not an epidemic, it’s a pandemic,” Shipley said. “I verify dozens of these guys a day. All I need is a name and a close enough age and run it through the SEAL database. Out of 100, 99 are fakes.”

We’re waiting for his FOIA, but odds are that he lied about the Purple Heart, too. Yeah, I’m sick of the phony SEALs, too.

The Nature Coast Ministries say that the would have helped Rolon no matter what his service status is, so it makes me wonder what his motivation to lie was.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the story of Austin Eugene Constuble who was arrested by Washington County Sheriff’s Department for Cultivation of a Controlled Substance – Marijuana. According to NewsOK, Constuble told the judge that he needed pot to deal with his PTSD resulting from his deployment to Iraq.

Austin Eugene Constuble, 31, told Oklahoma Vice he was forced to kill a special-needs child who insurgents strapped with an artillery shell in Iraq. He said he rescued bleeding children from a bombed out school. He also claimed he had been shot at and was injured by a roadside bomb.

None of those things are true.

[…]

At trial, Constuble testified on his own behalf, again making claims he was shot at, injured by an IED and that he rescued children from a bombed school in Iraq. Constuble has a service dog he claims helps with his PTSD. The dog accompanied him to the witness stand.

The Kansas National Guard sergeant major drove three hours to testify at Constuble’s trial;

On the witness stand, [Sgt. Maj. Jared] Worley testified that Constuble spent less than two months in Iraq before he was found unfit for service and was sent home.

“I could care less if he smokes weed,” Worley said. “It’s the lying about his service, or his lack of service I guess.”

Constuble never saw combat and in reality, spent much of his time in Iraq doing menial tasks, inside the fence of a military base, two veterans who served with him told Oklahoma Vice.

Dallas resident Chris Elder, another Kansas National Guard veteran who served in Southern Iraq with Constuble in 2005 said that as far has he knows, Constuble only went outside of the fence of the military base once. The base was far from Baghdad and Constuble never saw combat, Elder said.

“His story of having combat time and being a combat veteran is misinformation,” Elder said. “That never occurred.”

Worley claimed that he thought it was important for his testimony for the memory of the two soldiers in his unit who died and the two others who were injured by IEDs after Constuble left Iraq in disgrace.

The assistant district attorney says that he offered Constuble an eight year suspended sentence, but he went to trial instead, now he’s looking at three years hard time. Sentencing is in November.

One of our ninjas sent us a link to the story of Ryan W. Chrzanowsky of Deerfield, Illinois. When he was the subject of a domestic violence incident, he told deputies of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department that he was a law enforcement officer and a recipient of the Purple Heart;

The deputy began speaking to Chrzanowsky, who claimed to be a law enforcement officer. Further investigation revealed he was not a law enforcement officer.

Chrzanowsky also claimed to be a Purple Heart recipient and upon investigation, the Purple Heart claim was determined to be false.

Ryan Chrzanowsky was arrested and charged with False Personation of a Peace Officer (Class 4 Felony). On September 7, 2017, Chrzanowsky appeared in bond court and was released on a $25,000 personal recognizance bond. His next court date is October 11, 2017.

Nothing like making a bad situation worse, huh?

Our partners at Military Phonies shared their work on Leonard Verni, who claims to be yet another Navy SEAL. Yes, there’s a frog tattoo;

While he was a SEAL, he was stationed in Israel, where he learned Krav Maga, or something.

But the Navy doesn’t remember his time with them like that – he spent about 20 months in service rocketing up to the stratospheric rank of Semen E-3. Did I spell that wrong? Ooops. Seaman. Sorry.

No SEAL training and an early discharge. But look out –

I’m guessing that his style of Krav Maga involves donuts, somehow.

The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this Christopher Norwood fellow. He claimed that he was US Navy EOD in a conversation on social media;

It looks like he’s in the Army Reserves as a truckdiver after an honorable stint in the Navy as a sonar operator, not EOD;

You know there’s a motorcycle and a vest involved;

He’s still young enough to do the EOD thing, since he likes to brag about it. I won’t hold my breath though.

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this purple-colored fellow, John Michael Visoky. He claims that he’s a Navy SEAL. He used to claim it on his Facebook, but somehow it got scrubbed away, but brought to you through the magic of screenshots;

It’s still on his LinkedIn;

Well, he was in the Navy and he went through a couple of weeks of BUD/S, but then he bailed;

No completion of training, no assignment to the SEAL Team. Personally, I like the people who handle my money and insurances to be honest.

Our partners at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Luis Antonio Guerra-Thillet who claims to be a former Navy SEAL. In this rambling letter to Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, in an attempt to get the Senator’s support for his VA claim, he tells a whole bunch of lies about his military career in the first paragraphs;

So the folks at Military Phonies sent for his FOIA. He spent three years in the Navy (1983 – 1986) and three more in the Reserves as a Boatswain Mate (E-4);

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this Steven Chad Ingold person.I’m guessing that these were taken at his wedding in Catawba, VA. He told them that he had a deployment and that he caught the PTSD while he was a Marine;

When asked for his records, the Marine Corps responded “Who?”