Category: Phony soldiers

According to the Press-Herald, the Banning, California School District may attempt to recoup the stipend that they’ve paid to valor thief Jan Spann, $14,701 total since 2013. They held a special meeting to discuss the Spann issue at length;

“We want to assure the community, particularly the veterans in our community, that if the allegations are found to be true, the district will take every action within its legal right to remedy any and all injuries caused by such behavior,” school board President Alfredo Andrade read from a prepared statement during a special board meeting Wednesday, Aug. 10.

Andrade also announced that Spann’s seat will remain vacant, as the term expires after the upcoming November election. By law, when a vacancy occurs with less than four months remaining on a term, it must remain open until the election.

Andrade said the district would run an internal investigation into the allegations and, if wrongdoing is discovered, report the findings to appropriate state and federal law enforcement agencies.

Nice. Spann had claimed to be an Army nurse in Vietnam, while she was actually a college student in California. She resigned from the school board on August 1st without admitting to her lies, claiming that she didn’t want to distract from the board’s business mumbling something about bullies.

We wrote about Pekka Tapio “Peter” Pasanen a few weeks ago when our friends at Stolen Valour-Canada sent him to us. But, of course, because of his US awards, we had to finish the paperwork.

I see that he’s claiming a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, along with a Combat Infantryman Badge and parachutist wings. Throw in some Vietnam Service stuff and I think I see a POW Medal in there.

Nope and nope – he spent about three months in Basic Training at Fort Lewis, Washington, then he went AWOL and DFR (dropped from rolls-deserter). He probably lit out for Canada.

Cowardly POS probably wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam anyway, given the years he joined. But he did get the NDSM…SCORE!!!

Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow, Joseph Phillips, who claimed that he was a Navy SEAL;

Aside from the fact that he doesn’t appear in the SEAL database, the Navy doesn’t remember that he trained as a SEAL;

He had an abbreviated career (2 years, 8 months) and left as a Fire Control Technician Ballistic Missile Third Class (FTB3–E-4), certainly nothing to be ashamed about.

Our partners at Guardians of the Green Beret shared their work on this goofball, Jimmy “Delta” Webb who claimed to be a special forces “Delta” operator;

He put on makeup to fake some war wounds for his Facebook fans;

Webb claimed that there were 70 trained ISIS operatives in the US hunting for him;

But then, when called on it all, he admitted that he had never served a day in the military, at all;

Here’s their four minute report;

We’ve discussed Medal of Honor recipient West Virginian Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams before and his amazing assault across the first airfield at Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945 where he nearly single-handedly took 7 pillboxes and killed a score of Japanese soldiers doing so.

Here is Woody’s MOH citation to refresh your memory;

Of, course no one does that kind of stuff alone. Williams was supported by fellow Marines who provided covering fire for him. According to early reports, PFC Wesley Strickland, CPL William Naro, CPL Alan Tripp, CPL Alex Schlager, PFC George Schwartz were covering Woody. Furthermore, two men died covering him and research is currently being done to ascertain their identities. Well, somehow, Darol “Lefty” Lee got his name on that list. Here is a paragraph in an original draft of a dispatch write-up of the incident from the National Archives;

Notice that Lefty isn’t mentioned. Well, his name got added to the dispatch somehow in a copy Lefty Lee has been giving to historians;

A page later in the phony document, it describes Lefty as having killed “10 Japs”, something he never did on Iwo Jima on 23 February because he wasn’t there. The problem is that “Lefty” was aboard the APA-33 USS Bayfield after being evacuated from the Iwo Jima beach for “combat fatigue/shell shock” the day before as seen in yet again another document from the National Archives.

Lefty was evacuated all the way back to the United States – here’s his unit status report for February;

Somehow Lefty convinced Woody, scholars and archivists for a long time that Lefty had been there, and, of course, Woody and others believed him. Woody had fought with Lefty on Guam and knew he was in his same company and had landed on Iwo Jima with him so he had no reason to doubt Lefty’s story, especially since he was a brother Marine. Here’s an article from the Winona Daily News;

Another clip from a USAToday article;

And yet another clip from the Minnesota Legionnaire from 2015 (.pdf);

For years, Lefty had claimed he had two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with V (see Al Zdon’s 2015 article in the Minnesota Legionnaire newsletter shown above). However, he always claimed he had never received his second Purple Heart for his actions on Iwo Jima and had “lost” his Bronze Star and its citation in a move.

Knowing this, a group of well-meaning veterans decided that Lefty should get some long overdue recognition for his participation in the battle and historians began researching Lefty’s participation in the assault on Iwo Jima. Instead of finding supporting documents to honor Lefty, they discovered that he had barely participated in the battle, let alone in the MOH incident involving the real hero Woody Williams.

He had indeed served his country honorably before Iwo Jima. The year before Iwo, Lefty had been wounded on Guam;

He had an impressive career and he fought across the Pacific with the Marine Corps;

But, for some reason, that wasn’t enough. Lefty felt a need to inject himself into the story of Woody Williams, and the fog of war allowed him to take advantage of Woody and many journalists and scholars for several years.

Lefty has finally admitted to the fake story.

Our partners at Guardians of the Green Beret shared their work on this over-achiever Justin Stargardt. He has a real high opinion of his service. He’s spent a lot of money on phony finery and certificates for things like Ranger, Special Forces, SEAL, sniper, Raider, Purple Hearts, Silver and Bronze Stars, etc…Here’s his shadowbox;

He really was a Marine and in the Army National Guard, but nothing like Ranger, MARSOC, or Special Forces in his records – no deployments either;

Listen to the stammering fool in this 40-minute phone call;

Green Thumb sends us a link to the Missoulian which reports that the Lake County Sheriff’s Department has identified the fellow who has been impersonating a Coast Guardsman in an effort, according to at least one report, to get free beer.

Ryan Lowden, 33, will be charged with three felony counts of Impersonating a Public Official when he appears in Lake County Justice Court on Aug. 16 for an initial appearance.

On Thursday, Aug. 10, Lake County Sheriff’s detectives conducted a search at Lowden’s residence. Coast Guard clothing, similar to what witnesses had reported him wearing, was located.

The folks at Guardians of the Green Beret got their website set up finally after getting booted from their Facebook page and I was perusing their site when I came across this fellow, Step Hahn, whom I’d never seen before, so I snagged their work on him.

Apparently, he’d stolen a photo from Soldiers’ Magazine and captioned it to be a photo of himself;

The photographer says that it wasn’t Hahn;

According to his records, he left active duty a decade before the GWOT, and he left the Guard in early 2001, so he couldn’t have been in AFghanistan to take the picture, and he wasn’t a medic or special forces trained, or airborne trained;

When the folks at Guardians of the Green Beret contacted Hahn, he bravely shut down his Facebook page. So, he’s out there somewhere.