Category: Phony soldiers

We’ve been following the case of Clayton Donoghue as he made his way through the Canadian justice system on charges of stolen valor and some kiddie pr0n. He pleaded guilty in January and the folks at Stolen Valour-Canada tell us he was sentenced this week.

Clayton Donoghue was first charged in May 2016 after police were informed he was wearing medals not awarded to him during Royal Canadian Legion parades. When police were investigating, they discovered child pornography in Donoghue’s possession.

Donoghue pleaded guilty to three charges in December 2016 and was sentenced to two years’ probation at the time for the child pornography charge. Recently, he was given two sentences of 20 months’ probation, to be served concurrently, for knowingly making a false document and obstructing a police officer – the two charges that remained outstanding.

A few weeks ago, we talked a bit about James Gough who was arrested in Worcester, Massachusetts for panhandling while he posed as combat medic of the Korean and Vietnam wars. From the Worcester, Massachusetts Telegram;

Mr. Gough allegedly said he was a combat medic in Korea and Vietnam, despite being a little more than 2 months old when the Korean War started and only 3 years old when it ended.

Furthermore, Mr. Gough fraudulently represented himself as a combat medic badge recipient in an effort to obtain money from the officer, the court documents state.

Mr. Gough could not provide any paperwork from the Wounded Warrior Project. A criminal check showed Mr. Gough was the subject of an active arrest warrant on a charge of breaking and entering, according to court documents.

Mr. Gough did produce a U.S. Department of Defense 214 discharge form. However, nowhere on the form did it show any service in Vietnam, nor him being awarded the combat medal badge.

The military discharge form did show that Mr. Gough received training as a medical corpsman and also indicated, written in pen, the word “combat.”

Yeah, well the National Personnel Records Center doesn’t remember it his way either;

He served during the Vietnam War for 1 1/2 years. He took basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington and AIT at Fort Sam Houston and trained as a medic. Then he was in Korea for a year during the Vietnam War, so it is easy to see how he misremembered his career. Then he went back to Fort Lewis, Washington to outprocess from the Army and then he was out on the street – I’m guessing that he earned his sergeant stripes in the Reserves. He did get the National Defense Service Medal – they don’t just hand those out to everyone, ya know.

His false claim that he had earned the Combat Medic Badge makes his actions a violation of the Stolen Valor Act.

The folks at Military Phonies share their work on this Gary Diedrich fellow. He joined a Facebook group which mentors youngsters who want to become Navy SEALS. He claimed that he was a SEAL in Vietnam and that this is his rack of awards;

When questioned about his BUD/S class, he picked the number of a class that hasn’t happened yet;

The Navy doesn’t remember his career like he remembers it;

He was discharged as an MR3 (Machinery Repairman 3rd class – an E-4) after six years of service, with no service in the SEALs. He served in the Caribbean during the Vietnam years on the USS Shrevesport, according to Wiki;

Shreveport, with Amphibious Squadron 2, departed Norfolk on 4 January 1973 for her first tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. The squadron stopped at Morehead City, North Carolina, and embarked elements of the Sixth Marines (BLT 1/6) before it proceeded to Rota, Spain, where it was assigned to CTF 61. The task force departed Rota on 16 January, called at Cannes, France, on 18 January, and was underway for Monte Romano, Italy, on 22 January. During her six-month deployment, Shreveport also visited ports in Italy, Greece, Crete, and Turkey before returning to Morehead City on 2 July. The Marines were offloaded, and the ship continued to Norfolk that afternoon.

Shreveport operated in the Norfolk area until February 1974 when she sailed, with PhibRon 2, for operations in the Caribbean. She returned to her home port on 19 March. The ship made another trip south to the Panama Canal area that lasted from 18 April to 4 June. On 24 June, Shreveport sailed for Rotterdam and another deployment with the Sixth Fleet.

No service anywhere near Vietnam.

According to the folks at Fox5 Atlanta, things are not going well for self-proclaimed war hero, Shane Ladner in a Cherokee County, Georgia courtroom. The prosecution hosted the testimony of the commander of regional operations where Ladner claimed to have been wounded, his unit commander and the commander of medical operations for the region.

“We had no combat operations conducted out of our facility. Classified or unclassified,” retired brigadier general John Walsh flatly stated. “They didn’t exist.”

Walsh was an Army colonel commanding Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras in January 1991 when Private First Class Shane Ladner arrived to be a military police officer.

[…]

“When I was the commander of Joint Task Force Bravo, we never conducted combat operations of any sort of kind,” he told the jury. “No counter-narcotics operations. It wasn’t even part of our mission.”

[…]

Colonel Percy Dunagin commanded all medical operations on the Honduran base during the time Ladner says he was wounded.

He testified his people never handled any wounded soldiers.

“No,” Dr. Dunagin stressed. “Never.”

Dr. Roland Weiser commanded medical operations in the second half of 1991. When asked about the possibility his hospital treated a combat wounded soldier that year, he said “no,” then answering the question more like drill sergeant than doctor, “I said I thought it was bulls—.”

[…]

Investigators even found Ladner’s battalion commander from that time. Retired Colonel Walter Wright said no one got a Purple Heart while he was there.

“If someone had been awarded a Purple Heart, would it have been important for you to know?” asked assistant district attorney Zachary Smith.

“It would have been important and it would have been rare.”

Ladner faces six counts of defrauding the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles with this forged DD214 in order to save a couple of bucks of licensing fees for his car;

The Army has no record of the award of the Purple Heart, according to the Freedom of Information Act release of his records and his NGB-22 National Guard discharge record;

Fox5 speculates that the prosecution could wrap up it’s case today, then the real entertainment begins as Team Ladner defends him.

Someone sent us their work on this Justin Sheets fellow who started a business Praetorian Services Group, LLC based on his Marine Corps training as a Force Recon Marine and a Scout Sniper. That didn’t work out well for him, I guess;

The Marine Corps doesn’t remember training him to be a Recon Marine, or a sniper, nor do they remember him being wounded or deployed to Iraq;

He was a Marine in the USMC Reserves, he did two months active duty for initial training, he served as an auto mechanic and he was activated in 2003 for a mobilization to Colorado in support of Noble Eagle. He was discharged the following year as a Lance Corporal (E-3) with five years in the Reserves.

Our friends at Green Beret Posers Exposed share their work on this fellow Bill Harney who AverageNCO spotted in an Ocala Star-Banner article;

The Army doesn’t remember it like that;

He was a generator operator at Fort Sam Houston until he went to Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks as an inmate and then he was discharged as a private after 2 1/2 years of service (so to speak). He never went to Vietnam, he wasn’t special forces trained, he wasn’t wounded, he has no valor awards. And of course, he goes all secret squirrel when the folks at GBPE call him on the phone;

Bill Harney, Green Beret… NOT!! from Guardians Of The Green Beret on Vimeo.

From Frankie;

Stolen Valorist Kyle Barwan, Serial Poser, was first seen at This Ain’t Hell in August 2010, when Sporkmaster first posted on him. 6 1/2 years later, 3 Felony convictions on 6 or 8 counts of felony crime and he is still posing, still hustling money and other favors by claiming to be in the military. On January 24th, 2017, he conned a young lady into marrying him, telling her his military stories, and on January 25th, 2017, he was arrested based on information gained by the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, after I called them and suggested they investigate him.

Two of his victims came forward, (I have a list of over 25 that he has, in one way or another, hustled since 2010), and gave enough fact based information to the Sheriff’s deputy that they found cause to arrest him. He spent the next 80 days in jail, first in Hillsborough County Jail, (arrested in that county), and then in Polk County Jail. On April 14th he pleaded guilty to the charges and was given the 80 days as time served and 5 years probation, (I am awaiting the exact particulars on the probation and will share them in a comment here when I get them.). Because the two complainants were found by him on a dating website, one stipulation of his probation is that he not use any dating websites.

I have made an effort to stay on him, and through this, when the victims do gooooogle him, they find me, and contact me, usually through Facebook. When I hear of a new victim, I try to contact her, or him, as he has also tried to hustle one active duty soldier, a young E-3 type.

The only way that we who care can impede his efforts is to keep his name up in lights. Mentioning Kyle Barwan, or his many aliases, which include; Kyle Reacher, Felucifer, Klutch, Klutch_Reborn, by name in comments will help do this. We can make life a little less comfortable for this user of people.

The folks at Green Beret Posers Exposed send us their work on this fellow, Brian Magyar. Yes, that’s the third award of the Combat Infantryman Badge on top there and he looks a bit too young to have served in World War II;

In fact, the Army doesn’t remember awarding him any of that crap he’s wearing;

His records say that he was a Signal Corps wire rat in Germany and at Fort Campbell – not Special Forces. His records look like he pencil-whipped them, too, while he hand-carried them between assignments. I don’t know what the “SF Path Finder Award” is. I’ve been to the Jungle Operations Training Course twice, but it’s not in my records because it wasn’t an official Defense Department school. If it was, it wouldn’t be referred to as “Jungle Expert”. It looks like he rocketed up to the rank of Specialist in his more than eight years of service – not the type of soldier who would be awarded a Meritorious Service Medal (MSM).