Category: Phony soldiers

The Augusta Chronicle’s editorial board addresses the Mike Sleeper phony Ranger problem today. It seems that Sleeper has decided to go the lawyer route and he’s hired one, William Cassara, who claims to specialize in correcting military records;

Cassara told us he has found that Sleeper’s military records are indeed incomplete. He says he’s received verbal confirmation that Sleeper attended Airborne School and is working to get written confirmation of that, as well as confirmation that Sleeper served with the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning.

Cassara says Sleeper went through the Ranger Indoctrination Program in late 1985/early 1986.

“I know from his follow-up assignment at Hunter Army Airfield,” Cassara told us, “he obviously was Ranger-qualified or else he wouldn’t have had that assignment. But again, it’s not in his records.”

It could take months to get it cleared up, he said.

“Once I get all of that documentation, we will petition the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records to correct his records to reflect those two schools. That process takes about a year.”

The public will know much sooner than that, Cassara promised.

Let me help Cassara out – I think Sleeper did indeed go to the Basic Airborne Course, and then went to the 1st Bn Rangers at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, GA, and then he terminated his jump status because the Rangers were too hard for Mikey. When he did that, it’s as if he never attended BAC in his records. Sleeper was never Ranger-qualified, like hundreds of youngsters who are assigned to the regiment, but they have not yet attended Ranger School.

The lawyer is just helping Sleeper kick the can down the road hoping everyone forgets that his client is a liar. If there was actual proof that Sleeper isn’t lying about his military experience, we’d be looking at it right now. Question me about something I’ve said about my career and I’ll show you documentation. If I don’t have proof of something, I just don’t talk about it.

The main bugaboo at this point is how long this has dragged on – which has only cast doubt on Sleeper. But his lawyer says he gets calls all the time from vets who served in the 1970s and ’80s “that their military records are pretty devoid of any real detailed information about their service.”

Horse. Shit.

Someone sent us their work on this fellow, Augusto Alarcon. He tried to join a military veterans’ motorcycle club and they had doubts about him, so they came to us. He showed them this DD214 to join them;

The trigger on this document, is down in block #25 where the separation code is “KFN” which means that the discharge was issued in lieu of a court martial. He took a discharge instead of facing a court martial. But, block 24 says that the discharge was “honorable”. Since his last unit was 3/60th Infantry at Ft Jackson, SC – a basic training company – you can make guesses as to why he was discharged.

According to his FOIA, much of the entries on that discharge is true – he was awarded a Purple Heart, he did earn a Combat Infantryman Badge and an Expert Infantryman Badge. He was airborne, he was free-fall qualified, he was air assault qualified.

However, he doesn’t have a Bronze Star for Valor, he didn’t attend Ranger School, he was busted to E-1 when he was discharged, he wasn’t an E-7 at the time he was discharged. Another trigger is in the primary specialty block #11, if he was an E-7 Sergeant First Class, the MOS would have been 11B4P not 11B3P (a Staff Sergeant, E-6)

We talked about Brandon Blackstone last year when he pleaded guilty for claiming injuries that never happened to him. He had appropriated the claims of of fellow Texan Corporal Casey Owens, Owens was evacuated from Iraq when his Humvee struck an anti-tank mine. Blackstone was evacuated when he had a case of appendicitis. Several people have sent us links to the report that Blackstone was sentenced yesterday in Dallas;

A federal judge on Friday called Brandon Blackstone’s actions in faking a war injury to profit financially “shameful, shameful conduct” before sentencing him to 21 months in prison.

Blackstone, 35, a former U.S. Marine from Arlington, also will have to pay the Veterans Affairs department $322,654 in restitution for monthly disability payments he received from November 2006 to December 2015, according to the ruling from U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn.

He also lied about receiving a Purple Heart and used the fake story to obtain a free house from a veteran’s charity.

Blackstone’s lawyer argued that his time in the Marines made him lie about his service and his injuries – you know, PTSD is like that. His wife told the judge that Blackstone is a model parent, you know despite the fact that he popped hot on a drug test a few months ago which triggered pre-trial confinement.

Our friends at Fox5 in Atlanta report that jury selection began yesterday in Cherokee County in preparation for the jury trial of valor thief Shane Ladner which is supposed to begin Monday;

Despite Ladner’s so-called military “document” listing the Purple Heart award, Cherokee County prosecutors don’t believe him. He faces one count of making a false statement to Cherokee County Sheriff’s investigators and six counts of making a false statement to the Cherokee County Tax Commissioner in connection to those tax-free license plates.

Ladner sued FOX 5 over our original reporting, a lawsuit that was dismissed. He is appealing.

And for those hoping to hear from Ladner on the witness stand, they may be disappointed. According to a motion filed by his attorney, Ladner “will not testify at the trial of this case.”

Our buddy, Randy Travis delivers an excellent summary of events leading up to the trial;

We didn’t bust Ladner, but we were able to lend our expertise to Fox5’s lawyers when Ladner sued them. Too bad Ladner won’t testify on his own behalf, I’m sure that would be entertaining.

Someone sent us their work on this fellow, Claude Brown from Lodi, California. The local media wrote about him a couple of times. Once in the Lodi News-Sentinel;

“I was in the Navy special program. Now you call them the Navy SEALs, but in those days it was the Navy Special Operations,” Brown said.

Once again in Recordnet;

Brown learned so much about electronics working as a teenager that his instructors had him skip the freshman-level courses. After one year at San Joaquin Delta College, he enrolled at UC Davis, where he attended classes for one year and was then called for duty in Vietnam. Brown, at first a reservist, served as a Navy SEAL after he was called to active duty.

“We went in places that we never were and brought out people who were never there,” Brown said of his experience with the military unit known for secret operations.

The Navy doesn’t remember it like that, though;

He spent about four months on active duty during the Vietnam War, probably just for training – the rest of his six years was spent in the Navy Reserve. He was an Electrician’s Mate, not a SEAL. He didn’t serve in Vietnam, his only award was the National Defense Service Medal.

There’s this fellow out West by the name of Paul Gilman. He tried to fool folks in Colorado Springs into letting him out of his obligations early by claiming that he is an Air Force drone pilot and he was being transferred to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. So he gave the locals this set of orders;

There is no Lieutenant Chief in any of the military services, who would let a lieutenant be a chief anyway?

The Air Force says “Who?”

As you can tell from the mugshot at the top of this page, he has a record. Not military, but a record, nonetheless.

Our friends at Military Phonies send us their latest work on this fellow Gene Edwards, the author of the book, Confessions of a Lycanthrope. I guess he thought that if he pretended to be a Navy SEAL, it would help him sell his book.

He made up friendships with SEALs who had passed to bolster his image.

Yeah, well the Navy never heard of his monkeyass;

When he noticed that people were sniffing around, he deleted all of his social media crap, but not soon enough.

Someone sent us their work on this Brian Nottoli fellow who claims in his dating profile at Plenty of Fish to be an Army Ranger;

The Army doesn’t remember him being a Ranger – they barely remember him at all;

Three-and-a-half-months in the a Fort Benning OSUT company does not equate to Ranger training. But then he has the National Defense Service Medal and we all know they don’t hand those out to just anyone.