Category: Phony soldiers

Back in January, Dave Hardin wrote about Michael Sleeper, a member of the School Board in Columbia County, Georgia. Sleeper made the false story of his service as an Army Ranger the centerpiece of his election campaign for that office. He’d actually spent less than two years on active duty as an infantryman in Alaska and he was discharged as a private, according to his FOIA;

Well, members of the media and the school board confronted Sleeper about his apparent lies and he promised that he was going to get his records straightened out. That was in February. Yesterday, the Metro Spirit asked what is taking so long;

Sleeper, who also happens to be the son-in-law of Columbia County Commission Chairman Ron Cross, was being called out by the website, “This Ain’t Hell: But you can see it from here,” in a blog called “Michael Sleeper, Fake Ranger.”

“We have reports of (Sleeper) claiming to have been deployed to Iraq during Desert Storm. Mike also likes to tell people he was a Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment during conversations. He backs up those kind of claims with pictures on his FB profile,” blogger Dave Hardin posted on the website, thisainthell.us. “It sounds like some actual Desert Storm veterans found discrepancies in his stories.”

This particular website reviews accusations of stolen valor across the country.

[…]

After reviewing the documents produced by Hardin, the Metro Spirit also asked that Sleeper set the record straight.

And he didn’t.

All Sleeper told a Metro Spirit reporter was, “I recognize there are shortcomings in the military documentation of my military history and I’m attempting to have them corrected.”

Specifically, he told the Metro Spirit that he was working with U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s office to correct the “shortcomings” in his military record.

That was more than two months ago.

Meanwhile, the Metro Spirit also requested Sleeper’s military record and got a similar document that was almost identical to the records produced by thisainthell.us.

The records made no mention of him being a Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Since that time, Sleeper has been avoiding any questions surrounding his military record.

It’s been months.

Sleeper emailed me right after Hardin’s post went live and he threatened to sue us and he said that he had proof that we had published lies about him. He hasn’t produced any of this so-called proof, nor is he responding to my emails.

Someone sent us their work on this fellow, Spencer Sullivan who plays tough-guy combat veteran SEAL on the internet;

The Navy doesn’t remember it that way – he was neither a SEAL nor a combat veteran.

He was on the USS Juneau while it sailed through the Persian Gulf so he earned the Southwest Asia Service Medal, but he joined the Navy months after the shooting stopped in that war. He was probably on the Juneau when she dropped off her Marines in Somalia in support of Operation Restore Hope, in 1992. But his Navy career was abbreviated – a little over two years.

Back in July 2014, we wrote about an Army Times article which was about this fellow, Jim Calhoun. It seems that CW2 Calhoun had written a letter to the Army Times about how he was still rolling up his sleeves and that no one could make him stop. Here’s that article;

Well, readers were so upset at Calhoun that Army Times thought it was necessary to look into Calhoun’s background and a few days later they wrote about him again in this article; Army Times July 21 2014

The administrative elimination board found Calhoun wrongly wore the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3, and unspecified “unauthorized” badges and ribbons, according to the documentation, which included Calhoun’s discharge papers, a personnel memorandum authorizing his separation and the findings and recommendations of the board.

The board also found he submitted a falsified DD 214 in 2008 before returning to service and went AWOL nine months later; he had falsified a mobilization order as well.

The board also found Calhoun failed a qualification course for the UH-60 Black Hawk, according to Army records. He was a UH-1 pilot.

It cleared him of allegations of conduct unbecoming an officer and failure to maintain a valid security clearance.

Days after the article was published, Army Human Resources Command spokesman Bill Costello said Calhoun never achieved the rank of chief warrant 3, never served in the SOF community and was not serving in any component. He confirmed Calhoun’s CW2 rank and April separation date and declined to comment further on Calhoun’s record.

Well, Calhoun is still at his tomfoolery. If you look closely at the picture at the top of this post, you’ll notice that he’s wearing a patch claiming to be a Desert Storm veteran. Well not according to his FOIA, which I’ll admit doesn’t have his 2008 – 2014 enlistment, but it does cover the Gulf War period and he wasn’t there;

Here’s his business card where he still tells folks that he was a CWO3 despite the Army’s statement to the Army Times that he wasn’t. Notice that the helicopters on his card aren’t anything that he was authorized to fly – the Army said he failed a qualification course for Blackhawks.

His LinkedIn profile still makes his claims of being a CWO3 and that he flew special operations aircraft – both of which the Army denies are true.

The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Kevin Prohaska, who claims to be a Canadian who joined Navy SEALSs for the war against communism in Vietnam;

So some real SEALs invited him to a reunion. At first he claimed that he was in class 116, then switched up and picked up 162 which happened to be the class his tormentor had attended;

Well, the Navy disagrees, they’ve never heard of him;

I think there are more phony SEALs than the world’s population of the aquatic beasts.

The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Matthew Edward Allen who claims that he was a Navy SEAL during Desert Storm;

There’s a vest;

And there’s a Trident tattoo, probably the worst we’ve ever seen;

The Navy doesn’t remember it that way;

The summary from Military Phonies;

Matthew Allen Joined the Navy in December of 1987 and left it in September of 1992. That is 4 years and 9 months of service. He went to Operations Specialist “A” school. It seems he was an OS3 (E4) when he reported aboard the USS Chandler in September of 1990. It Shows that when he was discharged he was an OSSN (E3) with a date of rank of December 7th 1991. That would indicate he was busted and lost rank. May have been an early morning surprise attack on his stripe.

The five medals he is wearing but did not earn are the Bronze Star, Kuwait Liberation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal, Purple Heart, and Good Conduct Medal.

He is wearing the Trident and Dive Bubble without having attended BUD/S or Dive School. He also does not have the NEC that would be awarded when those schools are completed. The Enlisted Surface Warfare Pin is not listed in his record.

He does have the Southwest Asia Service Medal, so I guess technically he’s a Desert Storm veteran – probably because he was floating in the Persian Gulf between August 2, 1990 and November 30, 1995. The only bronze star he has is the one on the Southwest Asia Service Medal denoting his presence there during one of three campaigns. Not to be confused with the actual Bronze Star Medal.

Someone did their research on this Cyril Pelkey fellow, who, during a conversation on Face book made cryptic references to his military experience;

When asked which branch of service employs him, his response is “Them all”. Apparently he’s such a secret weapon that the government hides him in the bowels of the Walmart system where our enemies would never find him.

But, the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines all responded “Who?”

Someone sent us their work on this fellow, David Gentry. He came to everyone’s attention last year when he did this Tin Cup thing at GoFundMe where he described his career thusly;

HIS SERVICE!
Dave Lee Gentry, who lives in Hendersonville , TN was a Marine in Special Forces who served in 32 countries as a part of the 22nd and 26th MEU. After 9/11 he re-enlisted in the Army to defend our country. Both his mom and dad were in the Army (his parents are both deceased). He and his wife Samantha, and son “Little David” are originally from Huntsville, Alabama are relatively new to Tennessee.

Dave suffers from life altering PTSD, traumatic brain injury and other medical conditions.

Some of that is true. He was in the Marine Corps for an honorable four years of service, but as near as I can tell, he never left Camp Lejeune, there’s no “special forces training”, whatever that is for Marines;

It looks like the only time he left the Continental United States while he was a Marine was on a four week trip to Fort Sherman, Panama for attending the Jungle Operations Training Center.

And then he joined the Army;

In the comments at GoFundMe he made comments about jump school and sniper school;

There is no airborne or sniper school in his records. He spent less than 13 months in the Army. The 2d Brigade of the 101st deployed to Iraq in February 2003, The Iraq War started on March 20, 2003 and by April 8th, Dave was in Fort Living Room – I doubt he deployed to Iraq with the 2d Brigade.

I’m sure the people who gave him money would done so no matter what he said about his military career. If his injuries were service-connected, the VA would have paid him some sort of financial assistance.