MCPO NYC USN Ret. made his annual trek to the New York City Veterans’ Day parade and spotted these two distinguished gentlemen dressed in their finery;
He wasn’t able to get enough information from them that would get us their records, but the first fellow’s name is Ken Smith, supposedly and the fellow in tiger stripes says that he was the sergeant major of the Phoenix program in the “Viet of the Nam” – he disappeared when MCPO offered to make him famous.
MCPO says that he ran into Richard Figueroa again this year, but he wasn’t wearing his Marine Corps finery this year.
The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow Matthew DeWayne Edler. He claims to have been wounded during Desert Storm by an Iraqi IED, I think, while he was a medic after doing time as a Signal soldier;
The Army misremembers his career. The National Personnel Records Center says that he once did three months of service at Fort Gordon, Georgia in 1979.
I guess that’s why the VA keeps losing his records.
I sat on this for a day through Veterans’ Day, but that was long enough for him to shut down his LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, but I just hate to expose a phony on a day we’re supposed to honor veterans.
Ryan Patrick Morris, in Cascade County, Montana, was jmmed up in court on charges of burglary and theft, so he told the judge that he was a wounded soldier, according to the Great Falls Tribune;
The judge read back Morris’ statements from hearing transcripts, verifying that Morris told the court, “I’ve done seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Records show Morris also said he suffered from combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and had a hip replacement after being injured by an improvised explosive device, or IED.
He wanted special treatment in the veterans’ court. So, the judge told him to meet with the Veterans’ Court coordinator, but the next day he violated his bond by carrying a weapon and consuming alcohol.
Court transcripts show he made an initial appearance after the alleged violations and said, “I’m a seven-time combat vet, special teams operator. I was actually at the Mayor’s Challenge. I’m actually on the outreach team for any homeless vets with Mayor Kelly.”
Records also show Morris refused to sign a release for the court to obtain an official service record. Morris’ father contacted the Veterans Court coordinator in October to say that his son never served in the military, though he tried several times, and that Morris previously lied about being a veteran in Georgia.
So, the judge brought the hammer down;
Pinski said the disrespect Morris showed the court “pales in comparison” to the disrespect he showed the 441 Montana service members killed in the line of duty since the Korean War.
The judge ordered Morris pay a $500 fine and serve 30 days in jail, though he suspended the jail time and ordered Morris serve 441 hours of community service with a veteran service organization within one year — one hour for each of the fallen Montanans he mentioned.
That’s all before he even faces those initial burglary charges. He also needs some jail time for that heinous haircut.
A few days ago, someone sent us a tip that this fellow, Kevin Haggerty, who leaned heavily on his service as a Marine while campaigning for political office in Pennsylvania, had actually been a deserter during his brief period of service. I couldn’t verify any of it, because I couldn’t get a FOIA in the few days before the election. But if what they say in the Scranton Times-Tribune is true, yeah, it looks like he was a deserter;
The chronological record notes Mr. Haggerty’s status as a deserter as “970611 DROP/DCL DES.” The meaning of this abbreviation is in the Marine Corps Individual Records Administration Manual, which is available online. The numbers are the date, June 11, 1997, that Mr. Haggerty was declared a deserter.
The document also shows the phrase “UA(AWOL),” which means “unauthorized absence/absent without leave,” next to the numbers “970511 TO 970610,” meaning May 11 to June 10, 1997, the 30 days before Mr. Haggerty was declared a deserter.
On another line appears the phrase, “UA/AWOL,” next to the numbers “970611 TO 970720,” meaning June 11 to July 20, 1997.
The document shows he returned to active duty on July 21, 1997, as an assistant police sergeant, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, moved to the Marine Reserves on Sept. 13, 1997, as a cannoneer at a unit in Reading, and was officially discharged entirely from the Marines on Sept. 15, 1998.
He had nine months (3 months of which he was AWOL/Deserter) on active duty from December 30, 1996, to September 12, 1997 and then he was in the reserves September 13, 1997 to September 15, 1998. That doesn’t sound like an ordinary tour of duty, not at all. He claims that he has an honorable discharge, though. This is his proof (you can skip the two minutes of video and go to the screenshot, because that’s all of his discharge that he shows);
The dates Mr. Haggerty was absent without leave — May 11, 1997 to July 20, 1997 — coincide with a notation on the DD-214 discharge form he showed the newspaper in 2014.
The discharge mentions “time lost” for exactly the same dates, though the form offers no further explanation.
People who won’t show all of their documentation are hiding something. It’s just that simple.
If it matters to you, Haggerty is a Democrat. It looks like he won last night.
OC sends us a link from KARE11 about this guy, Derek Alldred who has pretended to be a Navy SEAL, a lawyer, a student and a professor depending on the woman he’s trying to impress.
KARE 11 Investigates has identified eight women who say Alldred made up false identities, lied to them and gained access to their finances. In some cases they claim they didn’t realize who he really was until he had taken them for thousands of dollars.
[…]
Richard Peterson’s story seemed to add up. She showed KARE 11 the Navy SEAL uniforms he left at her house, the awards and medals. He had a Purple Heart and a Silver Star, she says he told her were from eight tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He pretended to be a former financial planner who planned them right out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Law enforcement officials admit credit card fraud can be tricky to prosecute, in part because according to the law, the true victim is the credit card company. Those companies usually don’t want to press charges.
Well, if they really wanted to jam him up, they could always use those Stolen Valor laws to prosecute him and keep him locked up until they finish their investigations. Here are some of his mugshots;
You should read the whole article. The guy is real dirt ball.
Fox6 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin tells the story of phony Marine John Hemphill who has been playing a lieutenant with 22 years of service in the Marine Corps. He even fooled the woman who married him.
Hemphill has told others he’s a 22-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who lost his leg in Afghanistan. That’s exactly what he told the woman who would become his wife.
“Then he said ‘all of a sudden there was a bomb,’” Sheila Hemphill recalled. “His leg, you know, blew off.”
Hemphill does have a prosthetic leg. It even has a U.S. Marines T-shirt laminated onto it. His left forearm is tattooed with the words “Marine Corps.” His cars have veterans license plates. His mail is often addressed to Lieutenant John Hemphill. And around his neck, you’ll almost always find a pair of dog tags.
“It really seemed convincing. Yes it did,” his wife said.
So convincing that when Sheila and John Hemphill married in 2013, she got an image of his dog tags tattooed on her right arm.
[…]
Regina and her mother said they believed Hemphill was a genuine wounded warrior until a member of his own family came forward last year.
“She was like, ‘I gotta tell you something.’ She started crying. She’s like, ‘John was never, ever in the military,’” Sheila said.
If I had to guess, by looking at him, I’d say diabetes took his leg.
Someone sent us their research on this fellow, Eric Dale Honeycutt. I’ll warn you right now, you probably don’t want to click on any of these links while you’re at work. See, Eric, here, or “Tank” as he likes to be called, claims to be a “sexologist” whatever that is, in addition to being a special forces operator;
On LinkedIn, he claims to have been commissioned as an officer through the Officer Candidate School as well as claiming 12 years of service in addition to Special Forces experience;
He also claims to be a Ranger;
His claim to be a special forces soldier seems to be a central point in his business plan, like when he had a company called Special Forces Fit;
Well, if you’re hoping that your sexologist, or your fitness instructor is special forces, Eric wouldn’t be your choice. He did spend a little over four years in the Army as an 11M Bradley Fighting Vehicle crew member in Germany, leaving the service as a specialist E-4.
Not a bad career, actually. He had a deployment to Kosovo and he earned the Expert Infantry Badge, but there’s no parachute, Ranger or Special Forces training.
Garin William Sparks has built quite a career for himself – both in the Army and in the film industry. He claims to have worked on over 100 films as an on-set medic, the most recent being “Olympus Has Fallen“, “Boyhood” and “True Grit“.
So the folks at Military Phonies ordered his records;
First off, he’s not a sergeant E-5 like he claims. He’s a specialist E-4 – big distinction between the enlisted rabble and the non-commissioned officer corps. He wasn’t a medic – big difference between being a medic and an artilleryman. Especially when he uses the phony medic story to be the head medic on movie sets and he really has no experience in the field. That could be dangerous.
He was deployed to Noble Eagle, United States and Canadian military operations related to homeland security and support to federal, state, and local agencies, and a deployment to Iraq in 2007. An admirable career, a huge rack of awards, no need to embellish that at all.
