Category: Phony soldiers

About three years ago, Gary Wayne Gilbert almost got away with taking his stories about being a POW in Vietnam to his grave. Not only did his obituary claim that he was a POW, we also found incidents in which he’d said that he was a POW while he was alive.

The headstone on the left above appeared on his grave. We made a bit of a stink about it with the help of Mike McGrath, a real Vietnam POW.

Arlington National Cemetery opened an inquiry a little over two years ago. Pat sends us a picture of the proof that the error has been corrected.

Someone sent us their work on this Anthony Fludd fellow. He writes self help books. He also claims to be an Army Ranger and he claims that he retired from the Army;

Well, close…he was a wheeled vehicle mechanic (which is almost like a Ranger, right?) in the Maryland National Guard and the Army Reserve for about six years. His only active duty time was for basic training and advanced individual training – there are no National Guard Ranger units.

Last year, we talked about Steven B. Pancoast, a Veterans’ Affairs investigator in Oklahoma about whom it was discovered that his only law enforcement experience had been as convict in New Jersey. He’d also claimed to be a former Military Police officer. In his work at the VA, he’d carried a gun, something that felons should not do. Well, the justice system caught up to him. He was sentenced to five years in lock up and ten years of probation.

Pancoast pleaded guilty in February to 24 crimes, mostly perjury and forgery.

He admitted in his guilty plea that he had lied about his background repeatedly and that he had forged documents, including an Oklahoma State University diploma “in the furtherance” of his criminal wrongdoing.

Canadian County District Judge Gary Miller decided Pancoast’s punishment — five years in prison followed by 10 years on probation.

Pancoast had sought to stay out of prison, asking to be allowed to continue to be there for his wife, children and the kids he mentors in a boxing ministry.

The prosecutor had asked the judge to sentence Pancoast to 10 years in prison and 10 years on probation.

Pancoast claims that his attempt to pass himself off as an LEO was purely altruistic – that he’d hoped to help those who had served the country – instead, it looks like he poisoned some federal investigations, having the reverse affect.

Thanks to one of our ninjas for the link.

The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Daniel Wall, pictured above at a svelte 600 pounds – about 300 pounds ago. Here’s a more recent photo;

He claims that he was in the Beirut bombing on October 23, 1983. That the day before the bombing he had inspected the truck that exploded at the gate. He claims that his body had been tossed in the “dead pile” of Marines until he groaned and alerted everyone to the fact that he wasn’t dead.

He also claims that he was in Grenada – the problem with that is that the invasion of that island happened while he was supposedly buried in the rubble at the Marine barracks in Beirut.

And, oh yeah, he knows stuff about Area 51 that the government wants to keep quiet;

He has one of Bob Neener‘s phony Discharge Certificates to prove his service;

Military Phonies discovered that Brigadier General Leo V. Williams III USMCR who signed that 1986 Discharge Certificate didn’t attain that rank until 1996 – ten years after this discharge was supposedly signed.

Well, what is true about all of that is that the National Personnel Records Center doesn’t have any records on him – but not because of what he knows, but because he never served.

Military Phonies claims that he had to be extricated from his house recently and doors were widened to accommodate his nearly 1/2-ton frame, so he’s shaking a tin cup as a disabled veteran;

It doesn’t look like anyone is falling for it, though.

The folks at Military Phonies found this low-grade phony, Justin Sales, in Hastings, Nebraska, who just uses his lies for veteran job preferences and reduced veteran rates for housing, etc. here’s a screen shot of his LinkedIn profile;

It looks like he was married to a member of the Air Force and after the divorce, he missed his “dependa” status, but not enough to sign on the line himself. The Air Force says “Who?”

This splendid fellow, Alan MacIntosh, was busted seven years ago by the old VeriSEAL website, but he refuses to stay busted. If you look at his Facebook page, he’s claiming to be a “Special Weapons Unit Officer at United Stated Navy” whatever the United Stated Navy is. But, according to everyone I know, he’s never served a day in any United States military branch.

Someone sent us their work on this Jason Dodge fellow. He changes his middle name to confuse folks, probably because of his extensive arrest record in Florida;

He claims to be an 18A military police officer (yeah, during his service, an MP was 95 series military occupational specialty, not 18). He also claims that he was in Desert Storm and that he was wounded;

Yeah, no. The National Personnel Records Center says that he was in the Army Reserves with active duty time for basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri at the beginning of the Gulf War. It looks like he never returned to his unit to serve his Reserve time. But, even though he served on active duty for a month or so during Desert Shield, there’s no National Defense Service Medal, so there’s something going on there, something like AWOL;

Regardless, he wasn’t an 18A or an MP – he was a wheeled vehicle mechanic who probably got scared that he was going to be sent to Desert Storm, so he just never reported back to his unit. A genuine hero. The Army Service Ribbon proves that.

He has a Facebook page here, too.