Category: Phony soldiers

Someone asked us to help him bust this fellow, Richard “Dick” Cantner from Vero Beach, Florida, who was busted on his lies 14 years ago, but he doesn’t want to go out without his lies. Here’s an article which corrected one of his lies when he claimed to have flown Apache helicopters in Afghanistan to the local media;

You can see by the picture, which comes from his current Facebook profile, that he’s claiming that he was a Lieutenant Colonel with two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a couple of Bronze Star Medals, and several Purple Heart Medals, as well as a Combat Infantryman Badge, Jump Wings, and Master Aviator Wings. Here’s the bio that he emailed to someone;

Here’s another article where he told of his harrowing tour of Vietnam;

The only thing that is true in all of that is that he has a Bronze Star Medal for Merit from his actual service in Vietnam as a Sergeant “Movement Specialist”.

Here’s an example from last year that folks still think he was a colonel;

Last week we talked about John Michael Manning who was pretending to be a Marine veteran to rip off other real veterans. One of our ninjas send us a link to the news that he was arrested this past weekend.

The man who ripped off a Utah veteran has been arrested Sunday.

[…]

Missoula County Police arrested Manning Sunday night around 9:31 p.m. Manning will appear in court Monday, July 11 at 2:30 p.m.

I’m sure they have room for him under the jail.

The folks at Military Phony send us their work on this fellow, Vernon Allen Smith, a local celebrity in Houston, Texas. He was a “Trivia Master” with a local sports bar on Thursday nights. Unfortunately, he passed away last month. Local media celebrated his military service;

From the Houston Chronicle;

Vernon was the squad commander of a special US Army long-range reconnaissance patrol (“LLRP”) before and after the cease fire of the Vietnam War. His unit secretly parachuted into and worked only in Laos with the objective of search and rescue for US prisoners of war (“POWs”). He took “point” almost every day and deeply cared for his men and his mission. Vernon received commendations and was honorably discharged in 1975.

Not according to the National Personnel Records Center. He enlisted in March 1972 and he was honorably discharged in February 1975. He was a mechanized infantryman, an 11D in those days and he did all of his time in Germany;

His obit said that he parachuted in Laos to look for POWs, but there is no parachute training. There are no service awards for his service in Southeast Asia. Of course, it’s possible that family told the media those stories about his military service with no prompting by Smith himself, but not likely.

Earlier this year, we wrote about Richard Hollingsworth, a former VFW Post commander at the Pocatello, Idaho VFW Post 735 who wore a bunch of infantry accoutrements that he didn’t earn during his service in Vietnam as well as claiming that he was an aviation officer.

We were assured that he had made a deal with the state VFW department that he wouldn’t wear any of the phony things that he had claimed – that he’d stick to his Specialist Five rank and stop wearing the Combat Infantryman Badge, along with the Infantry cord and the blue backing on his branch brass.

Well, they had a parade in Pocatello this past weekend for the Fourth of July, and since Hollingsworth is still in their honor guard, he was there. Folks tell us that he showed up in an Honor Guard uniform and after he took stock of who was around, at the last minute before the parade began, he changed into his Army jacket with the same old bullshit badges that he didn’t earn. Here’s the link to the photo above at the Pocatello parade website.

He’s not Post Commander, but he’s still an officer in the post. Obviously, the Pocatello post doesn’t have much respect for the uniform if they don’t take this thief seriously.

Someone sent us a link to the story about this John Michael Manning fellow. Apparently, he became friends with a real Marine and ripped him off;

He worked as a personal trainer at my gym in Salt Lake City and we became friends. He needed a place to crash for a few nights, so, being that he was a brother Marine, I opened my home to him. He then stole my laptop, personal effects, and my car. But most amazingly he stole all of my Marine uniforms and related items (Dress Blues, medals, ribbons, service Alphas, military record, etc.) Police reported to me that he never served in the military and is actually a fugitive on the run.

From Fox13 in Salt Lake City;

Det. Richard Chipping with Salt Lake City police said this is a situation that’s really frustrating to a lot of people.

“This is something this man has done in times before and makes it easy to assume he’d be more than willing to do it again,” Chipping said of Manning.

The folks at Military Phony send us their work on this fellow, John L Turek. John claims to be an Air Force pararescueman and that he was “wounded” while he was in Basic Training where he also caught the PTSD;

It’s good that he limited his service to discussions about basic training, because he that’s all the time he spent in the Air Force;

His one month of service also included those two weeks that the military is essentially “off duty” over Christmas and New Year Day – so his service was actually less than a month.

AverageNCO sends us a link to the UK’s Sun which tells the story of our friends at the Walter Mitty Hunters Club and their latest scalp, Konnor Collins, a politician in the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

The partially-blind 54-year-old, who won votes pretending to be “the most decorated living British war veteran”, is one of the founding members of the tiny party.

Sarah Pye, 33, was married to the “cruel” fantasist for roughly four years, and wasn’t shocked to hear of his fabricated military career.

On top of lying about his military service, he’s also a bigamist.

Collins claimed to have served as a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Paratroopers, and said he received several military honours including the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross (CGC), the Military Cross (MC), the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), and an MBE.

But after a thorough investigation the Walter Mitty hunters found no evidence of him having even served in the forces, let alone leading a remarkable career glistening with honours.

Ms [Sarah] Pye, who unknowingly wed Collins while he was already married to another woman, was far from shocked when she heard of his deceit.

The 33-year-old, who lives in Sheffield, said: “I’m not surprised because while we together he told endless lies.

“He would always big himself up to make him sound like something special.

His first wife didn’t like him much either, if I read it correctly;

Sheila [Quayle], 62, was also far from stunned to hear of his mocked-up military background, and said: “He is full of bull muck.