Category: Veterans Issues

In 1973, Guillermo Aillon, 35 years old, a veteran, was convicted of murder for killing his wife, Barbara, and her parents, J. George and Bernice Montano. He was sentenced to seventy years in prison, but he only lived long enough to serve forty years. He was buried in Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery.

In 1997, Congress passed a new law that barred veterans convicted of capital crimes and serving death or life sentences from being buried in veterans’ cemeteries. It was written especially for Tim McVeigh. Aillon escaped scrutiny when he was transferred to a hospital before he died and the death certificate didn’t mention that he had been in prison. Well, that’s what they say – it took me two minutes to find the 1972 article about his murder conviction.

It wasn’t until 2013 that Congress authorized the VA to disinter the remains of criminals, but the law has been used to disinter Aillon, according to the Washington Post;

The remains of Guillermo Aillon were disinterred from the Middletown cemetery July 3, after state veterans’ affairs officials learned that he had been serving a life prison sentence for fatally stabbing his estranged wife and her parents in North Haven in 1972. It’s not clear where the remains were taken.

According to the Post, the law has only been used one other time;

In 2014, the body of Army veteran Michael LeShawn Anderson was removed from the Fort Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, Mich. Authorities said Anderson killed Alicia Koehl, wounded three other people and killed himself in a 2012 shooting in Indianapolis. The 2013 law, named after Koehl, specifically authorized the exhumation of Anderson.

Special dispensation from Congress authorized the exhumation before 2013;

The remains of another veteran convicted of murder, Russell Wayne Wagner, were removed from Arlington National Cemetery under an order approved by Congress in 2006 as part of a veterans’ bill. Wagner killed an elderly couple in Hagerstown, Md., in 1994.

According to the Post, Anderson was buried with full military honors, but he was never convicted of his crime, because he cheated the state out of justice by killing himself.

Thanks to Chief Tango and David for the tip.

AnotherPat sends us a link to the Miami Herald that reports the Vietnam Veterans of America is suing the Pentagon for their Servicemember Civil Relief Act website complaining that scammers are using the website to gather “private details” of military veterans they can use to gain your confidence and phish for other personally identifying information.

Thomas Barden, a veteran of the Vietnam War who served in the U.S. Air Force for 21 years, found that out firsthand.

The plaintiff in the suit received a call from someone supposedly affiliated with Microsoft in March 2016. Since the caller knew all kinds of personal details about Barden’s military service, Barden thought he was authorized by the government. The scammer convinced him his computer was at risk, and sold him firewall software to protect it. Nine months later, the scammer gained remote access to the computer, locked him out, and threatened to hold his files for ransom unless he paid up.

Worried about data theft, Barden broke the hard drive into pieces and was so concerned about his privacy that he threw them into different trash cans over several days. Since then, he has continued to receive harassing phone calls from the same scammers, causing him “significant anxiety and stress,” according to the lawsuit.

First of all if the government wants something from you, they don’t call you on the phone – they send you a letter. Secondly, most Vietnam veterans aren’t even in the system – only if they had service after 1985. You can click on the link and see for yourself if you’re in the system. You’ll need a complete name, a birthday and dates of service after 1985. The only “private details” information you’ll get from an inquiry is time you spent on active duty and the branch of service – hardly startling information.

Here’s the screen where I entered my information;

And the resulting “private details”;

BFD. Big Whoop. Now you know that I served in the Army for 19 years. I think that’s common knowledge.

“Veterans are disproportionately targeted by scammers and identity thieves,” Vietnam Veterans of America President John Rowan said in a statement.

The Pentagon “is fueling the problem by leaving veterans’ private information easily accessible on the internet (and) has refused to properly secure veterans’ information,” he said. “We are asking a court to order them to do so.”

That’s just ridiculous. We use the website to check on people whose records we get back from the NPRC as “no records available” – we’ve saved ourselves some embarrassment more than a few times.

The bigger problem the VVA should be addressing is Veterans Affairs employees who release PII to unauthorized people. I’ve had that happen more than once. There’s a certain radio show host who had one of his guests get in my VA records and he thinks it’s funny to broadcast my social security number on his radio program – the VA OIG is working on that one.

But this bluster about the SCRA website is a tempest in a teapot. The VVA would do better clearing out the pretenders among their membership.

The Veterans Benefits Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent us their unemployment numbers for July and overall employment of veterans has improved by .2% last month, while the overall national rate improved by .1%. Post-9-11 veterans are doing .2% worse than the national rate.

Women seem to be doing better than men across all categories.

Our friends at Australia and New Zealand Military Imposters (ANZMI) were scrutinized in an article at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) entitled “Website outing people with ‘fake service records’ raises concern in veteran community“. ANZMI does about what we do, I don’t think they use actual government documentation to prove their phonies are liars, but they do track down their service histories. They claim they’ve never been wrong in the hundreds of cases that they’ve exposed.

ANZMI has shared a few of their busts with us from time to time.

The article discusses a single case and they interview a homeless advocate;

He points to one particular case of a man he said suffered major trauma during a period of seven years serving in the Australian Defence Force.

“[He] unfortunately wore one medal on an Anzac Day I believe that he was not entitled to wear,” he said.

“He acknowledged to ANZMI that he’d done the wrong thing, he wrote a very detailed and heartfelt apology.”

ANZMI named him on their website anyway, and Mr Devereux said as a result the man was ostracised by the veteran community.

Mr Devereux said the report also caused him to be fired and kicked out of his accommodation.

“Over the past two years he has contacted me at least five times when he’s been suicidal and indeed ready to take his own life,” he said.

“And invariably the first thing he points to is as soon as you Google his name, the first thing that comes up is the ANZMI post.”

Mr Devereux said he did not want the site shut down, but change was needed.

I’d ask Mr Devereux what changes should be made? Shame and Google are the only weapons that we have in this war against frauds and liars who manipulate political opinions, hapless victims, the telling of history with their lies. Most prosecutors won’t touch a stolen valor case, so the only way we have to stop the fraud is public shaming and Google results. If folks don’t want to be shamed, they should stop pretending.

The ANZMI spokesman responds to the criticism;

Ultimately, the ANZMI said it blamed the subjects of its reports for any fall-out.

“It’s like a person blaming the police for them going to jail,” Mr Trueman said.

“It’s not the actions of ANZMI that have got them in the position that they’re in, it’s their lives and their actions.”

We stand with our brothers at ANZMI