{"id":26068,"date":"2011-08-03T09:30:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T13:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=26068"},"modified":"2011-08-03T09:30:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T13:30:31","slug":"its-easy-to-fool-fools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=26068","title":{"rendered":"It’s easy to fool fools"},"content":{"rendered":"

The article started<\/a> with a tear-jerking story about a soldier foresaken by his country…reporters love that shit;<\/p>\n

\u201cSir, I served honorably for this country. I gave blood for this country. And I lived in a hell hole as a prisoner of war for this country,\u201d he told me, fighting back emotions. \u201cBut my government doesn\u2019t care about me, and I\u2019m tired of getting crapped on and forgotten about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pagell, who turns 69 next week, served four tours in Vietnam as a U.S. Army cardiovascular nurse, first arriving in 1961.<\/p>\n

On June 6, 1964, he was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned in a cage that was 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. There, for \u201c26 months, 12 days, 14 hours and 23 minutes,\u201d Pagell lived, cried, urinated, defecated, yelled, laughed and questioned God\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried out to God for his angel of death to come take me home,\u201d he recalled in vivid detail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The angel of death should have taken him at that moment – and the reporter, Jerry Davich, for good measure. He was lying, Jerome Pagell, had never left the country during his service…but that wasn’t what the forged documents he gave Jerry Davich said. The reporter, in his follow-up mea culpa article<\/a> quoted the local VFW commander;<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man should be charged with the Stolen Valor Act and made to apologize to real veterans,\u201d [Earl McDowell, District 1 commander for the state\u2019s Veterans of Foreign Wars] told me afterward.<\/p>\n

McDowell first met Pagell last year to discuss his issues with Veterans Affairs and the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me he had attained the rank of major in the Army, but could only produce a DD-214 that showed he was a private first class,\u201d McDowell said. \u201cHis records do not indicate any overseas time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So how is this the reporter’s fault? He probably didn’t recognize the forgeries as such and probably shouldn’t be expected to spot forgeries, but he checked the DoD’s POW database and couldn’t find Pagell’s name. Jerry Davich accepts responsibility for that, however, Davich was looking for a way to indict Veterans Affairs and the military for screwing this fraud, and no lack of proof was going to stop him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The article started with a tear-jerking story about a soldier foresaken by his country…reporters love that … It’s easy to fool fools<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}