{"id":35749,"date":"2013-05-21T09:42:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T13:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35749"},"modified":"2014-09-09T12:09:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T16:09:30","slug":"an-apology-to-royston-edward-potter-self-acknowledged-polygamist-and-reservist-extraordinaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35749","title":{"rendered":"An Apology to Royston Edward Potter, Self-Acknowledged Polygamist and Reservist Extraordinaire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lest you forget who Royston Potter is, here he is talking about his awesome military records:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j4tYv3Vxq0E?list=UUEo9S5mMQ7z4n7ZiuUoBFRw\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This came to the fore because he believes that the Boston Bombing was perpetrated by unknown special operators:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Pmbn1uSS-G4?list=UUEo9S5mMQ7z4n7ZiuUoBFRw\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35253\">In a previous article<\/a>, we at This Ain\u2019t Hell have questioned the military background and credentials of Royston Edward Potter.\u00a0 Due to his admitted background as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.people.com\/people\/archive\/article\/0,,20086421,00.html\">a self-acknowledged polygamist who went public<\/a>, was fired from his job as a police officer as a result, and even <a href=\"http:\/\/openjurist.org\/760\/f2d\/1065\/potter-v-murray-city-g-m-l\">took the State of Utah to Federal court in a challenge to Utah\u2019s bigamy laws<\/a> (where he lost), we were reluctant to believe that he actually was a military retiree.<\/p>\n<p>We were wrong.\u00a0 We have received a reply to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), in Saint Louis, Missouri.\u00a0 They are the official repository for all records of Federal military service.\u00a0 If the records aren&#8217;t there, well, there&#8217;s no record of it happening &#8211; so it probably didn&#8217;t happen in Federal military service.<\/p>\n<p>We wish to state, for the record, that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/POTTER_Royston_Edward_FOIA-R_NPRC_20130509.pdf\">per information releasable under the FOIA from your official records on file at NPRC<\/a>, Royston Edward Potter is indeed a retired LTC, US Army Reserve.\u00a0 And his career is simply amazing.<\/p>\n<p>In 28 years combined Active and Reserve Component service, according to his official military records on file at NPRC, he even received medals.\u00a0 He has the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal; the National Defense Service Medal, for serving on Active Duty after 11 September 2001; the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, for a tour in Bosnia (the same tour for which he received the National Defense Service Medal); and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with Bronze Hourglass and \u201cM-device\u201d, also received for his tour in Bosnia (we presume the first listing for the AFRM on his FOIA reply indicates receipt of the medal for performing 10 years of qualifying Reserve Component service in a 12 year period).\u00a0 He also rates the Army Reserve Components Overseas Ribbon \u2013 indicating he performed Reserve training in an overseas location, probably Japan, and the Army Service Ribbon.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it.\u00a0 Per his official records, Potter received <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">absolutely no personal decorations for merit or valor whatsoever<\/span>, not even an Army or Joint Achievement Medal.\u00a0 All items on his massive and hugely impressive rack of six (6) total ribbons are for service vice meritorious performance or valor \u2013 what one might call \u201cbeen there\u201d badges, were one inclined to do use that term.<\/p>\n<p>Yea, verily, that is correct:\u00a0 Royston Edward Potter\u2019s highest decoration is the Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal.\u00a0 That is the Army Reserve and Army National Guard rough equivalent of the Good Conduct Medal for the Selected Reserve, except that officers are also eligible to receive it.\u00a0 Receiving it requires nothing more than serving in a Troop Program Unit (TPU) or Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) position for either 3 or 4 consecutive years (depending on the date), provided said years qualify for Reserve Retirement and the soldier\u2019s disciplinary record is clean.\u00a0 See paragraphs 4-14 and 4-18 of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apd.army.mil\/pdffiles\/r600_8_22.pdf\">AR 600-8-22<\/a> for the specific eligibility criteria.<\/p>\n<p>In our experience, this may be a rare if not singular and unique achievement.\u00a0 I have personally never before heard of anyone retiring after a 28-year career with no personal decorations whatsoever &#8211; not even an Achievement Medal.\u00a0 And certainly not one who retired at the exalted rank of Lieutenant Colonel!<\/p>\n<p>We therefore humbly beg your forgiveness, Royston Edward Potter &#8211; oh most exalted and talented retired LTC with no decorations for merit or valor and no deployments to combat or a <i>bona fide<\/i> designated combat zone.\u00a0 (Bosnia was designated by Congress as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uac\/Combat-Zones\">Qualified Hazardous Duty Area, to be treated as if it were a combat zone, by PL 104-117<\/a>; it was never designated a Combat Zone by DoD.)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And now, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/paean\">we shall paean<\/a> (audio <a href=\"http:\/\/static.sfdict.com\/dictstatic\/dictionary\/audio\/luna\/P00\/P0012300.mp3\">here<\/a>) the details of your greatness.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We paean\u00a0your ability to serve in such an arduous, dangerous, and austere location as Fort Ord, California, as your first permanent duty assignment as a 2LT.\u00a0 The Monterrey Peninsula is truly a hellish place, and we laud your ability to tolerate such a hellhole for a first PCS assignment.<\/li>\n<li>As a budding young polygamist extremely interested in chasing tail and spreading your seed, we\u00a0paean your ability to wrangle a transfer to Tooele Army Depot, UT.\u00a0 The horror \u2013 such a remote and again hellish location, in country that was so immensely and uniformly hostile to your chosen way of life.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0\u00a0paean\u00a0your ability <a href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/newspapers?id=sNdSAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=_X8DAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=5039,2958429&amp;dq=royston+potter&amp;hl=en\">to be involved in an incident involving a fake bomb found on Tooele Army Depot<\/a> \u00a0(the article is on pages B1 and B5) less than a year before you were released from active duty (REFRAD) on completing your initial post-ROTC Active Duty Service Obligation (ADSO).<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your leaving active duty after exactly completing the ADSO associated with your ROTC scholarship at BYU.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0\u00a0paean\u00a0your ability to tolerate over 3 1\/2 long and arduous years on active duty as a Military Police officer during peacetime at the above hardship duty locations in CONUS between Oct 1976 and July 1980.\u00a0 And we\u00a0paean your selfless service and consideration for others in allowing <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">all personal decorations and medals awarded in the entire US Army during that period<\/span> to be awarded to others, taking none for yourself.<\/li>\n<li>We laud your desire to continue service, as evidenced by your apparent entry into a Reserve Component unit (likely National Guard) on your REFRAD.\u00a0 And we <a href=\"http:\/\/static.sfdict.com\/dictstatic\/dictionary\/audio\/luna\/P00\/P0012300.mp3\">paean<\/a> your ability to find a unit that would overlook the fact <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Royston2.jpg\">that your very publicly-claimed status as a polygamist<\/a> was at the time a crime under the laws of every state in the US.\u00a0 And yes, we\u2019re relatively sure that the guy in that photo is indeed the same person; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Royston-3.jpg\">in this photo<\/a>, the individual from the above 1983 photo is compared side by side with a photo from Potter\u2019s current web site.\u00a0 Plus, there\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.mormonletters.org\/yaf_postst346_Potter-The-Crimson-Thread.aspx\">this from one Jeffrey Needle of the \u201cAssociation of Mormon Letters<\/a>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean you for your ability to withstand the horror of being fired from your job as a police officer \u2013 an individual responsible for enforcing the law &#8211; when it <a href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/newspapers?nid=336&amp;dat=19821208&amp;id=9jhTAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=woMDAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=7169,2154056\">was discovered by your employer that\u00a0 you were yourself openly violating Utah\u2019s bigamy laws<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>We paean you having the chutzpah to publicly declare that you were a polygamist \u2013 and thus a self-admitted criminal under the laws of the State of Utah \u2013 in 1983.\u00a0 We further paean your decision to take the State of Utah to Federal court in a challenge of these laws.\u00a0 We\u00a0paean your ability to avoid prosecution for these publicly-admitted violations of the laws of the State of Utah.\u00a0 And we truly paean your decision to attempt to make a buck from this losing battle with the laws of the State of Utah by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s?ie=UTF8&amp;field-author=Royston%20Potter&amp;page=1&amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ARoyston%20Potter\">writing apparently not one but two books about yourself<\/a>:\u00a0 your 1986 book, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">An Offender For a Word: The Polygamy Case of Royston Potter vs. Murray City, et. Al<\/span>, and your 1996 book, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">I Wed Three Wives<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability to find a Reserve or National Guard unit that was so clueless that it missed all of your legal troubles and did not give you the proverbial \u201cbum\u2019s rush\u201d.\u00a0 Or, alternatively, we paean your ability to find a unit that knew, but didn\u2019t give a damn \u2013 or perhaps your ability to find a significant <i>patron<\/i> who provided you protection and proverbial \u201ctop cover\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/POTTER_CGSC_Yearbook_Photo.jpg\">attend resident US Command and General Staff College<\/a>, even though that does not appear in your official military records as Federal active duty military service. \u00a0\u00a0(Completion of the school itself is listed in your records at NPRC, however.)\u00a0 We suspect we should paean you for convincing a state to send you to CGSC on state vice Federal active duty as a member of the National Guard.\u00a0 We\u2019re still waiting for an answer on that one.\u00a0 Maybe the answer will be in the reply to one of several National Guard FOIAs submitted about you but for which we have not yet received a reply.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability\u00a0 to find what appear to be Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) assignments in non-leadership staff positions at USSOUTHCOM and US Forces Japan (see the last page of the FOIA reply provided by NPRC that\u2019s linked above).\u00a0 And we laud your ability to wrangle at least one annual training tour with each.\u00a0 Hey, if you want to travel and see the world \u2013 why not let Uncle Sam pay for it?\u00a0\u00a0 Especially since such assignments are generally duty at a major HQ, presumably in garrison and\/or with non-availability and per diem, in a place that often would cost \u201cbig bucks\u201d if you went there on your own nickel.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability to talk your way into an Intel Officer staff assignment at SOUTCOM, even though the information received from NPRC linked above shows no formal military education as an Intelligence Officer.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability (and luck) to have been considered and selected by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">the last US Army Reserve LTC board (FY 1996 APL, if we\u2019ve done the year conversions correctly) operating under the old USAR promotion criteria of \u201cfully qualified\u2019<\/span> vice the \u201cbest qualified\u201d criteria that were used the following and subsequent years.\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/thomas.loc.gov\/home\/nomis.html\">Follow this link<\/a>, select 104th Congress, and\u00a0 enter \u201cPN924-104\u201d \u2013 without quotes \u2013 as the search term). \u00a0Under \u201cfully qualified\u201d selection criteria, you really didn\u2019t need to sweat being promoted.\u00a0 You were educationally qualified (50% CGSC completion was the educational requirement, which was the normal \u201cbiggie\u201d that prevented promotion under those criteria &#8211; and you\u2019d completed the whole course).\u00a0 So barring severe derogatory information in your file you were a virtual \u201cshoo-in\u201d for selection.<\/li>\n<li>We commend your willingness to serve again on active duty after 9\/11.\u00a0 And we\u00a0paean your volunteering for safe duty in Bosnia in late 2001 \u2013 early 2002 (see the linked FOIA response) vice at other times, with units slated for deployment to Iraq, Afghanistan , or other locations in SWA in support of either of those conflicts.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability to manage to serve less than 6 months total on active duty when you went to Bosnia in 2001-2002.\u00a0 And we really paean the fact that (given the time taken by pre-deployment training, post-deployment out-processing, and terminal leave) you likely served less than 5 months in-country.<\/li>\n<li>We also\u00a0paean your selfless nature in leaving Bosnia without an end-of-tour award, leaving all of those to be given to others.\u00a0 Per your official records on file at NPRC, all you appear to have received for your efforts there was the AFEM awarded to all who served there 30 days or more, the NDSM for serving on active duty, and the letter \u201cM\u201d to put on your AFRM.\u00a0 Plus pay, allowances, tax breaks, and an OER, of course.<\/li>\n<li>We\u00a0paean your ability to convince the gullible fools at InfoWars &#8211; and many naive readers of that loony-bin site &#8211; that you are some kind of \u201csecret squirrel military expert\u201d.\u00a0 Not many persons alive could parlay a 28-year career with absolutely no documented deployments to <i>bona fide<\/i> combat (or even to any locations having active hostilities) \u2013 or even anything that appears to be truly meaningful duty &#8211; that they were some form of military \u201csavant\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>We truly want to\u00a0paean your literary, acting, and directing abilities.\u00a0 Not many persons could write a book so incomprehensibly bad \u2013 and which makes such a bizarre interpretation of the Bible \u2013 that even Bible-thumping fundamentalists laugh at it vice getting angry, then make a movie about same that was even worse and even more laughable.\u00a0 (Yes, we&#8217;re talking about <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Crimson-Thread-Struggle-Historical\/dp\/1419625179\">The Crimson Thread<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 We don\u2019t, however, suggest you give Mohammed and the Koran the same treatment in some future book or film as you did Jesus of Nazareth and the Bible.\u00a0 Muslim fundamentalists reputedly have little or no sense of humor about such things).<\/li>\n<li>We truly\u00a0paean your ability create your own YouTube channel with at least 10 regular viewers who actually think you are some type of military expert based solely on a 28-year military career that, per information received from your Federal records on-file at NPRC, had no combat-zone service whatsoever.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0We paean your video <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ve3Utc0QQt8\">here, which makes claims of wartime service<\/a>.\u00a0 And we also paean your video <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j4tYv3Vxq0E\">here, where you claim to have provided documents<\/a> to an Internet personality \u2013 specifically, a DD214 and a set of orders purporting to show an assignment to the Pentagon \u2013 as evidence that you are a highly-cleared military expert of some sort.\u00a0 (We most humbly suggest that releasing PII-redacted versions of these documents would be a good idea to silence your critics.)\u00a0<i> <\/i><\/li>\n<li>\u00a0But most of all, we paean your ability to serve stealthily 28 years in the Army (active and reserve), apparently do nothing noteworthy, apparently receive absolutely no decorations for merit or valor, and <i><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">still<\/span><\/i> \u201cwork the system\u201d to the extent that you both attended CGSC in residence and got the 20 \u201cgood\u201d years you needed to qualify for retirement from the USAR and receive that thoroughly well deserved USAR pension.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In summary<i>:\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.feelnumb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/1857546_logo.jpg\">we oh so truly want to paean you<\/a><\/i>, oh Royston Edward Potter.\u00a0 We bow down before you, and beg your forgiveness. We urge all readers of this website to <a href=\"http:\/\/static.sfdict.com\/dictstatic\/dictionary\/audio\/luna\/P00\/P0012300.mp3\">paean<\/a> you, and we promise to paean you even more on receipt of the replies to the various National Guard FOIAs concerning you that are currently outstanding if those replies indicate that would be apropos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lest you forget who Royston Potter is, here he is talking about his awesome military records: &hellip; <a title=\"An Apology to Royston Edward Potter, Self-Acknowledged Polygamist and Reservist Extraordinaire\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35749\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An Apology to Royston Edward Potter, Self-Acknowledged Polygamist and Reservist Extraordinaire<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":629,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749","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\/629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88462,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749\/revisions\/88462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}