{"id":37631,"date":"2013-09-18T08:04:47","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T12:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37631"},"modified":"2013-09-18T08:05:07","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T12:05:07","slug":"tillman-scholar-embellished-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37631","title":{"rendered":"Glen Lacroix; Tillman Scholar embellished record"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cronkite News Service<\/a> tells the story of Glen Lacroix who was the University of Arizona Veterans Education and Transition Services (VETS) student director and a Pat Tillman Foundation Scholar. Apparently, the former Army Sergeant embellished his career in order to get himself a slot among the Tillman Foundation students.<\/p>\n

The Tillman Foundation canceled his scholarship earlier this year, citing \u201cmisleading and inaccurate\u201d information in his application, and that statements he made about his service \u2013 that he served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was wounded three times there \u2013 are inconsistent with Army records.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the Arizona Daily Star<\/a>;<\/p>\n

In an AP story from 2011, among others, Lacroix gave details of meeting Tillman, a former NFL player turned Army Ranger, while serving with Special Operations in Afghanistan in 2004. He also claimed a role in the Jessica Lynch rescue mission in Iraq in the spring of 2003, and that he was injured in both theaters.<\/p>\n

Lacroix\u2019s awards record states that he is a decorated soldier who served in Korea and Kosovo, including a mission for which he volunteered so a younger soldier could stay home for \u201cfamily stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does not, however, have a record of a Purple Heart. Also missing is the Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to the Cronkite News story;<\/p>\n

Lacroix does have the Global War on Terror Service Medal. However, Army spokesman Raymond Gall said this medal, by definition, indicates service outside the areas for which the expeditionary medal is given, explicitly, therefore, not Iraq or Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The Fort Huachuca-based units Lacroix served in during 2003 and 2004 \u201care training battalions,\u201d Gall said, and that while it\u2019s possible Lacroix \u201cmight have been sent to brief them on something or train them on something,\u201d Gall said \u201che would not have been sent to fight side by side with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is \u201cvery unlikely\u201d that Lacroix went overseas at all in 2003, Gall said, especially directly attached to a Special Operations unit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I talked with Chad Garland, the author of the Cronkite article and he told me that Lacroix hasn’t returned phone calls or email inquiries, so that pretty much tells me that he has nothing to add to the story. Garland continues;<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as if Lacroix\u2019s service record with the Army was less than exemplary. Those records show that Lacroix spent more than 13 years as a soldier, serving almost six years as an infantryman, with duty in Korea and Kosovo, before training as a counterintelligence agent at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., from November 1997 to March 1998.<\/p>\n

Awards records show that Lacroix earned Army Airborne and Air Assault badges. But while Lacroix served with a special forces unit, Gall said, he did not have the \u201ctabs\u201d associated with being a special forces operator.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lacroix was one of 59 Tillman Scholars in 2010. I wonder who got bumped so he could get his scholarship?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cronkite News Service tells the story of Glen Lacroix who was the University of Arizona … Glen Lacroix; Tillman Scholar embellished record<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37631","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=37631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}