{"id":56274,"date":"2014-11-11T07:45:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T12:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56274"},"modified":"2014-11-11T18:51:52","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T23:51:52","slug":"marvin-whiteacre-updated-foia-reply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56274","title":{"rendered":"Marvin Whiteacre – The Updated FOIA Reply"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marvin<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Remember Marvin Whiteacre<\/a>? The guy in Florida who made all kinds of outrageous claims (including being an \u201coff-the-books SEAL\u201d even though he was a Marine) and wore a bunch of badges and combat decorations until Don Shipley nailed him?<\/a><\/p>\n

I filed a FOIA and got a summary of his military records from NPRC about 6 months ago; Jonn posted it in this follow-up article<\/a>. But as commenters noted at the time, the FOIA reply seemed incomplete. So I said I\u2019d file a second FOIA<\/a> asking for the missing info.<\/p>\n

It took quite a while, but NPRC finally \u201canswered the mail\u201d. The new FOIA reply appears to be reasonably complete, and it fills in the gaps.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a number of pages, so I\u2019m not going to post a bunch of screen captures.\u00a0 A PDF version of the FOIA reply can be found here<\/a>; you\u2019ll need either Adobe Reader or Acrobat to view it.\u00a0 Yeah, it’s dated 3 September – but it wasn’t postmarked until 31 October for some reason.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n

Turns out the guy actually had a reasonable career. He did serve honorably in Desert Storm; he even served in combat (CAR); and he participated in relief efforts following with Hurricane Andrew (HSM). He doesn\u2019t seem to have been a sh!tbag, either; he got 2 or 3 Meritorious Masts and best I can tell seems to have received 4 GCMs in 13 \u00bd years. I\u2019m not terribly good with \u201cMarine-speak\u201d for awards, but it looks like he might have a couple of NAMs as well. He also has 3 or 4 unit awards plus some routine campaign\/service medals and ribbons associated with his assignments and service. They\u2019re on the last 2 pages of the FOIA reply.<\/p>\n

All in all, the guy had an honorable if maybe unspectacular career.<\/p>\n

But no \u2013 best I can tell, no Force Recon; no SEAL training; no BSM; no Drill Sergeant assignment; no Purple Heart. Just a \u201cplain vanilla\u201d career.<\/p>\n

My guess after looking at what seems to be his complete record of assignments and awards is that he was a career Sergeant, and got caught up in the mid-1990s reductions. It looks to me like he never made Staff Sergeant, hit HYT (RCP for us Army-types) for Sergeant, and got discharged after serving a few days over 13 years 6 months. At that point, it looks as if he transitioned to the IRR for about 3 more years, then was discharged. But I could easily be wrong.<\/p>\n

Guys like this perplex the hell out of me. He had an honorable if unspectacular career, served his nation in combat \u2013 then had to go and p!ss all over that honorable career by lying through his teeth about his service, apparently in an attempt to make people think he was some kind of Rambo character. I\u2019lL nEvEr UnDeRsTaNd WhY sOmE iGnOrAnT dIpStIcKs Do S!Ht LiKe ThAt.<\/p>\n

Still, to Whiteacre\u2019s credit he did actually come clean and own up to his sh!tbaggery when Shipley nailed him; that\u2019s more than you can say about most. And he does seem to have stayed clean since \u2013 even though it\u2019s only been about 6 months. Let\u2019s hope he stays clean.<\/p>\n

I just wanted to post this update for completeness.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS:\u00a0 Completely different subject.\u00a0 To all who\u2019re reading this who’ve been or are in uniform, regardless of where or when – a very happy Veterans Day from the road, my brothers- and sisters-in-arms.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember Marvin Whiteacre? The guy in Florida who made all kinds of outrageous claims (including being … Marvin Whiteacre – The Updated FOIA Reply<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":46615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56274","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\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}