{"id":61850,"date":"2015-09-15T16:35:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T20:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=61850"},"modified":"2022-01-23T23:34:10","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T04:34:10","slug":"gary-mccollum-virginia-state-senator-called-out-on-military-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=61850","title":{"rendered":"Gary McCollum, Virginia State Senator candidate called out on military service"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Democrat Gary McCollum, a Virginia State Senator candidate in the critical district of Virginia Beach has been challenged on his campaign claims that he’s a currently-serving major in the Army. According to the Virginian Pilot<\/a>, he left the service in 2001.<\/p>\n

“Today Gary was informed that his understanding of his current military classification was not correct, and as a result will be adjusting the characterization of his time in the Army Reserves on the campaign website to reflect that information.”<\/p>\n

McCollum said in a phone interview that he “was as surprised as anyone else. I’m sitting here thinking I’m still in the Reserve.”<\/p>\n

He said he had no contact with the Army Reserve since 2002.<\/p>\n

“I just assumed I was still in the Reserves,” he said. “It was a misrepresentation on our part. We’ve made the fix on the website.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Republican Party of Virginia released a statement<\/a>;<\/p>\n

House of Delegates member Scott Taylor, a former US Navy SEAL and Iraq War veteran, added, “One’s time in Army service is enough. It appears that that the news about Mr. McCollum being separated from the Army since 2001 is true. I’m disappointed and disgusted that McCollum would claim to be in the Army, during war, currying favor in business and politics on the backs of those who really did serve since 9\/11. Those in Virginia Beach and elsewhere do not look kindly on stolen valor.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCollum has also claimed to be a Ranger, and I’m trying to get verification of that now. But it seems to me that he would have changed that website straight away, but that’s not the case<\/a>. I’ve been sitting on the story for a couple of hours and the website still reads “he is currently a major in the Army Reserves”;<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrat Gary McCollum, a Virginia State Senator candidate in the critical district of Virginia Beach has … Gary McCollum, Virginia State Senator candidate called out on military service<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61850","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=61850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}