{"id":63153,"date":"2015-12-08T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=63153"},"modified":"2022-01-23T23:31:52","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T04:31:52","slug":"albert-ruiz-phony-combat-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=63153","title":{"rendered":"Albert Ruiz; phony combat veteran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"newsnet-photo-fid-2385161\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Someone sent us the story of this Albert “Bert” Ruiz<\/a> who was an American Legion post commander in Pleasantvillle, New York. From his records, it looks as if he was completely qualified for membership and leadership in the American Legion by his actual service as a Marine in Vietnam. But the DD214 that he filed with the county differs somewhat from his actual service. Here’s that DD214;<\/p>\n

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

In the article linked above, the reporter says that Ruiz did two tours of Vietnam, but since he was in the Marines for two years of active service, that’s impossible, since tours of Vetnam were about 12 months, but Ruiz did, in fact do 14 months in Vietnam from February 1970 to April, 1971. He was in Headquarters Company of Headquarters Battalion 3\/4 Marines in the 3rd Marine Division and assigned as an “Intel Man”.<\/p>\n

The DD214 says that he earned a Combat Action Ribbon, but the National Personnel Records Center disagrees. There is also a “Navy Accomodation Medal with Combat “V””, It’s called a “Navy and Marine Commendation Medal” and there isn’t one on the FOIA report.<\/p>\n

\"Albert<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Albert<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Overall and compared to some of our phonies, this is peanuts, however, Bert here claims that he served in actual armed combat with the enemy, which he didn’t, and he claims that he displayed some level of valor in that action, which he didn’t. It was his NCOIC in Vietnam who reported this discrepancy in Ruiz’ records, so I have to take into consideration the feelings of a Vietnam veteran who didn’t embellish his service in that war. If you were an “Intel Man” in Vietnam, be proud of the fact that you served when so many of your generation wouldn’t.<\/p>\n

ADDED:<\/strong> I just got a call from Mr. Ruiz and he admitted that he altered his DD214 46 years ago and, to quote him “It’s been an albatross around my neck.” He thanked us for finally bringing this to light and sounded really contrite. And a genuinely nice guy. He promised us a visit later tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone sent us the story of this Albert “Bert” Ruiz who was an American Legion post … Albert Ruiz; phony combat veteran<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63153","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\/63153","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=63153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}