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{"id":78451,"date":"2018-03-25T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=78451"},"modified":"2018-03-25T11:18:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T15:18:16","slug":"russell-warriner-and-altered-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=78451","title":{"rendered":"Russell Warriner and altered history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Bangor Daily News<\/a> printed a story told to them by Russell Warriner who served in Vietnam as a helicopter crew chief and left the service in 1975 as a staff sergeant. He served with Battery C, 2d Battalion, 20th Artillery of the 1st Cavalry Division from October 1967 to June 1969. He was awarded the Purple Heart and 14 Air Medals including one Air Medal with a Valor device.<\/p>\n

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

The problem comes with Bangor Daily News article when he describes an incident where his pilot and co-pilot flew another helicopter while he was left to repair his own craft on February 4th, 1968.<\/p>\n

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In the story, he claims that the co-pilot, Thomas Hooper was killed. According to the National Archives<\/a>, there was no Thomas Hooper killed in Vietnam;<\/p>\n

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He also claims that Robert Connelly was captured and imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton. The historian of NAM POW, Captain Mike McGrath, an actual POW of the Vietnam War, says that there was no Robert Connelly captured and held as a POW or returned in 1973 with Captain McGrath. DPAA agrees;<\/p>\n

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Doing my due diligence, I searched for more of SSG Warriner’s stories and found a 2012 version of the same article<\/a> in which he gives the names of the pilot and copilot as Warrant Officers Ronald Fields and Michael O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n

Checking the NARA and DPAA websites confirms that SSG Warriner merely mis-remembered the names of his crew in his telling of the story for the Bangor Daily Times;<\/p>\n

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

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

Welcome home, SSG Warriner and Warrant Officer O’Connor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"