{"id":87255,"date":"2019-05-21T09:39:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T13:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=87255"},"modified":"2019-05-21T18:46:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T22:46:36","slug":"straightening-the-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=87255","title":{"rendered":"Straightening the Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is an interesting story and it was a challenge for how to present it, so I’ll preface it by explaining what happened.<\/p>\n

Military Phony had been asked to look into a news article published by The Mountaineer.\u00a0 The story involved a man by the name of Billy Messer<\/a> who claimed he survived alone in the jungles of Vietnam during the war by eating monkey meat and rattlesnakes.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not a wildlife biologist but I don’t think that rattlesnakes are indigenous to Vietnam, but then again pythons are not indigenous to Florida.<\/p>\n

Oh, I forgot to mention that Messer claimed he was a K-9 handler while in the bush and had to shoot his own dog, a task required of all K-9 handlers, so as to not bring diseases back to the states.<\/p>\n

Eating monkey meat and rattlesnakes may rank up there with drinking your own pee, but some of you with jungle training may be able to elaborate.<\/p>\n

A few photos included in this article survived the article being pulled. Messer, who looks like Santa Claus, often adopts that persona around Christmas time.<\/p>\n

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In another unrelated story about county veterans, Bill Messer spoke in regard to Vietnam veterans coming home.<\/p>\n

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SOURCE: https:\/\/wlos.com\/news\/local\/haywood-county-recognizes-vietnam-vets<\/a><\/p>\n

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Anyway, Military Phony took on the case and ordered the FOIA on Bill Messer.\u00a0 In the meantime, Mountaineer had pulled the story and it was no longer available on their website, but MP was able to pull it from a newspaper archive.<\/p>\n

Still awaiting FOIA results and just this morning, the Mountaineer publishes an op-ed titled “Setting the Record Straight<\/strong><\/a>” which talks about inconsistencies in the story.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the Stolen Valor community was not able to lead with the story but on the other hand – the news organization correcting their own story without being called out is not only refreshing, but how it should be.<\/p>\n

I wish other news organizations would follow suit.<\/p>\n

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Alone in the Jungles of Vietnam<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The issues highlighted to us about the original article are as follows:<\/p>\n

\n
” * His claims he was in the jungle alone for months at a time with just a dog, having to kill and eat monkeys and snakes.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * His claims he was put into Special Forces the day he enlisted based just on test scores, and sent directly to Special Forces training.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * The cliche stories of being spit on when his plane landed back in the US and of shooting a kid.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * His award documents shown are for a PFC who was in 1st Cav, not an NCO in Special Forces.\u00a0 Assuming they are legit.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * The award in the shadow box he claims was presented by Jimmy Carter at the White House is actually a 1989 White House Christmas Ornament. \u00a0(It even says 1989 on the scroll on the bottom.)<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * His inability to actually call the other awards in his shadow box by the correct names in the video<\/div>\n
\u00a0 * Among other things.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Although these concerns raised a few eyebrows, MP is still trying to confirm and awaiting on the NPRC results – hopefully, back today or tomorrow.<\/div>\n
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FOIA RESULTS ARE BACK<\/strong><\/div>\n
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an interesting story and it was a challenge for how to present it, so … Straightening the Record<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":87256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359],"tags":[338],"class_list":["post-87255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army","tag-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87255","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\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87287,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87255\/revisions\/87287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}