Busting Fake War Heroes (Note that fake federal documents are standard stock-in-trade for charlatans. For relevance to this newsgroup, see ronthewarhero.org I think this is also relevant because Scientology has recently begun to feign patriotism as a marketing feature in its most recent recruitment effort.)

from this month's Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine:

Exposing the 'Rambo Wannabes' by Tim Dyhouse What a coup for the exclusive, private women's college in South Hadley, Mass. One of its history professors, Josph Ellis, had won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and garnered the school national publicity and credit for providing students a real istic view through his tales of combat in Vietnam.

The fact that Ellis claimed to have transformed himself into an anti-war protester after returning home from duty as a paratrooper and platoon leader also sat well with the academic elites at Mount Holyoke College.

The problem is the only thing real about Ellis' service in Vietnam was, well, nothing.

Records show that while Ellis did serve in the Army, he was enrolled in graduate school at Yale from 1965 through 1969. His three years on active duty, from 1969 to 1972, were spent teaching history at West Point. When confronted with the truth earlier this summer, Ellis responded with a half-hearted apology.

"Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made," Ellis said in July. "I deeply regret having let stand and later confirming the assumption that I went to Vietnam. For this and any other distortions about my personal life, I want to apologize to my family, friends, colleagues and students.

Beyond that circle, however, I shall have not further comment."

Ellis had arrogantly thumbed his nose at genuine Vietnam War veterans -- those he had directly insulted with his pathetic fabrications. That type of disregard enrages veterans and those who support them.

"They [phony veterans] steal the honor, but not the pain and memories of those who actually did serve in combat," said Mary Schantag, who, along with her husband, Chuck, hunt down fake POW's and list their sorry stories on the Web site www.pownetwork.org.
Chuck, who earned a Purple Heart on Jan. 31, 1968, while serving with I Co., 3rd Bn., 5th Marines, near Phu Loc, Vietnam, said his mission of exposing phony POWs begain in 1998 while setting out to write biographies of all Vietnam War POWs.

"So far, we've busted more phony POWs than there were real POWs in the Vietnam War," he said. "This takes up a lot of our time. It is a good 40-hour-a-week job."

[...] 'CLASSIFIED' IS 'BS' Ever notice how a lie about wartime service always includes dangerous "clandestine operations" that often end horribly, yet conveniently, with "my whole squad was massacred but me"? "Rambo-wannabes" then follow that with the predictable excuse that they can't divulge details of their covert missions because they are "top-secret."

"They claim they can't tell you about it because what they did is 'classified,'" according to the Medal of Honor Web site. "BS! MOH citations are public records and are never classified. If the mission a true MOH recipient was on is classified, the citation is written in unclassified terms."

But phonies don't lie about being stateside supply clerks or truck drivers (jobs that lack combat "glory"). They often use forged federal documents and well-rehearsed fables that place them in the "chaos" of battle, many times performing superhuman heroic feats. Experienced phony busters, though, know the telltale signs of lies. Usually it is the boasting itself -- something real heroes almost never do.

"I believe anyone who claims 'covert' actions or 'secret missions' should be required to provide solid documentation of their service," wrote Glenna Whitley in [the book] "Stolen Valor," which she co-authored with B.G.

Burkett, a former ordnance officer and "materiel readiness expediter"

with B Co., 7th Combat Support Bn., 199th Light Inf. Bde., based at Camp Frenzell-Jones near Bien Hoa in 1968-69. "I believe if other reporters insisted on this, many of the phonies would reserve their war stories for th e neighborhood bars."

SINISTER AGENDAS Many who feel compelled to lie about their war service are low-level losers with inferiority complexes. As Burkett noted in "Stolen Valor,"

"Why the deceivers lie probably emerges from deep feelings of inadequacy, the need to be seen as a man's man, bigg er than life."

Regaling those around them with imagined combat exploits often goes hand-in-hand with lies about academic, sporting or professional accomplishments. The lies, it seems, are pathetic methods of boosting their insignificant lives.

But while barroom tales are one thing, the lies of those like Ellis represent a more sinister agenda. "Knowingly being dishonest is just as great an act of moral turpitude as being knowingly dishonest or inaccurate in your written work," said David Garro w, Pulitzer Prizewinning professor at Emory University.

[...] Hunters of wannabe heroes don't accept the imposters' behavior as normal.

They are more than glad to not only pass judgmnet but condemn those they say dishonor America's veterans. And the media and the public are beginning to pay attention. The Ellis story is just the latest in a string of high-profile exposures in the last few years.

Burkett, who says he's sold some 32,000 copies of "Stolen Valor" and whom the New York Times has called a "clearinghouse of information on the subject" of phony veterans, says he has been interviewed about 45 times on the Ellis subject alone since the story broke.

But will heightened publicity thwart future Rambo wannabes from treading on the memories of GIs who made the supreme sacrifice? And will those who support imposters quit accepting their lies because "it's something we all do"?

"It comes down to what we think of our veterans and our people still in uniform," Minami wrote. "The severity of the punishment we levy against military impostors and bogus heroes says much about the esteem in which we hold military men and women."

For more information (including how to expose a phony veteran), simple access the Web sites of the following groups:

www.cyberseals.org www.stolenvalor.com www.phonyveterans.com www.pownetwork.org or http://members.home.net/mohmedals/shame.htm --- The following are quotes from the thesis webbed at http://www.xenu.net/archive/thesis/cisar-home.html 23. Volume 1 of 3; Section 1, General Information; Part B, The War, item 11 HCO Executive Letter of 6 October 1965 The Melbourne Enquiry into Scientology
"Well, Australia is young. In 1942 as the senior US naval officer in Northern Australia by a fluke of fate I helped save them from the Japanese. For the sake of Scientologists there, I will go on helping them. They have a lot to learn."
70. Volume 2 of 3; Section 2, C.I.C.; Part A, Reports and Filing, item 51 [hand-written] LRH COMM W.US [typed] Despatch from LRH Received at Saint Hill 22.4.67 Secret Telex Cable & Radio Code [...] "When you have had the close calls I have had in intelligence through security failures you begin to believe there is something on the subject. I was once in 1940 ordered out on a secret mission by the U.S. to a hostile foreign land with whom we were not yet at war. It was vital to mask my purpose there. It would have been fatal had I been known to have been a naval officer. On a hunch I didn't leave at once and the following day the U.S. sent a letter to me that had I left would have been forwarde d to me in that land, addressing me with full rank and title, informing me to wear white cap covers after April 15th in Washington. Had I departed, that letter, following me, would have sentenced me to death before a firing squad!"

--- Joe Cisar, Xenu apologist What tripped Scientology's trigger?

http://www.innernet.net/joecisar/trip0000.htm Media, read what made me Scientology Public Enemy nbr. 46 http://www.xenu.net/archive/thesis/cisar-home.html

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