Phony POW in Madison County, Ohio
I got this article about twelve times in my inbox this morning and although it was meant for Uncle Jimbo, I figured I’d write a little something. The Madison Press‘ Sarah Thompson tries to write a touching tribute to veterans on Memorial Day, but she ends up getting scammed by a pretender named Eugene Reed;
As he described his experiences to me, I observed Reed’s mannerisms. His hand would tremble slightly when he mentioned a particularly uncomfortable subject. His eyes would brim with tears, and yet, he continued in detail.
“I did’t used to be able to talk about it,” he said.
Reed said the conventional wisdom was if a soldier survived through the first 30 days of combat, “you’d be OK.” Most men didn’t make it through the first 10 if they were brand new. He said if a soldier survived with three months left in his time of service, they would likely make it home.
“A lot of people got killed with only two or three days left,” Reed said.
His description of the war reminded me of the board game Clue. He wasn’t sure who he could trust — including women and children.
“You’d have a little kid come up and throw up a hand grenade. That made him a hero to kill two or three GIs. You learned not to trust anyone that approached you when you were in a group,” he said. “We had people walk up on us with grenades or kill you when they shine your shoe.”
Reed also spent time as a prisoner of war. His account was frightening and captivating.
“I was a prisoner of war for thee months,” he said softly. “I was 20 and we went into Cambodia. We were up in a tree. We’d followed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regulars, gathering information.
“All the sudden, I felt something cold in my ear. It was a P-10 pistol. Now, I speak fluently North and South Vietnamese. He told me, ‘You can either killroy (surrender) or I’ll blow your brains out.’”
Reed pantomimed raising his hands in the air, laughing.
“I said, ‘Yes, sir.’” he said. “We were on an ounce of rice a day. We had to drink nasty water. They had 13 guards on us and they was moving us north. Every night we’d go in and they’d tie us to a tree. They sat around the camp fire and take their AKs and click them at you. You didn’t know if it was going to be a real thing or not.
“The night we escaped, I heard them talking. They were going to kill us,” he said.
Reed devised a plan. When the guards released him to relieve himself, Reed waited until the guard turned his back. Then, he sprang into action.
“I grabbed him and broke his neck; grabbed his AK-47 and killed the rest of them. One of them got away,” Reed said. “We were on the run for 10 days through the jungle without our boots.”
When they made their way to the Marine stronghold in Pleiku, Vietnam, Reed and his friend were nearly killed by their fellow Americans. There was some confusion because the two men were not wearing dog tags.
“I had a top secret clearance for 14 years. I was not allowed to wear dog tags because if I got caught, I wasn’t there,” he said.
The first thing that I caught reading this story was how the enemy soldier told him to “killroy”. I never spent a day in Vietnam, but I know the term for surrender was “chu-hoy”, not fricken “kilroy“. And I know the term because I hung out with REAL Vietnam veterans.
And if he was on a recon, hiding in the jungle and he was some kind of super soldier, how was his first sense of another soldier a cold pistol barrel at his neck? Were the Viet Cong ninjas or ghosts?
Not allowed to wear dog tags, huh? In Vietnam? While we were fighting a war there? Why? Because the Army was afraid the Vietnamese might discover we have troops there? Dumbass.
The media needs to start checking itself – it’s criminal the way they let themselves be scammed. That Baum fella who responded to TSO the other day claimed that it’s not their fault because they’re just babes in the woods – are they blaming us then? If we can’t trust them to check on few old story-telling fools, how can we trust them to report on presidential candidates or healthcare issues or a whole litany of other things we depend on them to report to us?
This is Journalism 101 – make sure your sources are who they say they are, f’pete’s sake.
Our friends at POW Net have verified the clown was never a POW. If the Madison Press takes the article down, POW Net has a .pdf copy of it here. I’m sure someone is tracking down Reed’s military records now to see if the buffoon was even in the service.
Thanks to everyone who sent me a copy of it.
Category: Phony soldiers
So many holes in that story. You would think, that they would at least read up a bit on their make-believe stories before they try to sell them.
“I speak North and South Vietnamese…”
I was not aware there were two different languages.
Another thing to spike your blood pressure, I was talking to one of my comrades down at the VFW post today and he told me his brother who was handing out Buddy Poppies for the Milton Wa post, had his collection jar stolen. One of the other vets tried to tackle him but the perp got away and the vet had to get treated for injuries.
They’re not, although a native speaker can tell the difference. Much like a southerner from Bama sounds like to a Michigander. Some words and some slang are different. What really gets me is how the press always seems to get the story wrong. I was in the A.F. so that is my realm of knowledge and anything I’ve ever known about somethng that happened, the press has ALWAYS gotten some basic facts wrong. For instance, some years ago, a C-130 crashed. The headline in our local paper read, “Air Force Jet Crashes.” Even a paratrooper would know that a C-130 is not a jet.Sorry paratroopers! Yesterday, our local paper did a story on the Doolittle Raid. There was a photo of two men and a B-25 on the front page with a caption reading,”Historian Carroll Glines, Lt.Col.Richard Cole (who was Doolittle’s copilot)stand in front of a B-25B Mitchel bomber that hit military targets in Japan in 1942 during WWII.”Anyone with any knowledge of the Doolittle Raid knows that all the bombers were lost. That airplane cound not have bombed Japan in 1942. The press never, ever bothers to check basic facts. It’s no wonder they get the more difficult things wrong.
So they where claiming that was a actual B-25 from the mission or referring to the bomber used. Also do not forget that they recovered a lost P-38 Lighting in Iceland/Greenland. So it COULD be possible that one of those bombers could have been recovered.
Not only could the VC sneak up on our supersoldiers, but apparently they could hover soundlessly as he was IN A FUCKING TREE at the time.
This reporter is an idiot. You don’t need to no anything about the military, just a cursory knowledge of FUCKING GRAVITY will suffice…
Sporkmaster,
The caption implies that the bomber in the photo bombed Japan in 1942. The only bombers that bombed Japan in 1942 were the ones from the Doolittle Raid. 15 of the 16 were lost, mostly in China. One landed in Russia and was never given back to us. the bomber in the photo is from the Yankee Air Museum here in Michigan and may well have bombed Japan. But not in 1942.
Okay, so I know I am supposed to be hopping mad at the liberal media and drink y’all’s cool aid. But I dont see any actual documentation that reed was not a POW aside from the POW net folks saying so. Where is the documentation?
I agree there a lot of holes in the story and he may be a fake. But where is the proof? Without it, you guys are just as bad as the “leftists” you like to demonize.
Jonn wrote: Who said anything about “the liberal media” or “leftists”? Um…you.
Please send us proof that you didn’t rob any banks last year.
John,
Okay smart ass YOU can salandxer a veteran (or potential veteran) without doing a FOIA request or getting a comment from the DOD or VA, but anyone else who does that incurs your wrath.
Way to go thber John Wayne. What a real patriot.
All I am asking for is some record to show that Reed did not serve. It’s not much to ask really since to attack his service without that proocf is the same kind of chickenshit fact checking you are assailing in the piece.
Jonn wrote: Wrath? Patriot? Where did that come from? My point was that there is no documentation to “prove” he’s not a POW just like you have no documentation to “prove” you didn’t rob any banks last year.
You’re so eager to jump bad, it’s almost comical.
Eugene Reed is not listed as a US Prisoner of War who escaped captivity during the Vietnam War. http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/pmsea/pmsea_escapee.pdf
There is no record of him ever being a POW or MIA. http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/pmsea/files.htm
The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 (the Act), signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 20, 2006,[1] is a U.S. law that broadens the provisions of previous U.S. law addressing the unauthorized wear, manufacture, sale or claim (either written or verbal) of any military decorations and medals. It is a federal misdemeanor offense, which carries a punishment of imprisonment for not more than 1 year and/or a fine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor_Act_of_2005
Thank you PowNet. I appreciate the resources. It would be helpful in evaluating your site if the findings portion was more uniform. I could not tell from it what method was used to determine the legitimacy of the claim.
Jonn wrote: All of that information was available on POW Net before you started calling names and declaring yourself the sole arbiter of truth here – I guess you just need to be spoon fed every link and every scrap of information. I guess you don’t realize how tedious it would be for the good folks at POW Net to repeat the same information for every entry of the thousands of phonies they’ve busted. You bear some measure of responsibility for reading for yourself.
HM2,
the title of the post is “Phony POW” and it says that ‘somebody is checking his military records to find if he ever served’ Jonn did NOT say that Reed never served. His POW story was in question. But even for a civilian like me, his POW story raised so many red flags that I would not repeat his words even to my mother without checking them first…
HM2,
Plus, if you even bothered to actually check the links provided by POWNet, you would see that the website has a .mil – a gov’t website. The DTIC is “The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) serves the DoD community as the largest central resource for DoD and government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today”.
Let’s see- Lied about being a POW?
Lies = phony? Yes.
If I said I served in Iraq, was captured while on deep reconn in Iran by Hezballa, escaped and made my way back to US forces in Turkey, they almost shot me because we weren’t allowed to wear dogtags…
That would be phony.
right?
smuck.
Olga:
I did check the links provided by PowNet after I requested more information. Their website has an entry on Reed but provides no links to records or databases. Thus, the statement that Reed is not a POW seemed to be opinion rather than fact checked. To state that Reed is phoney without the proof again is simply slandering someone.
Dutch508:
Are you naturally this inept or did the military send you to a special school for it? A story with some holes could be bad reporting, misquoting or fraudulent. As I said above, I agreed that there are significant holes in his story and I have no doubt that he is not a POW. But, without the documents there is no proof. Publishing gut feelings is not responsible journalism.
Wait…did someone claim this blog equated to journalism? I thought it was about dick jokes and beer.
HM2,
I guess, you can say that it is DoD’s “opinion” that Reed was not a POW.
If you cared to check the DTIC site, you would see that it is a government website – has a .mil designation, and is a Field Activity of the DoD.
The links provided by POWNet are to the DTIC lists for the escaped POWs in Vietnam that are located at DTIC site and these lists do not list Reed as such. So, yeah, it is DoD’s “opinion” that he is not a POW.
Olga:
I will explain this again, since you obviously didn’t read my above posts. I have read both links and thanked PowNet for providing the information. I then made the suggestion that putting those links on their homepage next to Reed’s name would avoid the confusion. The way it is written gives the impression that it is merely PowNet’s opinion that Reed is not a POW. However, thanks to the post here it is now clear that they used government websites to garner the information.
Is that clear enough? I could sing it for you but don’t want to break out my data recorder this late at night.
Dear Retard,
Significant holes in the story? Jesus fucking Christ, man. Patton could have driven a battalion of tanks through the holes in that story.
The Benning School for Boys may not have taught me fine manners, but I can tell bullshit a mile away. Say I claimed to be an Emperor just because some moistened bitch lobed a scimitar at me, they’d lock me away…
Hey dutch:
It’s a grown up conversation. Go play with your toys.
Jonn wrote: No, you also bear responsibility for the conversation breaking down into childish insults with your very first comment – insults because you don’t have the ability to do a tiny bit of research yourself.
For the COLLOSSALY Obtuse, the Holes in the Story
1-Claims to speak NORTH & SOUTH Vietnamese. :/
2- Claims to have been up a Tree (WITH Other team Members, :P)Observing the enemy but none of the super duper secret squirrel team notices NVA/VC climb up after them. This begs the question just how many people in a tree in Cambodia is considered noticable? 😉
3- Claims to have had a “P-10” Pistol put in his ear. Since when did the VC/NVA use Heckler & Koch’s P-10 when it was introduced in 1989? 🙂
4- Claims to have run 10 days to the USMC base at Pleiku! Funny as Pleiku isnt on the Cambodian Border but some distance 🙁
By this time anyone can see Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places” had a Better line of Bullshit about being “Agent Orange” in Vietnam than Eugene Reed as a POW.
Hey Jonn. Claymore, always the one to inspire me, has done it again. “…dick jokes and beer” he wrote. So hook me up with HM2(FMF/SW)Ret. will ya?
Oh stop scratching your head over that comment. It makes about as much sense as most of what he writes.
This guys story reads like a C list low budget movie starring Jean Claude: “I grabbed him and broke his neck; grabbed his AK-47 and killed the rest of them. One of them got away,” Reed said. “We were on the run for 10 days through the jungle without our boots.”
Then this famous line: “I had a top secret clearance for 14 years. I was not allowed to wear dog tags because if I got caught, I wasn’t there,” he said.
So, if he had a “top secret clearance” for 14 years, I would assume that he was perhaps “retired”, since he had already put in at least 14 years, so he might as well finish out his 20. I’m sure that if he did, in fact retire from the military, there would be such records available, especially with someone as notable as Sneaky Pete Rambo, here.
I’m trying to remember, but isn’t the captured in a tree thing actually from Rambo Part II?
Well, I ‘member when *I* was up a tree once’t back in Saigon, spotting for my sniper… I was camo’d purdy good, having spray painted tiger stripes across my naked body and my boonie tied across my crotch for pertection, seein’ as it was a sticky gum tree covered in spikey thangs and flesh eating lizards and stuff. I was helpin’ range my shooter in on one o’them little folks, couldn’t tell if they was North or South Vietnamese because they weren’t speaking at the time but MAC V said the body count wuz all that mattered so we were gonna take a few down at random, when I heard this voice in my ear sayin, “Bok Choi, Gringo bastard! You want to meet my sister? Love you long time, GI!”
And I right away recognized the sound of a Walther P-38, or maybe it was a Desert Eagle 50, being cocked beside my ear.
Then I heard a chuckle ( sounded South Vietnamese, to me ) and then the sound of someone pissing on the sidewalk from up in a tree. Might have been me.
Turned out that it was actually an ally, an ARVN scout named Dhu Mohn Hu, just joking around. So we called it a day and evac’d out to Bangkok, where I single handedly started the John Fonda Jerry Rehab Center and House of Delights First Kind Clean Girls for Faux Vets.
I don’t know WHY they never interview ME !!!
Damn it J3! Now I have to clean Sprite out of my keyboard. That was pretty good. Claymore might have to watch out…
I worked with a guy who said that he was a POW in Vietnam. 2 Vietcong allegedly put him in a wooden bird cage hanging in a tree. The Vietcong then allegedly got high & started poking him with a machete knife. He managed to grab the knife, chop their heads off & hack his way out of the cage. He then allegedly made his way back to camp with the 2 Veitcong heads strapped to his belt. Don’t know if his story was true or not, but I figured that he just didn’t want his current co-workers torquing him off.
Just for starters,how does one generate enough force to cut off a human head from inside a bird cage?
Sounds like a load of crap dosen’t it?
HM2,
so you see “a load of crap” in other similar stories but no such insight into Reed’s one… interesting…
Olga:
You are still misunderstanding my concern. I was defending Reed in the sense that I believed his claim or thought that the story was legit. I objected to him being labeled “phoney” without any documentation provided either by John or by PowNet. When I asked for it, PowNet graciously provided it and I thanked them. You then continued to beat the dead horse for numerous posts. So what do you want me to say? You were right all along. Okay. Done you were. Does that make you feel better?
Oops. Fingers flying faster than my eyes. I should have read that before sending.
It should have read:
You are still misunderstanding my concern. I was NOT defending Reed in the sense that I believed his claim or thought that the story was legit. I objected to him being labeled “phoney” without any documentation provided either by John or by PowNet. When I asked for it, PowNet graciously provided it and I thanked them. You then continued to beat the dead horse for numerous posts. So what do you want me to say? You were right all along. Okay. Done you were. Does that make you feel better?
Our site has an entire page of “verification links” to find out if individuals are telling the truth. SINCE THE END OF THE VIETNAM WAR, the Pentagon list of POW/MIAs has never been proven wrong. It’s called the PMSEA and is posted on the DOD website and one of the links on the page links to it!
http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/links_verification.htm
Every POW name reported is checked agaianst USG lists, private historical records, National Archives lists, former pow organization members etc. There is a huge team effort behind this work. Then we wait the 4-6 weeks until the military records arrive. And no – NONE are classified.
And before the excuses start – there were no secret POWs. We have spent 20 years looking for just one. There are more than 2 DOZEN reporting mandates that happen when a man fails to show up from a mission, or on roll call. The mandates go into effect immediately. A man may be left off one mandate – but NOT every one. That in itself would be a crime. Knowingly abandoning someone in your command would be a court martial offence.
These frauds are changing history. Their VA care, property tax breaks, free license plates, free hunting and fishing licenses and more are eating away at YOUR tax dollars. They eat away at the resources our young men and women coming back from THIS war need access to.
Once you have met REAL Medal of Honor recipients, or REAL former POWs and see the pain and hurt they carry – you never want to hear a fairy tale of captivity again. The frauds steal the honor – but carry no nightmares. They are CHANGING history.
And they should be allowed to get away with it?
NOT.
pownet:
I couldn’t agree more and am glad you are doing the work you are. I’ll become more acquainted with your site, but from the little bit of looking around I’ve done, it looks like you are providing all of us with a valuable resource.
Thank you.
In spite of the fact that numerous veterans have contacted the Madison Press to suggest that Mr. Reed’s story is improbable and not supported by the public record, it appears that they are sticking with it. I spoke to the reporter myself this afternoon after providing her with all of the necessary information she needed to check the story out with the US Government. I provided her the telephone number of the Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office and the name of Larry Greer who is the PIO, I provided the link to the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis so that she could obtain a bonafide copy of Reed’s DD214.
I advised her that because of the fact that his POW story is bogus – his claims of being awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star with V, and three purple hearts should be treated with caution.
This afternoon I received an email from her advising that she had received a copy of his DD214 from the Madison County Veterans Services Officer and that it verified his awards and service.
I responded to her that because the veteran himself had provided the DD214 to the MDVSO – that copy should not be considered proof of anything and that the only true proof would be a copy obtained directly from the US Government.
I have requested the Madison Country Veterans Services Copy myself and am interested in comparing it to one which I intend to get through FOIA from the NPRC at St Louis.
We might very well have a case of a violation of the Stolen Valor Act
Is there anyone in his unit that can verify the story?
A lie can’t be verified.
Ah, thanks for the pownet link. My co-worker gave me a pen with his name & alleged resume printed on it:” MIA POW purple heart bronze star silver star”, but his name isn’t on the pow list. It’s somewhat disappointing, since, all in all, even with his crazy story, he was a decent guy. He was a vetically challenged little fellow, so perhaps he felt a need to embellish his war record. According to military.com dod records, a person with his name with rank E1 & 74F1O specialty served in the army.
HM2, the fact that there is no proof of him being a POW…is in fact the proof that he was not.
POW records, MIA records, real hero records, are all well documented and usually in triplicate. POWnetwork does rather exhaustive research into people and their claims. If they can’t find his name on the POW list..
…then he was NOT a POW!
Nor a very good tree climber.
One thing we must remember, also, is that there are many claims within the VA system for disabilities, etc. that are false and some have been proven false. Most VA Vet records come from either the Vet, or the CVSO, who gets them from the Veteran seeking assistance. We have seen stories of people filing for disability, or other ailments, based on stories like PTSD for a Coast Guard member who never left CONUS, etc.
So, I must agree with Nigel and SSG Medzyk and will wait to see if his actual 214 concurs with the one provided to the CVSO.
I decided to do some more follow up on the response I received from the reporter – this is what she had said in her email:
“I contacted the Madison County Veteran Services office and received a legitimate public record (DD214) from them concerning Mr. Reed’s service and medals. This document confirms his tenure, as well as the medals he received (including a few he failed to mention). He was honorably discharged and went on to re-enlist. It also confirms several additional details that were not included in my story due to space limitations.”
The question is of course – exactly what does the statement “confirms his tenure, as well as the medals he received” mean.
It could mean anything couldn’t it? It could mean that the record confirms he received the medals he told her he received – or it could mean it does not confirm what he told her, but is a record listing medals and service.
I fired off an email to the editor and publisher of the Madison Press requesting that they further amplify the statement – do the records support his claim of having been awarded the SS, BS and PH’s.
I suspect that they do not
Jonn wrote: I emailed the POWNET folks last night about her canned response. Apparently Ms. Thompson has stopped taking phone calls and her editor got involved.
Marines were not at Pleiku. That was army in central highlands. Marines were in I Corps, with some in Saigon in embassy duty.