Richard Halsey Pollock; phony Vietnam SEAL
So, this one comes from Scotty, Richard Halsey Pollock says he’s a Navy SEAL – notice the hat in the picture above. He also says that he earned a Bronze Star Medal in Vietnam. Well, according to his assignments and his FOIA it looks like he was on the deployment of the USS Bon Homme Richard (CV31) when they parked it at Da Nang as proof of the pacification of the region in September 1970.
Here’s his FOIA, he was an “AN”, an airman.
Category: Phony soldiers
Facepalm.
Once again, a perfectly honorable time of service gets flushed away because somehow, it isn’t good enough.
I really do not get these people….. why sully an otherwise honorable service record with lies?
I’m not so sure his service was that honorable. Almost four years service, out as an E-3 and no Good Conduct medal. Sounds like a shitbird to me.
Rpger: maybe not. Before 1996, the Navy GCM required 4 years qualifying service. Dunno if the period was allowed to be “waived” for first award for someone who got an “early out” (which it looks this guy may have) in 1970.
I’m guessing you’re correct, but lack of a GCM might not be definitive.
Oh come on! He’s just honoring all the SEALs by wearing the ball cap. It doesn’t mean he’s claiming anything. I wear a Ranger t-shirt all the time to honor the guys I knew in the 1/75 (I don’t and that’s sarcasm for the sarcasmically deficient).
Pollock at the Carlisle Tavern telling his war story:
“…There I was, on the BONHOMME RICHARD in September 1970, preparing with the rest of my SEAL teammates for this really top-secret mission; we were going to attack this NVA compound in Da Nang, it was located next to China Beach…”
It seems like the Vietnam War should’ve ended a lot quicker and with a different result due to all of these SEALs, Green Berets et al running around the AO. Or then again maybe the VC and NVA were a lot better than we thought due to the high number of POWs that seem to show up regularly
Can’t add much to the comments by AW1 Tim and Ex-344MP above.
I guess some people just feel they have to be “heroes” – even if they never really were.
And that’s the hell of it for me – Even if these jokers were dipsy dumpster repairmen, if they served honorably they really ARE heroes. They chose to serve – during both peace and war – while the rest of America went to the mall.
A pity that they don’t see themselves that way.
The ones I find saddest, LebbenB, are those who actually did serve with distinction – and then felt it “wasn’t enough”. We’ve seen people on this site who actually had been decorated for valor in combat and were legitimate Purple Heart holders for whom that wasn’t “enough”. They then became embellishing a-holes, complete with claims of doing stuff they never did and being things they never were.
I find such cases the saddest of the sad.
I know what you mean. A certain wannabe LRRP springs to mind. I dare not write his name because if you write or speak his name three times, he shows up at your house and causes mischief.
Hondo and LenbbenB +1
Sorry LebbenB mistyped you name. No harm no foul I hope.
No worries, my brother. Call me anything you want. Just don’t call me late for supper.
Never good enough for these assholes, is it?
The closest this goon got to being a SEAL is the “A” in Airman!
Another slobbering embellisher, these things are appearing like flies on roadkill in the summer!
It never ceases to confound me. it seems the older many of those guys get, they look back on their lives in frustration. They don’t see any great feats of valor or derring-do. So they think they are failures and have to make up phony stories of heroism. That makes them truly losers and all the good things they’ve done are washed away. They don’t seem to realize that people can easily see right through their bullshit and are laughing at them.
It’s like I heard a real MOH recipient say when he spoke during the JCoS’s Christmas visit when I was in A-stan, he said something like “Take pride in that you served over here, no matter what you did, don’t lie or make up things about it! Once you tell one lie, eventually you’ll have to make up another lie to cover it, and before you know it, you’ll be at the bottom of a swimming pool full of lies, and you won’t be able to remember what you told to whom.”
Good words of wisdom, eh? And yes, I’ve dealt with one from my section who came home and embellished, hell, at least half of our Platoon clipped his wings at some time or another!!
I take it as a compliment. These phony soldiers are claiming to do what some of us actually did. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
It’s a shame because I know this guy and have heard his stories until I was told about this. Like many people have said before – respectable service but tarnished by the fact the he’s lying about his real service. What a shame.
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