Revisit Willie Williams and meet a new phony soldier

I’m sure many of you remember “Willie” Williams from a post I did more than a month ago.

Well, it took a month, but we’ve finally got Willie’s records and actually, he had quite an impressive career in the Army. He had several tours in combat as an infantryman in the Dominican Republic and 2 tours in Vietnam. He earned four Bronze Star Medals – all for merit and none for valor even though he’s wearing the “V” on his bronze star – and a Purple Heart in 1968.  His tours in Vietnam were with the 101st and the 173rd in ’68 and ’70 respectively – both were airborne units. Here’s his records;

Willie stayed Airborne the whole 25 years, except when he was in Korea where he was in a Quartermaster laundry unit, the 101st and the 173rd in Vietnam and most of his time stateside was with the 101st and 82d – he even PCS’d to Germany for 13 months in 1958-59 with 1/504th to Germany when the unit PCS’d en masse . He went to Escape and Evasion School (the predecessor of SERE School) and the 82nd Division Raider Course (predecessor of Recondo School) – so it’s beyond me why he decided he needed all of the other stuff to pump himself up. And he was only 5’5″ and 123 pounds – he was the original Little Billie Badass.

As far as all that goes, I commend him. And, in fact if you go back to the first post, I didn’t question SFC Williams’ awards for combat service – it was all the ancillary BS crap he wore that I questioned – like the glider badge (the school for which closed the year before he enlisted) and medals that didn’t come into existence until nearly two decades after he left the service.

Is this an apology? Nope. I was criticized once recently for not unloading both barrels on him, but I kept my critique in the realm of what I knew from the picture. Willie was wrong for wearing all of that silly shit. Period. And so is anyone else who claims things they didn’t earn – civilians do that and we’re better than civilians.

Here’s another phony soldier claiming stuff he didn’t do (on a tip from 1CavRVN11B);

William Devereaux, the department’s director of veterans programs, was arrested Monday, issued a summons and released. A court hearing has not yet been scheduled.

In announcing the arrest on Wednesday, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said the 63-year-old Laurel Springs resident invented a false history of combat heroism in the Vietnam War. The prosecutor’s office said its investigation was prompted by information provided by the county Office of Veterans Affairs.

Prosecutors said Devereaux falsely claimed on military benefits forms for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that he served as a paratrooper and artilleryman during the war and was injured multiple times. He also claimed to have received medals including the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with “V” device.

See? They always claim they’re paratroopers, I dare you to determine which political party Devereaux belongs to from the AP story. He was appointed by McGreevey, so that’s the only hint.

That’s Deveroux on your left in this picture;

I’ve been unable to find anything on his party affiliation, but I found an example of his deception;

Category: Phony soldiers