William C. Bradford; the West Point professor
There was this fellow William C. Bradford, an associate professor at West Point who recently wrote an article for the National Security Law Journal which according to The Guardian advocated for waging a war against Islamic holy sites, lawyers, “law school facilities, scholars’ home offices and media outlets where they give interviews”.
The publishing of that article has been called “a mistake” by the Law Journal and it’s been yanked following outrage in the media. I’m sure that casual observers and knee-jerk hawks can support many of the things that Bradford wrote. However, my complaint is against the administrators of the military institution’s hiring practices.
In 2005, Bradford was forced to resign from Indiana University. He says in his Wiki page that it was because of a dispute over awarding him tenure and “suspicions of exaggerating his military service”. Let me be clear here, there are no questions about his exaggerations, according to the Indystar;
One of Bradford’s allies, Professor Henry C. Karlson, pointed out that Bradford was the real deal — awarded the Silver Star and a major in the Special Forces. Bradford said he was in the infantry and military intelligence. He fought in Desert Storm and Bosnia, he said.
On the law school’s Web site and its Viewbook, Bradford was profiled as being in the Army infantry from 1990 to 2001. He wore a Silver Star lapel pin around campus. He had a major’s gold-leaf insignia plate on his vehicle.
[…]
Independently, [Army Lt. Col. Keith R. Donnelly, a recent law school graduate, West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran] and I requested Bradford’s service record from the Army. It showed he was in the Army Reserve from Sept. 30, 1995, to Oct 23, 2001. He was discharged as a second lieutenant. He had no active duty. He was in military intelligence, not infantry. He received no awards.
Just to summarize, he claimed that he was a hero of the 1st Gulf War (you can count the number of Silver Stars awarded for that conflict on one hand), that he had been promoted to major (in fact, he’d never been promoted), he hadn’t even been in the military during the 1st Gulf War.
That was in 2005, and now, ten years later, we find a proven embellisher teaching at the United States Military Academy. Further, the Indystar got Bradford to admit that he had been sockpuppeting comments on the Indiana University’s Law School blog in support of himself. You know, if inflating his military career doesn’t discredit him enough.
Someone should be asking the administration of West Point what they saw in this unpromoted second lieutenant that told them that they should hire him, that he had something to contribute to the next generation of military officers. Certainly not career advice, I’m assuming.
ADDED (10-5-2015); Here’s his FOIA;
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
(Heavy sigh.) And this is where your tax money goes.
The guy could’ve been satisfied with his 23 cumulative years as a member of the Unorganized Militia of the United States. 🙄 But, Nooooooo! The guy had to embellish! 🙄 The guy had no awards. I wonder if he spent countless hours bragging about “his” Army Service Ribbon. 🙄
The ASR, it’s not like they give that to just anyone you know…oh wait, never mind.
Hey 23 years and I never got one. But then again that was 23 years in the Air Farce.
My rack could use another row or two so can anyone tell me where the nearest Surplus store is?
You can see his profile on LinkedIn. I’m a graduate of the school, and can sniff around more. … His profile does not show employment there now – and only shows one month of employment (?) this year. Dunno. Maybe he did something over the summer. He also worked for DHS apparently.
However, he does not have those awards you mention on his profile. He does seem to be a guy who likes to post a lot of profile data… promote himself, etc.
The portion covering his Army time just has a bunch of generic stuff anyone in his role would have done- really generic stuff. Just way verbose.
6 years and thrown out as a 2LT? Sounds like a total slug and a nutless wonder! And WTF is wrong with the vetting process at the USMA?
Career 09S it appears…
What’s the “S” mean? I ASSume it means “SHITBIRD”! 😉
09S is the MOS code for “Officer Candidate”. I’d guess that’s not the case here, as it’s an enlisted MOS code and this guy apparently did get commissioned.
However, “career 00D” wouldn’t surprise me. 00D is the officer specialty code for “Newly Commissioned Officers Awaiting Entry on Active Duty for Officer Basic Course Attendance”. I’m thinking maybe he never went to MI Officer Basic. That could also explain 6 yrs as a 2LT (not educationally qualified for promo to 1LT).
That is why YOU are Hondo. You know those things. I just heard of 09S a couple of weeks ago and was itching to use it.
Not until about 15 min ago. Had to look those up myself. (smile)
I do consider myself fairly decent at looking sh!t up and making sense of it quickly, though.
Looking at his discharge date, any chance he got called up and refused to go?
He’s a perfect fit. They’re teaching the next generation of military officers to be liars.
DUH!
“The publishing of that article has been called “a mistake” by the Law Journal”
Ya think?
Could he be an agent provocateur of the Duffel Blog?
“The publishing of that article has been called “a mistake” by the Law Journal”.
Yeah, well I call it a “cluster fucht”!
I know how he got his jobs!
He identifies as: American Chiricahua Apache
It is right there on his not so supportive Wiki page.
If that is the case I see no problem with him securing employment at All-Points Logistics.
Fake Native Americans are a fairly rare breed and Phildo knows this.
I mean, if this maggot is anything like Phildo, then his Native American genetic presence is about the same constitution as a drop of urine in the Pacific Ocean.
“Instant Indian” if you will.
“Instant Indian – just add firewater.”
So, he thinks he’s Michael Ansara reincarnated or something?
You know what’s funny?
I read your second line as “American CHIHUAHUA Apache”
He should have claimed THAT! 😀
OH, you thought so, too? Whew! I thought I was just being snarky!
Me three, I swear it was a new dog breed.
I actually read it as “Chupacabra”, but your 3’s mistake makes more sense.
Aha! And there you have it, an obvious Affirmative Action hire. Just like the NAACP lady, without the kinky hair.
He does get points for this clever and very professional acronym describing those who would argue with his POV:
“Bradford does not clearly name his academic opponents, instead using the neologistic acronym CLOACA, for “critical law of armed conflict academy” to describe them.”
I hope that one does not need to be an ornithologist in order to understand that thinly veiled insult…
“Cloaca”, like on a frog as well?
I do believe that is the insult he was going for, in all it’s second-grader insult war glory.
Yes, a cloaca is also in the golden mole,so another new category? The Golden Cloaca Award, given for someone who screwed to most people with the least effort? That 1 hole 3 actions adds up victims fast. I know, not very ladylike but these Adam Henrys make me sick, it’s like 3 new ones every day almost.
Some of the best artwork in the world is created by forgers — but what they create is still a forgery. West Point would do well to remember that.
Not to be nit-picky, but he’s a former professor at West Point, also. From his Wiki page: Bradford resigned from his position as Assistant Professor at the U.S. Military Academy on August 30, 2015 after a month at the institution.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the US Army awarded a total of 75 Silver Stars. A Gulf War Silver Star is thus quite rare.
Bradford was hired by USMA on 1 August. He apparently has already resigned – supposedly largely due to backlash against his recent (and recently pulled) article, which appears to have been both written and accepted for publication before he went to work at USMA.
Nonetheless, it appears to me that “someone’s got some ‘splainin’ to do” regarding checking this guy’s credentials. I can’t believe that a Google search of his name wouldn’t have revealed his earlier resignation from IU-Indianapolis Law School and the allegations of his having exaggerated his military credentials then.
His Wikipedia article (yes, he has one) also lists his nationalities as being “American” and “Chiricahua Apache” – and his birthplace as “Lansing, MI”. The Chiricahua Apache are not from Michigan; they’re from the US Southwest. Given his other past deception, I’m wondering about his ancestry claims, too.
Sound like the history and bio of a certain “professor” that claimed he was a “Native American” who is no longer employed by the University of Colorado… also a sitting U. S. Senator….
You know USMA at West Point is not to far from NYC! You can drive it in less than one hour with no traffic.
He will be a professor at Columbia by weeks end!
Out!
“. . . with no traffic.”
Does that ever actually happen IVO NYC?
Yes, between 0100 and 0400 daily!
here’s what can happen with no traffic in NYC…
http://youtu.be/v_4ghLXaEVM
I didn’t even think it was possible to leave the Army as a 2LT unless there was some misconduct. Isn’t promotion to 1LT automatic after 3 years?
If educationally qualified and no serious derog, promo to 1LT is pretty much automatic. I believe it’s a local admin action under GO authority (no promo board required). However, I did know one guy who managed to pull off being a “nonselect” for 1LT in the early 1980s. He was . . . rather a piece of work.
I’m guessing this guy either never completed his officer basic or he stepped on his crank bigtime.
I knew a LTJG in the 1960s who got fired because he was (finally) caught stealing MOPIC equipment and was stupid enough to leave it in his car.
MOPIC, what’s that mean in English?
Motion Picture equipment. Generically meaning any type of camera and A/V gear.
A pretty decent movie was made some years ago called 84 Charlie Mopic
He was making pron movies with it and getting the film processed through the Color Lab.
That was his biggest mistake. Well, that, and being a dink.
It sounds like he was a real Rocket Scientist!
Rocket Surgeon.
So, are these films available online?
No, Hack. It was the 1960s. He was probably aiming at sneaking copies on board when he was deployed to sea.
It appears this guy was in the Reserves with no active duty time. Not sure how promotions work there, or did during that timeframe.
When I was a commissioned officer, there was no board action needed for promotion to 02E/O2. All one needed was TIG, not have any disciplinary issues, and have made satisfactory progress in terms of courses, professional development, etc. From what I’ve seen, in the Army Reserve, it’s an administrative action done when TIG was met, provided that the soldier did not have any issues that would hold it up, and that the soldier did what was required, to include successful completion of required courses.
There are soldiers, officers, who are non-satisfactory performers in the reserve. They were absent from way too many drills, and were not available to complete their basic required courses, to justify their being promoted. Thus, they remained 2LT and 1LT.
Table 2-2 of the current AR 135-155 indicates that completion of officer basic is generally mandatory for promotion from 2LT to 1LT. It further indicates min time for promotion to be currently 2 years, and max allowable time in lower grade currently to be 42 months.
I believe pre-ROPMA (e.g., prior to 1996) the educational requirement was the same. However, I seem to remember that ROPMA lowered the max allowable time in grade for 2LT and CPT. I’m not positive about the latter.
I think the guy never went to OBC, and got separated from the USAR administratively after hitting 6 years time in grade. (Dunno how he escaped getting separated at 3 yrs 6 mo service unless that became effective post-2001.) But I could be wrong.
They promoted our platoon leader to 1Lt and I mean to say he was one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in or out of a uniform…
He almost got killed by one trooper that pushed a boulder down at him on a talus field on a glacier in Alaska. He just missed too…
He was sending that trooper to Leavenworth for the trooper’s stupidity in a race riot at Ft Wainwright…
He came damn close too…
I commissioned from the enlisted ranks in the Navy. I had thought that their officer ranks did the same thing as their enlisted ranks… require completion of the qualification course for the MOS prior to being designated that MOS/rating.
Instead, you were automatically that MOS when you were commissioned, prior to the qualification course for the MOS. At that same time, Navy Reservists went through a similar training program. Promotion to 02E was pretty automatic, provided that you were making progress within your branch career path.
When I crossed over from the Regular Army to the Reserve Army, the idea that they did their OCS piecemeal, or drilled while waiting to go to the officer basic course, was alien. I did notice that completion of required courses, which included the officer basic course, influenced whether they got promoted to 02 or not.
Our chain of command up to brigade level, tends to take the AR requirements, then add additional requirements on top of that for promotion and other programs.
I was part of IFOR PEACEKEEPING mission to Bosnia. Fresh outta basic , went to Germany , one week in Graf ,one week in Hoenfels and then hello Bosnia to my whO was was already deployed there. I always get a kick about guys saying they “fought” in Bosnia. I don’t remember any fighting. We did do some good things to stabilize the country . I did earn my shit burner tab as I was the new private at Camp Lisa.
Well, the Army did award 16 PHs between Bosnia and Kosovo. So there was at least a bit of hostile activity there – though hostile acts appear to have been exceptionally rare.
https://www.hrc.army.mil/TAGD/Awards%20and%20Decorations%20Statistics%20by%20Conflict
I seem to recall that there was a patrol (maybe scouts) that wandered into Serbian territory during the bombing campaign and was taken captive (and got beaten up in the process) and I think that is where those came from.
I don’t like the UK Guardian, and have zero confidence in it ever passing up an opportunity to get a chubby by embarrassing the American military. These are the same people who got gushy with the revelations of both Bradley Manning and Eddie Snowden.
What the Guardian is presenting is what amounts to mostly an ad hominem argument; Bradford, according to the Guardian, has embellished his military service; therefore, whatever he says about ways to fight radical jihad is wrong. Not that we would actually know what those ways are because the National Security Law Journal apparently caved to the political correctness police, and pulled Bradford’s essay. Something deeply ironic if you consider that the Guardian in its own interests would be the first to bang the drum most loudly in defense of freedom of the press.
Bradford might be an embellisher, he might even be guilty of kicking his dog, but that that has nothing to do with whether or not he should be able to voice some out-of-box thinking on how to defeat radical Islam.
Whether Bradford should be a professor at West Point is a separate issue, and has more to do with the question of if the faculty should be held to the same moral standard as the cadet corps.
The paper may be still be found on-line, including here.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2597971&download=yes
It’s lengthy. I haven’t read it yet.
“It’s lengthy. I haven’t read it yet.”
And shouldn’t. A good rule of thumb for journals is that if it takes you more than 50 pages (e.g., to argue that targeting Anwar Al-Aulaqi amounts to a Bill of Attainder), you’re probably badly wrong. A fortiori anything weighing in at 180 pages and nearly 800 footnotes.
I probably won’t bother, but for a different reason. By that logic, I’d have not bothered to read Huntington’s book “Clash of Civilizations” that was derived from his earlier (and shorter) article. Not reading the book would have been a major mistake; it amplifies his shorter article greatly.
Bottom line: length alone is not a disqualifying characteristic for scholarly work. It can be – either way – but it’s not universally the case.
However, I did look at one part of the article. What I found there pretty much convinced me to pass on reading the rest.
Bradford uses the phrase “useful idiots” correctly, but attributes it to Lenin. Lenin’s works do not contain that phrase, and Lenin apparently did not originate it. If he got that wrong (and it’s damned easy to check – it’s a well-known “false quote”), I’m guessing the rest of his scholarship in the article is of similar rigor. I simply don’t have time to read 100+ pages of half-baked bullsh!t.
This is a link to an April 1987 article by William Safire in the NYT, referring to the term ‘useful idiots’ as having Soviet origins.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/on-language.html
It’s about halfway down the page, referencing the notes copied by Yuri Annentov when he was commissioned to do a portrait of Lenin in 1921 by the Communist Party. It does not appear in Lenin’s written works, but Annentov credits it to him.
Safire says ‘the deaf, dumb and blind phrase may be one of the phrases that started the useful idiots phrase’.
Just my 2 cents’ worth.
Safire speaks of “possible origin”, Ex-PH2. Possible =/= confirmed; it could also be wrong. And other documented uses of the term far predate Annentov’s book.
Further, Safire himself says in the next para that he realizes that the connection appears “a little farfetched”. Until proof exists Lenin authored the phrase, at this point I regard the claim that the phrase is “Lenin’s” as apocryphal and almost certainly erroneous.
Bradford is simply wrong. The phrase is often attributed to Lenin, but there’s no documentary evidence he coined it – and there IS documentary evidence for first use of the phrase (or a close Russian equivalent, “useful fools”) by others starting roughly 2 decades after his death that do not credit the phrase to Lenin. Bradford’s thus attributing an unverified and almost certainly apocryphal quotation to a historical figure in a scholarly article. “Not good.”
It’s entirely possible that it was already in common use by the Bolsheviks, and was nothing more than a chance phrase that became part of the vernacular.
I’m referring to law journals only.
Bottom line: If Posner, Stuntz, Volokh, Finnis, Goldsmith, Friedman… rarely need more than 50 pages, it’s not often that an article in a journal needs to be 60 or 70 or 80 pages long. Heck, Oliver Wendell Holmes’s “The Path of the Law” is only 19 pages long, a masterpiece of the “one sitting, two martini” rule (i.e., it should be readable in one sitting, and understandable after two martinis). Anything more than 20,000 words above the line (roughly 45 pages) is usually the result padding: about 20 pages of guts, with another 30-50 pages of literature review, discussion, and repetition. As the saying goes, if the writer had put in more time and thought, it’d be shorter.
No, it’s a good article, albeit with three flaws…well, at least three. No, I don’t think the length was excessive given what he was trying to do.
The paper in question according to a few other well known legal scholars (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/31/the-student-edited-national-security-law-journal-repudiates-article-that-advocates-targeting-legal-scholars-as-enemy-combatants-in-the-war-on-terror/) is full of innuendo and short of substance to support the argument. It instead hides behind a whole series of footnotes, tangents and just pure size of the article to wear down a reader. This article as I have understood it is the same approach that fakers take to thier stories. They tell a good long story and it’s full of ambitious and ambiguous actions or folks. Then follows up with “official” looking documents that don’t look right and in some cases they give you so much BS that it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
It could have had some merit if it was written with substance rather than by the word count. I did find the “Useful Idiot” references rather interesting. I’ll have to research that now. You could write an entire paper on that topic alone.
His “useful idiot” thesis regarding those in academia and the legal profession who act as apologists for radical Islam may or may not be true. But better scholarship on his part might have avoided him embarrassing himself, albeit apparently unknowingly, through misattributing the phrase.
Lenin has never been documented as having originated the term “useful idiot”. Though often attributed to him, the term has never been found in Lenin’s published writings. The earliest documented usage is in the 1940s – the Russian language phrase “useful fools” (not at the time attributed to Lenin) as well as apparently independent uses in French and Italian newspapers in 1946 and 1948, respectively.
“he should be able to voice some out-of-box thinking on how to defeat radical Islam”
Arguing that the United States can arrest, torture, and kill professors who criticize U.S. military policy isn’t outside-the-box thinking — it’s batshit crazy, no less so than if one wrote the same thing about “The NRA” and “Gun control.”
Not sure I agree, dawg. It seems to me that to understand where Bradford is coming from, you first need to accept the idea that the end game of radical Islam is to establish a global caliphate by whatever means possible.
It’s also useful to consider the extent to which groups, in this case Bradford cites CLOACA, can act as self-referential echo chambers.
The “targeted… captured and detained” passage in the Bradford paper that has everyone so offended is presented as the last in a series of possible ways to counter CLOACA’s support, tacit or otherwise, for radical Islam. Bradford admits it might be considered a “shocking and extreme” option. In my own view, such a worst-case scenario isn’t enough to act as a smoking gun and cause the rest of his arguments to be discarded out of hand. He seems to do an adequate job of presenting one view of the problems, and offers possible solutions. Some of which you might agree with, and some of which you might not.
It’s not as if the guy, embellisher or otherwise, is some wet-brain wino stumbling down the block and yelling, “The end is near” or whatever.
It is not that complicated. Do you believe in the efficacy of total eradication of what we perceive as “our enemy”? Not so much from a moral point of view, (though as Christians, that should be important too) but from a purely practical way of solving a problem. There are 1.5 billion Muslims and even if 90% are killed off, wont the future generations come up? I mean conversion and birth rate etc And so do you go on and kill and kill and kill? Is this what America is all about? Would that be the nation that was conceived with such great dreams? And one thing about Muslims: we cannot browbeat them into submission. Force is something they do not understand–a fact we ought to have learnt by now.
Actually, “Sir Bryan” – force is the only thing many in the Middle East and Central Asia understand. Their history is a near-unbroken series of conquer/be conquered, with some ruling despot in charge both before and after the change in regimes.
They respect strength, and scorn weakness – both politically and culturally – and act accordingly. And their religion teaches them to expand the area under their control by all possible means.
Sadly, the West seems to be willfully refusing to accept the above historically-demonstrated facts. IMO the West does so at their mortal peril.
Do not mistake the above for approval of genocide; it is not. However, when one deals with an enemy that historically is intolerant, is expansionist, has little respect for human life, and only respects demonstrated strength and the willingness to use same – sometimes the use of extreme force and/or other harsh measures not used under different circumstances may be required.
This guy IMO went a bit too far in what he advocated – today. That may well not remain the case if radical Islam continues to “up the ante” with respect to both expansion and violence directed against non-Islamic persons and nations.
Respect for alien cultures and foreign nations never has been, and never should become, more important than national survival. When it does, effectively it has become a suicide wish.
This dude is right in the need to kick ISIS in the teeth.
Indeed, it’s not that part that’s the problem. He also believes we should be stifling free speech in the United States and treating dissenters to prison camps….a bit too communist totalitarian of an approach for the United States, and totally inappropriate in a military academy whose future officers will be charged with obeying civilian authority.
I have to concur with that. I say YES to kicking ISIS’s teeth in, but a hearty “HELL NO!!” to stifling free speech and jailing dissenters, that’s what the Norkies do.
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Treason is the highest form of dissent. Therefore treason must be the highest form of patriotism.
Cut him some slack, VOV.
He was just channeling his “inner Phildo”.
Someone has been Wiki-editing-
“William C. Bradford (born c. 1964) is an idiot American pseudo-scholar of political science…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Bradford
Oh, dear, and I was going to say ‘that’s just mean’, but in reviewing this thread and Hondo’s posts, I concede to the perceptive soul who added ‘pseudo’ to ‘scholar’. He could have included ‘pseudointellectual’ as well.
That, or the left’s MiniTrue is playing its usual games. However are we to tell the difference?
I don’t know how he made it to West Point. When I tried to become cadre there I had to submit a pretty lenghthy packet. I even had to have recomendations from West Point graduates. I didn’t make it because my National Guard time put with a year too much TIS.
Let me postulate for you that a) he didn’t have too much TIS and b) Woops, which would have had full access to to his records, found nothing wrong. Yeah, I know that’s just so wild and out there, the notion that someone who attacked the left might be framed for stolen valor and that a lot of well meaning folks might buy into it, but, ya know, life _is_ strange.
He provided covering fire for the BITCH ass Hillary Clinton while she crawled under sniper fire in Bosnia.
Boy! He must have been quite the fuck up to not have been promoted.
His LinkedIn profile claims that he was a Strategic Military Intelligence Officer for seven years. – ‘Truth comes out about professor’s background’ archive.indystar.com/article/20051204/COLUMNISTS02/512040470/Truth-comes-out-about-professor-s-background – self.gutenberg.org/articles/william_c.bradford
Believe me, there is a lot of credential inflation in the intel world. Lots of reservists claiming they have “x amount of years” of experience trying to justify why they should be hired as contractor to work for the community.
Conversely, there are also quite a bit of former service members who latmoved/reclassed into intelligence and are hired on in junior positions. When they try to justify being hired on in mid to senior level positions, they say “but I was in the infantry for 4 years!” That’s great, and I like the combat arms guys, but there’s nothing that one can do as a ground pounder that would translate to doing intelligence work. Apples and oranges.
Gotta tell ya, these accusation against Bradford seem pretty thin. Anyone have a primary source? No, I don’t mean an ally who may be embelleshing on his own hook and I don’t mean a paper that may have an axe to grind or just be sloppy and I don’t mean a service record that doesn’t show X, in the absence of a personal claim of X.
I mean, if HE did any of this shit, fuck him with a rusty gunner’s worm, but nothing posted that I’ve seen is anything beyond innuendo.
And you all were aware, right, that the left is completely without principle, honor, or integrity when they’re attacked?
Like · Reply · Just now
So, you think it’s OK for him to embellish his military career?
Do you have a dyslexia problem? Do you think it’s okay to attribute to someone something they didn’t say? Or are you addicted to stupid questions? Try reading what I fucking wrote.
Try parsing this sentence and see if you can somehow make it a prelude to your unbefuckinglievably stupid question:
I mean, if HE did any of this shit, fuck him with a rusty gunner’s worm, but nothing posted that I’ve seen is anything beyond innuendo.
And that is my point. The topic here is his false military career claims. IF you object to that, your obfuscation with all the other drivel rather clouds the issue.
Stick to the point or expect to be treated as a garden variety troll.
No, the problem here is that you aren’t bright enough to tell the difference between lack of proof and praise of guilt. Why this should be, I cannot say for cetain, though I suspect terminal stupidity.
Now answer the fucking question.
We have requested his military records, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.
This is going to show up in a column monday:
Bradford, the author of the article, was probably terribly unwise to have published it. I am sure it is going to end up costing him dearly, both financially and emotionally. Still, unwise or not, the intellectual courage of the thing remains admirable (look, he could be wrong about everything and it would still be courageously wrong). In terms of punishment, besides being shown the door, he has now been accused of falsifying his military record. Whether he actually did that or whether MiniTrue – you know, the Ministry of Truth, which is to say the people in charge of lies – simply executed Phase I of the process of turning him into an official unperson, I can no longer state with any confidence. A little voice, though, is whispering to me that for every Comrade Ogilvy, a hero created from nothing, there must be a William Bradford, a villain created from an (in this case, moral and intellectual) hero.
Bradford was a Grade AAA IDIOT to think he was going to get away with his con games without getting discovered.
What con games and what proof? I’m not even screwing with you – if he engaged in a con I’d like to know – but some third party claiming he was or had X and Y doth not a claim of stolen valor support. Some other third party claiming that Z didn’t show in his record doesn’t mean anything in the absence of a claim, from him, that he had Z. What’s hard about this?
Why, did you know, _I_ don’t have a DSC in my record. Shameful, is it not? Of course I’ve never claimed to have a DSC but still, shame on me because there’s no DSC in my record.
Your diarrhea of the mouth is clear proof that you have SHIT FOR BRAINS, and I’m quite certain that you’re little more than a sockpuppet of C. Long the little rudy-poo troll!
No, boy, sadly for your thesis, not.
You make some good points. Simply being accused of something shouldn’t be enough reason for everyone to go off the deep end against anyone. I could very easily write a piece\profile\whatever about random TAH user and their amazing military exploits, none of which could be true. Does that make that user a liar? Of course not. Nor should the lack of a rebuttal\correction constitute acceptance of what was said. In the information world we live in now, who can be on guard like that 24/7 about what might be said?
If he did lie and profit then he deserves what is coming but why jump the gun, is there a shortage of more brazen phonies to go after in the mean time?
Indeed, why jump the gun as nearly everyone here has? And a little time to let that gunner’s worm rust some more is hardly a waste.
Take your objections up with the folks who fired him for making false claims about his military record.
You are being willfully obtuse, Tom. And quite silly.
Nobody fired him for that as far as we have proof of. He was shown the door by woops for the NSLJ article. We have an unsigned, unbylined, unsupported claim that may or may not be from a paper that may or may not be worth a shit. And that’s all.
Now who’s being silly?
You are, as was previously stated.
Nah, the guy who can find in the statement that someone can be fucked with a rusty gunners worm if proven guilty a blanket pass for the guilty to get off is too silly to be entitled to an opinion. Really. I didn’t want to break it to you this harshly, but…you’re a moron. And silly.
He fraudulently represented himself as a former US Army SF Officer when he was at Indiana University for starters, and it’s very obvious that he bloviated his background and resume’ to get hired at the USMA where they should have vetted him more thoroughly, and that’s if the even checked him out in the first place, there’s no way that’s knowingly hire a six year no-load getting out as a 2LT. C-Longy boy, you must be a college student, you’re completely devoid of common sense and logic. TAH and other fake-buster outfits DO NOT post anything about phonies until after they’ve thoroughly checked these clowns out and have evidence to back up their claims. Now run along child, you have a lot of burgers and fries to cook tonight!
Proof? Proof that HE did, as opposed to someone else said it?
YES, you candyassed rudy-poo shit-for-brained troll, the allegations made have been corroborated before this thread was posted, now stop drinking the bong water!
Interestingly, there are people here who know me and served under me. Moreover, I’m not afraid to post under my own name. Now, if anyone is a candy-ass, logic suggests it’s the coward who won’t post under his own name.
Produce the evidence, pussy boy. Show your proof, coward. Why are you making these stolen valor claims? Covering up your own crimes, cocksucker? Projecting, limp wrist?
Of, in the alternative, you can remember your manners.
Not one bit, you candyassed glittery gargoyle gonad-ogling little unicorn-lusting dingleberry on a Swamp Donkey’s ass! You ignore the facts posted as well as the links to other items corroborating the story, and you come here puffing your chest out, spouting shit, and then spazzing like a one-eyed Rhesus Monkey on LSD and meth when somebody calls you out on your shit! I’m a Vet myself, just like the vast majority of TAH Regulars, and you sound about as devoid of facts and common sense as C. Long, thus I’m currently convinced that you’re either
1. His sockpuppet.
2. His college roomie, drinking pal/ shiftmate at the local burger franchise.
You lose.
You’re still an idiot, a candy ass, a pussy, and a coward. And those, boy, are your good points.
You’re So thin-skinned I can’t keep from LMAO, swee’pea, I OWN YOU!
You’re projecting pretty badly. Now why are you hiding behind a pseudonym?
Just Google the name “Daniel A. Bernath”, that’s one of the phonies exposed here who HAS taken peoples’ real names, then slandered and libeled them.
Ah, but what’s _your_ name, puss-boy? What does Bernath have to do with _you_ being too much of a coward to post under your own name? What does Bernath have to do with Bradford?
Be a man or be a pussy. I’m not afraid, why are you?
It’s illogical to wait for concrete proof before calling a vet a phony? That seems to me to be a courtesy I would want extended my way, you ought to want that as well.
Well said. We use our own names(I abbreviate Christopher to C to save time, my full name is shown in my email. ) and yet we are the ones with something to hide or are afraid to stand by what we say. Welcome to TAH Tom, don’t judge them too harshly they aren’t such a bad lot as a group. Some are just kind of like that stray dog you rescue, it doesn’t mean to snap and growl when you feed it, just all it knows.
I’ve been here before, Chris, and, as mentioned, there are people here who have served under me. I’ve noticed that they’re generally okay except when stolen valor comes up, whereupon they – rather, some of them – turn into hysterical schoolgirls. Why, a cynical man, which, of course, I am not, would suspect that the real hysterics here act like that as if to deflect their own stolen valor guilt by putting on a display in a kangeroo court.
Call me a cynic because I have often thought that same thing of a select few users here. Usually the ones who start in with the homosexual\nazi jabs right off the bat. Then again the fact that they have to use pseudonyms tells you all you need to know. They believe in the cause of defeating Stolen Valor alright, just not enough to put their name on it.
Yeah. It’s okay to use a pseudonym. It’s okay to be an asshole. (“Guilty, as charged.”) But when someone uses a pseudonym to cover up for being an asshole, I call “coward.” And when someone using a pseudonym acts like a hyena over a charge of stolen valor, especially one that is unproven, I cannot help but think, “He’s projecting and deflecting.”
Take a look at the Wiki article, particularly the first six footnoted sources. Two of them link to cached versions of his Indiana University faculty profile. One of them has him serving in the infantry from 1994 to 2001. The other has him serving in infantry and intel from 1990 to 2001.
Do either say he is the author of said profiles?
Perhaps, Tom Kratman, you could read the article quoted from Indystar:
‘Independently, [Army Lt. Col. Keith R. Donnelly, a recent law school graduate, West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran] and I requested Bradford’s service record from the Army. It showed he was in the Army Reserve from Sept. 30, 1995, to Oct 23, 2001. He was discharged as a second lieutenant. He had no active duty. He was in military intelligence, not infantry. He received no awards.’
A – He saw no action.
B – He received NO AWARDS.
C – He has a license plate with a Major’s insignia on it.
Yet, he claims that he participated in the Gulf War, received a Silver Star, and displays an advanced rank that he never achieved on his license plate.
If you have any questions about Stolen Valor claims, you should take the time to review the rather LARGE number of false claims of awards AND military service that have been uncovered by this and other blogs.
Bradford is not a hero. He has made fraudulent claims. If you are not willing to accept that these things can be proved by real documentation, you need to explain you reasons for it.
By the way, it’s not that he might not be guilty; it IS possible. Rather, it’s that the evidence offered for the proposition is very poor and shouldn’t persuade anyone on it’s own…at least not anyone with two brain cells to rub together who’s also wiset enough to step back and think about it. I’m not the only JD here (though I may be the only one who’s a retired O-5 with a CIB and tab). Ask one of the others how good thst evidence really is.
Are you really an O5? HS JROTC doesn’t count as Military Service. the fact remains that Bradford was caught lying in both places.
Ask around.
I read it. Right from here. Did you happen to notice it wasn’t signed? No byline? No name at all. Do you have a statement from Donnelly? Do you have a claim from Bradford that Donnelly and the missing writer refutes?
Let me make this clear; you have nothing at all but innuendo and unbased, unsupported claims.
No sugarbritches, the claims made about Bradford have been corroborated, so maybe you need to go see your mommy for an enema and some butt-hurt ointment! 😀
Then produce the proof of corroboration, semen breath.
The butt-hurt side of the Force is strong with you!
Produce the proof, puss-boy. Produce the courage to post under your own name. Course, you can’t really do either, can you, because neither exist within your capability?
I’m beginning to suspect that, rather than being a proud infidel, you’re just an agent provocateur, though an unusually incompetent and stupid one, for the left.
NO Pookums McDingleberry, I’m not an agent (Although a couple of kooks exposed on TAH say otherwise) o fertummelt fercoct shtik drek shmegegge of a schmuck, you’re a laugh riot for me every time you plotz, so keep kvetching, you’re a long way from hokking my chonik!
Yeah, you must be right, even the most idiotic of lefties can still produce a better and smarter AP than you are.
We’ll have to settle on your being a lone idiot.
Just a question, Krautman, asked only out of pure curiosity: are you best buddies with Bradford? Is he hiding behind you?
I think it’s justified to say that if you insist on denying the article’s report of corroboration, then you have some personal involvement in Bradford’s false claims.
Perhaps you did not actually look for a byline, although the author DOES say ‘Lt. Col. Donnelly… AND I’.
I’m just trying to understand your reason for ignoring that. Bradford lied about his service, his rank advancement and his awards. Why is that so hard for you to accept?
I’m also trying to understand what das2Reich means. Are you a closet Nazi or something?
Oh and, good manners-wise? No U in any of my names.
I googled your screen name, and I’m convinced you’re someone else sockpuppeting for Bradford. read the Indystar lik, that’s one part, and if that really is your real name, are you calling a fellow Officer [who was vetted] a liar, cheat, and fake?
Nope, me and me alone. Writer for Baen and everyjoe. Recovering attorney. Retired infantry officer and former EM/NCO. Boston Latin. Boston College, Washington and Lee Law.
But, if you don’t believe it, frankly, it’s hard for me to give a too much of a shit.
Oooooooh. We have a new genius making claims with no proof, calling names, and several other typical lefty tactics, all with the skill level of an 8-year old.
For the record – I have no idea who you are, Tom, and from your vitriol displayed so proudly here, there is certainly no reason to make your acquaintance.
I am known enough here. Impressing you isn’t on my agenda. Defending the truth is. And the truth is that you’re akmost all acting like a bunch of hysterical girls, and I have in mind specifically the hysterical girls at the Salem Witch Trials.
And yet, your agenda DID include going out of your way to create an unfavorable impression with me specifically. To paraphrase the bard, methinks thou doth protest too much.
Interesting.
Not exactly. You made a statement in the (false) form of a question to the effect that I had called for letting the guilty off scot free. Since there was nothing in my initial statement to support that, I took it, and take it, as an attack. A stupid attack, yes, but still an attack. I always attack back.
Is there a reason I should care if I make an unfavorable impression on someone who has already made an unfavorable impression with me?
So, you are now denying an intentional attempt to make an unfavorable impression? For one to do so certainly would appear to require a degree of caring about doing so. But, no, I know of no reason why you should care. Several others have tried to get you to tell us why you care, but so far you have avoided answering those questions.
(Are we having fun yet?)
PS My apologies to the assembled for feeding the troll. Sometimes it simply cannot be helped.
I just cannot for the life of me truly believe that he really is who he claims to be. Tell me if you think I’m wrong when I say I think he’s screaming like *BLEEP!*41 after a few Dutch Rudder Cocktails.
Put up or shut up. How much money are you willing to put into escrow on it?
Intent would mean that I cared what kind of impression I made on you. I don’t. I never could have. What I cared about was slapping you like a bitch for your offenses against me, and against logic and reason. That having been done, I invite your attention below. Perhaps you can explain your mistakes in such a way as would entitle you to an apology. I can’t see how, myself, but hope springs eternal.
And I am trying to understand – just out of pure curiosity, mind you – how you and a number of others can take shit that proves nothing and find in it conclusive proof of guilt.
Really.
As for the rest, that’s the only reason you can think of for someone to defend someone, a personal friendship? You’re that limited?
We’ll leave aside for the nonce the tacit insult to my integrity, and also the tacit insult to your own.
No, it was a mis-copy and paste from something else.
In any case, no, your evidence of stolen valor, in this case, is all shit. Sorry, but it is just that and nothing more. Produce some good evidence if it matters to you, but I won’t be, and no one else should be, persuaded by shit.
You’re a thin-skinned Rudy-poo of a candyassed troll. You’re like that retarded monkey at the zoo that kids laugh at every time it eats its turd or rubs it in its face!
No doubt true, but I am still not the pussy hiding behind a fake name. WHatcha afraid of, pussy?
Take a deep breath and look at the patterns of your posts, you’re going off like either a college student or some of the phonies exposed on TAH and other sites, the fact is that Bradford was found to be a phony and it cost him!
The fact was and is that no evidence has been produced that isn’t shit.
Whatever, I’m not the one jumping around and screaming like he’s got ten pounds of ground up ghost peppers up his ass!
No, you’re not. How did you manage to stuff 20 pounds of ghost peppers up your ass, by the way?
I am not 100% sure, but I suspect with the All-Points Logistics certified lube he borrowed from The False Commander Phil Monkress.
Sort of brings new meaning to “fire in the (two) hole”.
I believe the evidence is you showing up defending that assclown.
Wrong set of evidence, I think.
Doubt it.
And who exactly did that? Since you are so anxious to get at the truth, how’s about practicing that which you demand of others?
‘We’ll leave aside for the nonce the tacit insult to my integrity, and also the tacit insult to your own.’
No, we won’t. My integrity is not in question here.
You left a link to the 2nd SS Panzer Division in your ID. Why wouldn’t I question something like that?
You’ve presented yourself as someone who is far too defensive over Bradford, someone you claim you do not know. You failed to even note that the quoted article from Indystar is 10 years old.
THIS website did not do an SV investigation on Bradford. It was done by OTHER people in 2005.
It is in question, actually. Someone who presumes that someone can or will only do something out of personal vested interest, and you’ve made that charge of me, is VERY likely to be the sort who only does something out of vested personal interest. When the idea that pursuit of the truth really matters to someone and someone else can’t see it? Yeah, that establishes a presumption that that second person has no particular interest in truth.
That’s the inference of what you;ve written. You may want to modify or retract some of it. I did, you will note, try to let it go.
Did what? Read around. I suspect the answer is you.
IF this response was to my question above, perhaps it would be clearer if you were to read your posted comment, to which I had responded with my question. That is at least part, perhaps even a significant part, of the problem attempting to sort out who exactly you are addressing with your vitriol. Hence my question.
Maybe your thinking will be more logical after you get that haircut. Meanwhile, you have now accused someone, or several someones, of libel. Again, how’s about being very clear just who it is that you are accusing of unlawful behavior. Ya know, in the interest of that truth thing you have been bandying about.
Not exactly. I have told them they’re at risk of libel and at risk of shame even if Bradford never pursued a libel suit. These are different things. Here’s a clue for you; when I say, as I have said, that I don’t know if Bradford is innocent or guilty? Yeah, that means I _cannot_ say someone is guilty of libel, only that they’re at risk of it.
Now let’s go back to where we started going wrong: How do you turn this statement: “I mean, if HE did any of this shit, fuck him with a rusty gunner’s worm, but nothing posted that I’ve seen is anything beyond innuendo.” into this question: “So, you think it’s OK for him to embellish his military career?” You don’t see the disconnect there? Explain it to me, please, how the first leads to the second, or how an insistence on proof of guilt is equal to saying that criminal conduct is okay?
Your failure here is to acknowledge that the weight of that single sentence is far less than the weight of all your other sentences, which is why I gave you an opportunity to clarify the situation. I threw you a very soft ball actually. It was a gift.
You are welcome.
(Oh, wait – you failed to see it that way. Oh, well. Your loss.)
You didn’t give an opportunity, you – lacking the courage to be honest about it – made an attack into a question. Now please just answer my question, to repeat: How do you turn this statement: “I mean, if HE did any of this shit, fuck him with a rusty gunner’s worm, but nothing posted that I’ve seen is anything beyond innuendo.” into this question: “So, you think it’s OK for him to embellish his military career?” You don’t see the disconnect there?
Again, how does my statement in any way shape or form lead to you question? Where did I say or fairly imply that it was okay to embellish a record or that the guilty should get off scot free?
For someone who claims experience in the US Army, you certainly have a warped sense of the word “attack.” Yes, I am more than capable of mounting an attack. That was not one.
You asked, and I explained it to you. Once is all you get. Apparently you do not like my explanation, but you got it none the less. Evidently you have little sense of the truth when you see it. But, we already knew that. You have demonstrated that flaw numerous times today.
Your failures are adding up, Tom.
No, you’ve explained nothing. Perhaps you think you have. So let’s try again: Now please just answer my question, to repeat: How do you turn this statement: “I mean, if HE did any of this shit, fuck him with a rusty gunner’s worm, but nothing posted that I’ve seen is anything beyond innuendo.” into this question: “So, you think it’s OK for him to embellish his military career?” You don’t see the disconnect there?
Again, how does my statement in any way shape or form lead to you question? Where did I say or fairly imply that it was okay to embellish a record or that the guilty should get off scot free?
Now, I’ve got to go get a haircut. Back later, if I can be.
As a final comment, I’d like all the hysterical schoolgirls here to contemplate what they’ll feel like IF (noting that that is IF, I understand that, despite the current lack of good evidence, he may be guilty), again, IF it turns out that the stolen valor charge is a manufacture of the left and they’ve been libeling, when they really didn’t have to, an honest man and patriot. Will you look at yourself in the mirror as you shave and be proud that you libeled an honest man? Will you want to crawl under a rock where perhaps you belong?
An honest man? Unless you’re going to maintain that his Indiana University faculty profile were published without his input or approval, I rather doubt it. Both versions falsely claimed he served in the infantry.
https://web.archive.org/web/20051017172551/http://indylaw.indiana.edu/people/profile.cfm?Id=126
https://web.archive.org/web/20150830183905/http://bulletins.iu.edu/iupui/law/2002-2004/faculty.html
“He served from 1990 to 2001 in the U.S. Army as an officer in infantry and intelligence at a variety of duty stations in the United States and overseas. He also served at the War Gaming and Simulation Center, National Defense University at Fort McNair, Virginia. His memberships include the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Carmel chapter….”
How does someone with no active duty join the VFW, by the way?
“…profiles were published…” Need an edit button.
I saw that. The answer is, I don’t know. Every year is covered in the top part so making the claim is so inherently stupid that I don’t know how someone with pretty good scores could have done it. The possibilities I can think of are three: 1) He did it, presuming everyone else was an ignorant idiot, 2) someone else misinterpreted what he said and fucked it up, just before he left the school, 3) it’s Winston Smith making up for creating Comrade Ogilvy; made up from whole cloth, in other words. I don’t know which is true. Neither do you. I’d like him to have a chance to fight it or admit his guilt before railroading him.
Wouldn’t _you_ want that much consideration?
Certainly, if someone said something about me that was untrue, I’d like a chance to correct the record. Given that those profiles (as well as the Indianapolis Star and Inside Higher Ed articles) are all in the neighborhood of ten years old, I’d say he’s had ample opportunity to refute them if they were inaccurate. If this were new material I’d absolutely agree that he should be given a chance to present his side before forming any opinions about him. This is not new material, however; it’s just resurfaced because of the recent attention that’s been focused on Bradford. He’s had plenty of time to refute it if he were so inclined, and to my knowledge he has not done so. Given this, I think it is reasonable to believe option 1, and to discount options 2 and 3.
Okay, do we know – and if so how would we prove – that he didn’t try to refute them? Lack of a libel suit probably won’t work, papers generally get a pass and the “piece” was, AFAWCT, anonymous. Who do you sue when someone’s anonymous? (There are ways, but there’s no payoff, so…) How do we know that they’re not plants after the events, plants specifically designed to discredit someone who committed a thoughtcrime?
Again, he might well be guilty, but those things don’t prove it.
Addendum: Nothing you’ve suggested would actually discount 3), the deliberate after the event forgery of the record.
Addendum the second. Normally I would classify number 3 as tin foil hat territory. The reason I haven’t, in this case, is that he got a high speed job a West Point. West Point is not sloppy with their background checks. Any hint of any possible impropriety would have gotten him a thumbs down. And, as demonstrated here, those hints are easy to find, it doesn’t take a major effort from NSA to do so. So why didn’t West Point find them. One explanation, not the only possible one but one, is that they weren’t at the time, there to be found.
So the Internet Archive Wayback Machine was hacked too? See, this was archived on December 8, 2005:
https://web.archive.org/web/20051208030912/http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/06/bradford
And all of those comments, some pro, some con – someone went to an awful lot of trouble to fake a historical archive just to provide a little bit of background on a guy who writes a controversial law review article. Unless Bradford comes forward now and says no one ever accused him of inflating his military record, June Holladay never wrote a column about him, etc., I come down on the side of tinfoil hat.
It wouldn’t refute 3), no. Again, my instinctive response to 3) is ‘tinfoil hat territory.’ but how the hell did Woops, which doesn’t permit that kind of mistake, fail to catch it? This is an organization that will cover up the 1st Sgt of its HHC essentially raping the women of the company lest something bad show on Woops. Oh, yes they will; oh, yes, they have. They’re that paranoid that nothing bad reflect on the academy. And they missed this? It’s hard to credit. Not impossible, just hard.
There are lots of things he could have done. Give an interview to a reporter. Write a blog. Send a letter to the editor. Post a comment to an article (the non-archived version of the Inside Higher Ed article is still open for comments – they are mostly from 10 years ago but I saw some as recent as 3 days ago). He could do the exact same things now, in fact. Given his current notoriety, there are plenty of reporters who would jump at the chance to interview him. Hell, he could come to THIS VERY BLOG and give his side of the story; people who are profiled here have left comments MANY times in the past! He’s have lots of opportunities to get his side of things out, if he were so inclined.
Not so much…if I were your lawyer and you were the subject of libel? My advice might well be, “let it go. The damage it does if you keep silent is not as great as the damage it will do if publicized, even if you are vindicated.”
Well, I’m glad you’re not my lawyer, because that would be bad advice! Now, I can see deciding that a lawsuit wouldn’t be worth it, but to remain totally silent in the face of false accusations? I’d at least put my views out publicly, so that no one would interpret my silence as acquiescence.
At 4:17 pm you said, in effect, wouldn’t you at least want the opportunity to respond? Now, not two hours later, you’re saying your advice would be to NOT respond. Wow. In any event, if Bradford is doing just as you would advise him to do, you can’t very well claim that it’s unfair to form an opinion about Bradford absent his input.
To be absolutely fair to you – replace “would” with “might”.
That would be because you don’t know a lot about the subject. It’s been known since, oh, Oscar Wilde’s day, at least, that charging someone with libel is the best way to ensure that the thing you didn’t want said and repeated gets _endlessly_ said and repeated. But, ya know, if you’re hapy with that, and since I am not your lawyer, go to town.
Did Oscar Wilde invent Occam’s Razor?
I like you Tom, because of the way you went after Bateman…so don’t rip out my jugular.
Do you understand the difference between respond and go to court?
You said “keep silent”. That’s not the same as “don’t sue’. Yes, I understand the difference.
Who do you sue? Putting aside that fact that the column was not actually anonymous and so you could sue columnist Ruth Holladay – how about the newspaper that employed Holladay and published her piece? The Indianapolis Star (A Gannett Company) will have much deeper pockets than any of its columnists, anyway.
First of all, ‘kraUtman’ was a typo. Nothing else. Second, if you paid attention to the article linked in the introduction to this thread, it says specifically that Bradford was dismissed from Indiana University in 2005 for lying about his military rank, experience and awards. The link to Indystar is to a 10-year-old archived article. If you request a printout of the original from Indystar, I’m quite sure they’ll be happy to supply it to you for a small fee. Are you even vaguely aware that, in the civilian world, if you pad your resume to get a job or your references to not bear close examination, you can get fired less than a week after being hired? It’s much worse now than it was in the 1990s, when I saw 2 people fired for claiming references and experience they did not have. Furthermore, you should be aware that when someone is investigated by a Stolen Valor site, it starts with an FOIA request for backup documentation. It’s quite easy enough to get the documentation. Ergo, your insistence that this is all ‘shit’, as you claim, does not hold water. Your rather vehement defense of Bradford implies that someone either questioned YOUR record (and YOU made a defensive statement regarding that, too), or you have some personal investment in Bradford yourself. The exposure of Stolen Valor and fraudulent claims by people who either never served or lie about their service, disabilities, injuries, etc., is real and necessary. See the Garrison thread for the reasons behind continuing to do this kind of work. If you are not aware that these phonies take funding they didn’t earn, service dogs they don’t need, and homes they scammed out of people, when those could go to people who actually need them, you have a very hard lesson to learn. Furthermore, the Guardian article says that Bradford’s article was pulled by the National Security Law Journal because it advocates throwing people with extreme political views out of airplanes, among other things. This is the kind of thing that ISIS does. If you are NOT aware… Read more »
First of all, ‘kraUtman’ was a typo. Nothing else. ***Fine. It was a common mistake and I hardly raked you over the coals for it. Second, if you paid attention to the article linked in the introduction to this thread, it says specifically that Bradford was dismissed from Indiana University in 2005 for lying about his military rank, experience and awards. The link to Indystar is to a 10-year-old archived article. If you request a printout of the original from Indystar, I’m quite sure they’ll be happy to supply it to you for a small fee. ***But the printout was not what was linked. What was linked was an uncredited, unbylined attack, that cited to someone else who didn’t join the attack, making claims not backed up with any supporting documentation. That’s not an SV invesitigation. That might as well be – as I suspect it was – an anonymous letter to the editor, anonymous because the author was trying to duck a libel suit. Are you even vaguely aware that, in the civilian world, if you pad your resume to get a job or your references to not bear close examination, you can get fired less than a week after being hired? It’s much worse now than it was in the 1990s, when I saw 2 people fired for claiming references and experience they did not have. ***Yes, I am aware of it. Are you vaguely aware that charging someone with padding their resume is, in the absence of proof that they padded their resume, libel? Whatever probitive power you think you see in people being fired who padded their resume, in a case where neither you nor anyone else has proven that this person padded their resume, is lost on me. Furthermore, you should be aware that when someone is investigated by a Stolen Valor site, it starts with an FOIA request for backup documentation. It’s quite easy enough to get the documentation. Ergo, your insistence that this is all ‘shit’, as you claim, does not hold water. ***SHow me th4e FOIA information. Don’t talk about what you… Read more »
You’re certainly dedicated to screeching about Bradford, are you going to say the same about others profiled here on TAH like say, Brandon Garrison or a certain fake CPO?
Changing the subject to a different person proves nothing. It’s not on us as the reader to provide the facts to substantiate very damaging journalistic claims such as those made here everyday. You can’t just yell liar, point your finger and then expect everyone to go on a scavenger hunt to find the proof. Regardless of your track record!
If there is proof then post it, period. Not what others have said about him but his own words and actions. It’s a benefit you would want extended to you if accused of something as potentially damaging as this. History tells you that if he is a phony, and maybe he is, he belongs to a class of people who are incapable of keeping their mouth shut. Let him hang himself instead of relying on plain hearsay. To do otherwise calls into question the integrity of the entire operation.
The boring creampuff spooges again!
Not my job in life. And one case wouldn’t have a lot to do with another. Also, try to be at least a little precise. I am not screeching about Bradford so much as screeching about the truth, about guilt and innocence, and about evidence. I know that’s a hard one for you to grasp, what with that 20 pounds of ghost peppers stuck where they are, but do try, between now and your next shit, to figure it out, would you?
***It fine that you do it and fine that the site does it. What is not fine is acting like hysterical schoolgirls and presuming guilt without sufficient – or in this case, any – valid evidence.
Where have I acted even once like an hysterical schoolgirl?
***You’re an idiot. Really.
Really? You don’t like rebuttal of your argument? Or you don’t like it when people don’t agree with your opinion on something? Saying ‘you’re an idiot’ puts you right down at the hysterical schoolgirl level you’re sticking to other people. If you are an attorney as you claim, is this how you behave in the courtroom?
***Then get them. Don’t talk about getting them GET THEM.
No. YOU get them. You’re so sure that this is all made up out of cloud songs and moonbeams, and we’re all just bad people. YOU get the proof that we’re wrong.
And don’t blow it off by saying ‘not my job’. You’ve decided we’re all wrong. Then you prove it.
And the next time you decide to call someone an hysterical schoolgirl, look in your own mirror first.
Actually wasn’t talking to you there but I think it’s possible this program puts things where it feels like.
It’s not rebuttal that’s a problem; it’s stupid rebuttal, things like bringing up Bradford’s legal thoughtcrimes as evidence of SV for example. Or the casual assumption that I have some personal interest in Bradford (never heard of him until about 3 days ago) which is not only stupid in itself, but stupid for what it says about your commitment to the truth and your personal values.
If you think that my statement that I do not support the sociopathic behavior of extremism promoted by Bradford and others like him was stupid, you’re incorrect. I have a right to be clear. That is not stupid.
Your intense defense of Bradford logically implies that you have some vested interest there. Otherwise, your angry outbursts don’t make any sense.
My commitment to the truth? My personal values?
What about yours? You refuse to even ALLOW for the remote possibility that we’re right and you’re wrong.
If WE are wrong, we say so.
But there is nothing so far that says that we are wrong, other than your overly angry reaction to this thread and the fact that YOU are taking everything said about Bradford as a personal affront. Yes, you ARE doing that.
The burden of proof is on YOU. If evidence is what you’re looking for, then YOU come up with it and I do not mean Wikipedia.
You prove us wrong.
It really doesn’t imply that. A brain dead moron toadying for the left could think so, I suppose, for certain highly constrained values of “think.”
I’m not the one making the offensive claims. Burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense.
And last, but certainly not least, you should really cut the salt out of the food you eat. Use Mrs. Dash a lot. Because if you don’t, with your level of volatility and anger, you’re going to drop in your tracks from cardiac infarction or maybe even have major stroke.
I had a landlady a long time ago who had your rotten temper. She would explode into screaming fits over nothing, just as you do. One day, she went too far and had a massive stroke.
She spent the last 9 months of her life in a paralyzed state in a nursing home. And she was only in her early 60s.
I’ll be sure to let you know when I think I need a concern troll. Until then, you tend your garden and I’ll tend mine, okay?
Seriously Mr. Kratman, if you really are the screen name you’re using, why are you screeching and cussing like a bitter spoiled child who’s just been denied their ice cream or am underachieving JV team member cussing in the locker room to make themselves feel better? If you want slanderous half-assed slander, libel, and innuendo you can go to the webpage of blather put out by a walking bucket of toad snot exposed here on TAH who never has been and never will be a USN COP Honorary or otherwise OR a member of the Oregon State bar and oh, it’s very likely he will soon be disbarred in California as well.
Dude, even for you that response was weak. First, the majority of your comments in any thread here are grade school level insults and curse words. It’s thinly veiled gay insult this and gay insult that. I swear I’ve never seen someone with homosexual conduct on the mind more than you and I spent a huge part of my life in San Fran. Is that closet you live in a tight fit?
Second, you are again trying to turn the attention from the verbal ass kicking you received concerning this topic to other confirmed phonies like that someone proves Bradford guilty. If 99 pieces of fruit are oranges, that doesn’t automatically make the 100th an orange too.
Dude.
You should really think about changing your name from C. Long to So. Long and then make a tree and leave.
And take Krapman with you.
Why? Because I had the audacity to not toe the company line on every single thing?
I’m not the one that resorts to gay slurs, nazi labels and threats of violence\death LITERALLY right off the bat. No, all I’m guilty of is having an opinion and enough fortitude to stand by it…using my real name. I can see how I’m a threat to the Borg like collective mentality some of you seems to share.
So he’s covering for his own stolen valor AND his closet homosexuality?
Makes perfect sense, actually.
No.
But I will wait for your epitaph to surface, especially with your cardiac disease.
Never been afraid to die. Not afraid now, either. So, again, you tend your garden and I’ll tend mine. My wife shows enough concern to suit me
Why would I be concerned about you? I’m just waiting for the death announcement.
See, nobody here is your legal aid or paralegal or legal secretary, so if YOU want evidence that we’re wrong, then YOU come up with it.
Don’t need evidence to counter until adequate evidence to convict is introduced. And it hasn’t been. Oh, it’s gotten a little better, but that serves mostly to illustrate how poor it was to begin with, and how readily some of you hyenas and schoolgirls (and, in your case, apparently closet homosexuals) accepted that poor evidence.
“(and, in your case, apparently closet homosexuals)”
What? Where does that come from?
Oh, wait – is that supposed to get me all riled up or something?
I’ve been polite and NOT confrontational with you all evening. I’m not sure you deserved any of that kind of courtesy, especially with you throwing out a pejorative remark like that.
And just what IS your basis for saying that? That I disagreed with you? I have a right to do so. Free speech and all that sort of thing, but certainly only polite discourse on my part is what took place.
You had no reason to say that, aside from having possibly the weakest, neediest ego since Hitler took the stand.
However, since you did say that with no provocation from me, you finally showed your true colors.
It does explain a lot.
The WIki footnote and the Inside Higher Ed article both state that the Indianapolis Star article was written by columnist Ruth Holladay.
Thanks, Mr. Bill. that should settle that question.
Now we’re starting to get somewhere. I’d discount Higher Ed’s piece as pretty much derivative of Holladay’s. She mentions her time there at that time as: “Interview, research, write on deadline column 3 times a week. Towards the bitter end, arranged for art and worked on my walk-off lines. But it was all good.” Linked in. Not sure what to make of that. Would, were I Bradford’s lawyer, depose her under oath to see what was up.
From Editor and Publisher, adding a little more detail:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Archive/-Indy-Star-Columnist-Admits-She-Was-Hoodwinked-By-Prof
It mentions that Holladay had been at the paper since 1978. It also said that Holladay had written an earlier piece that was supportive of Bradford.
Well…not as clearly as one might think. She just fessed up there to a reason for malice.
I’ve found at least two references to Bradford as a guest on John Gibson’s show on Fox News. First, he appeared as a guest on December 16, 2003: “Retired Army Major William Bradford, professor of national security law at Indiana University.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/12/16/topics-and-guests-for-tuesday-dec-1-1427380013.html
Reporters do make mistakes. If I’d been introduced as a retired Army major and I wasn’t one, I’d be sure to correct Gibson so that if I ever appeared on his show again he wouldn’t make the same mistake. So, on Gibson’s August 18, 2004 show, who was one of the guests? None other than retired Army Major William Bradford!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/08/18/topics-and-guests-for-august-18.html
On June 29, 2005, Gibson posted an opinion piece, defending Bradford against the then-current controversy at Indiana University. Gibson does not refer to Bradford by rank here, but does describe him as a Gulf War vet:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/06/29/un-collegial.html
Yeah, me too. (Correcting the record-wise.) But none of those three are _him_ speaking. Also, I can tell you from personal experience, that getting a civie or series of them to correct something they have wrong militarily is a challenge. My publisher does it. I correct it. It keeps coming back. (IOW, LTC, not COL.)
Long drive to the PRM, shortly, and I need to get at least _some_ sleep. I’ll try to pick this up tomorrow in Plymouth. Don’t stop gathering evidence by the way. Bradford doesn’t mean much of anything to me (despite certain morally crippled folks who seem unable to comprehend a commitment to anything but the personal), but the truth does matter.
Mr. Bill, stop doing Kratman’s work for him. You are NOT his gofer or personal assistant.
Producing evidence of what the hive mind wants to prove is my job? That’s absurd.
Seriously, I think you need to take Ex-PH2’s dietary advice and getting checked for say, OCD probably wouldn’t hurt either. Stay safe and don’t give yourself a stroke!
Wow. Paranoia and delusions, all in one package.
Yes, it is YOUR job, kratman. You’re picking the fight. You brought it here. All you have is your limited attempts to intimidate other people which don’t work too well on people who’ve been shot at.
You started the argument. You dig up the information yourself. There’s no hive mind here. And it does not matter whether you believe that or not. YOU decided to kick up the fuss. That did not come from us.
You want to defend Bradford? Go ahead. This is not a court of law. No judge, no jury, no one to play to. Dig up the information yourself, or drop your protests.
I think I’m about done, Ex-PH2. Not trying to do Kratman’s job by any means; just trying to counter some of his assertions. And Tom? None of us are trying to prepare a case for trial here. This is a blog on which people express their opinions. For this purpose, I believe there is ample evidence out there to form the opinion that Bradford either inflated his own military record, or allowed others to do it for him, while making no attempt during the past decade to correct the record.
You’re concerned that the blog is going to be sued for libel?
I think it’s more than fair to say that the blog has been sued for libel prior to this… AND WON.
My comment after “And Tom” was directed toward him. The point I was trying to make was that we’ve got more than enough evidence about Bradford to express opinions about him. Kratman seemed to take the view that we shouldn’t say anything unless we have enough evidence to prove that Bradford embellished his record beyond any shadow of a doubt, no matter how remote or fanciful. I wasn’t even thinking about a libel suit, quite honestly. I’m sorry that I didn’t express myself clearly.
I think you needed more than you had, yes.
Huh?
Oh, I know that, Mr. Bill, and I apologize for not directly addressing my comment to him.
The problem with a follow-up comment in this format is that it sometimes appears further down than the writer meant it to be.
OK, gotcha. It wasn’t completely clear to me what you were responding to, but I took my best guess and thought you might have been reponding to my comment. Glad we could clear that up. 🙂
I know this will get lost in the big scheme of things, but:
Just when we thought Kennedy Ozomba was the weakest Lieutenant we had ever heard about, William C. Bradford came along and made him tap out.
That’s funny.
But at least Ozomba had a “cooler” resume.
And I actually think he made 1LT.
Tom, I think we need to introduce you to Commissar. I think the two of you would get along swimmingly. Or, you’d end up killing each other trying to get in the last word. Either way, I think the meeting would be entertaining as heck.
When Tom met Robert Bateman, it didn’t work out so well… for Bateman.
Wow…. Once upon a time, I was a Soldier. I had the distinct privilege and honor to serve in a unit commanded by then CPT Kratman. (Willing and Able, Sir!) Count me as an admirer. So yes, take this with however much salt you decide is needed. My advice to the forum: when LTC Kratman speaks, listen carefully. You may not –like- what he says, but you would have to be a broken brick not to learn from it. Discounting what he says because you find it abrasive is… well… foolhardy. –Consider- what he says. –Think- about it. Drop the glands offline and engage the gray matter. As to sockpuppetry: If that ain’t Kratman’s writing above, he should hire the author to ghostwrite for him. And I strongly suspect our host could perhaps verify the author? I do think that we, the readers of this site, having seen so many outrageous lies, and such aggravated disreputableness, that we may be a little quick to discard the formalities when it comes to that awkward thing “proof”. I do believe that was the cautionary intent of Kratman’s above pointers. Trial first, proof, then and only then give the convicted the rusty worm. But he is not going to try to wrap his message in flowery language, or overly-polite replies to things he finds stupid. He is not noted for charm, in that sense. I kinda have to like the charm, however, of a guy who starts off a mandatory “ethics” group counseling session with the phrase “Liars are Fucking Cowards.” You tend to remember the guy that not only says it, but walks the walk. So to those who question LTC Kratman’s integrity, intellectual or moral: I eagerly await the loud “pop” as your head extracts from a tight and smelly space. That has to hurt. Meanwhile, just as an exercise in how solid is –your- intellectual foundation, go back and re-read this entire thread. In your cold light of reason, does anything you said there need, perhaps, a “revise and extend” to the remark? Did, perhaps, you miss the –point-, of… Read more »