David Billings; phony POW

| October 6, 2015

David Billings

There was a luncheon for POWs at the Amarillo, Texas VA a few weeks ago, according to an article in the local news. One of the POWs there was David Billings, wearing his best central casting costume for Hollywood’s version of a Vietnam veteran.

And each former POW had a unique story.

David Billings is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He said his helicopter was shot down and they were then captured. After being transported on a cattle train, people spit on him and threw feces at him.

There’s video of the stank-ass hippie at the link, if you can stand to look at him, but it auto-starts so I left it there.

The problem is that Billings was busted more than ten years ago by the old POW Network. The only time he spent as a prisoner was in an Army confinement facility at Leavenworth for his desertion from duty. He never set foot in Vietnam, according to his records.

David Billings FOIA

David Billings Assignments

The FOIA says that he’s got a 40% disability, but not from a combat injury. Word on the street is that he has a VA POW card, despite the fact that he doesn’t show up at the DPAA as a POW. I guess Shinseki lied when he told Congress that there were only two phony POWs on the VA’s rolls. Billings has also tried to join POW organizations that are smarter than the VA and kicked him to the curb.

I’ve emailed the author of the linked article, we’ll see if they’re as interested in busting a Federal criminal as they are to tell his phony story.

Thanks to Average NCO for the link to the article. AverageNCO reminds us that last year, Dick Stoops was at the annual event and so was Billings.

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures

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Ex-PH2

A cattle car? Doesn’t he have his wars mixed up?

Green Thumb

Word.

And Dick Stoops. What a serial turd.

The only cattle truck this clown saw was a basic training.

Losers.

GDContractor

Could you look over the wire and see the Tiger tanks pointed at him?

Perry Gaskill

Billings’ claim about the cattle train sends up a big red flag in my own mind. I remember flying along the old railroad right-of-way in II Corps, which roughly paralled the QL-1 highway. The roadbed was still there, but all the rails, ties, and bridges were long gone.

Some months later, I happened to be in the abandoned train station in Nha Trang. Out back was a bunch of steam-powered rolling stock overgrown with vines and creepers that looked like it had once been shipped in from Toonerville, and hadn’t moved since the place was French Indochina.

CLAW131

Perry, there was a little steam locomotive with a couple of cars that putted around Phu Bai while I was there.

They had a ARVN Basic Training Compound at Phu Bai and I think they used the little train to do some troop transporting back and forth around the area.

It was like looking at a HO scale train set from the air as we did our daily flights.

John

If I know my history , and I do ,I agree he is confused , Cattle train ? different war , Different time , different races of people , different part of the world etc……….

Tony180A

HA LMAO I spit out beer through my nose when I read that above. Jeez!

Silentium Est Aureum

Shit, I’d consider Ft. Dix prison too.

And how fucked up does the VA have to be even back in 1973 to have given this chickenshit a 40 percent rating when after THREE Court Martials, he wasn’t just kicked to the curb with a firm handshake and a warm bowl of soup?

Green Thumb

I am surprise social workers are not falli8ng all over themselves right now trying to help this turd.

Hondo

The Army apparently temporarily retired the guy on medical grounds – he was on the TDRL (Temporary Disability Retired List) from 1973 to 1978. He was removed from that list in 1978 when the Army (presumably) conducted his 5-year follow-up physical exam and found him fit for duty. That means he either recovered sufficiently to serve (but given his record, almost certainly was not allowed to return to active duty) – or possibly was determined to have been shamming all along.

I’d guess he applied for VA bennies sometime after the Army stopped sending him a check and providing him medical care (maybe before, depending on what rating the Army gave him when they retired him; 40% or 50% of an E1’s base pay in 1973 wasn’t too much). If he didn’t have an OTH, BCD, or DD, the VA would likely have approved bennies – and if the SCM in his FOIA reply stands for Summary Court Martial, he didn’t receive a DD or BCD. (I believe the abbreviation used for Special Court Martial is “SpCM”, but I’m not sure if NPRC uses that consistently.) Even if he did have an OTH, he might have gotten the VA to approve his claims since he was supposedly a “former POW” – particularly if his issues were “headspace and timing” related.

That’s part of the problem today with the VA – and we vets are at least part of that problem. We want the VA to approve claims as quickly as possible; the VA gets beat up royally by VSOs and the press for taking it’s time in approving them. However, quick approval of claims and rigorous evaluation to screen out exaggerated or fraudulent claims are mutually contradictory. We can’t have both.

Dave Hardin

During the Roger GaggedOn debacle, who has been kicked out of the ‘VA is Lying’ group by the way, I was trying to count all the times I have been approached to file for VA benefits.

Veterans coaching other Veterans on how to increase their benefits is clogging up the system with mountains of bullshit paperwork.

The term ‘Service Connected’ is now so tenacious it has encompassed just about every conceivable malady known to humankind.

When a two time Deserter with an OTH Discharge gets out of Prison 3 decades after he abandoned his military obligations and can get 100% non-employable disability and a huge sum paid for back benefits, something is seriously wrong with “The System”.

3/17 Air Cav

Yep, he’s the real deal, no question about it. It’s common knowledge that all us Vietnam vets wear a doorag. It was part of the official uniform upon arrival in Vietnam. Cattle car my ass. Stupid old coot looks like he’s eighty years old.

Green Thumb

I thought you all wore a doo-rag.

I learn something new everyday.

I love the site!!!!

charles w

John Rambo, the golden years…

Hondo

More like John Wannabee, the Depends years.

1AirCav69

Come on guys and girls, I was with him on the 40/8 when we were sent to the Somme in 1917. We were captured by the Prussians who threw brats at us. Sheeze, give the guy a break.

1AirCav69

One more thing. I’ve said it on here 100 times, when I worked in the Vet Center we had these clowns come through with VA issued POW cards all the time. When applying for treatment the VA, actually trying to do the right thing, did not want to offend real POW’s by making them prove it on the spot. So if you marked down yes to being a POW you were issued a 0% Service Connected Card with POW immediately until they could “verify” POW status. Well, nobody was EVER assigned the job of checking them out. Ipso Fatso, you have all these phonies out there with real VA POW SC cards. Makes me wanna vomit. I complained over and over again in the late 70’s until I left in 92′ but nobody gave a shit, and it “wasn’t against the law.”

Thunderstixx

Not against the law?
To defraud the federal government is a crime for 99% of the rest of us, the only one that can get away with it is your run of the mill liberal demonrat.
Oh, and Al Sharptoon too…
Go figger…

1AirCav69

Thunderstixx, Every time I called the Regional Office on these guys, that’s what they would tell me…and why it’s in quotation marks. “well Tom, it’s not against the law to say you’re a POW”. We both know it’s a crime, trying to get anyone to enforce it is a whole different ballgame.

Dave Hardin

This is the reporter that did the story. Drop by and leave your thoughts on fake POW’s.

https://www.facebook.com/CoreySimma

AZtoVA

A 20-something meteorologist trying to do a news report? N wonder he picked Billings out as authentic.

LIRight

I left a comment earlier today as a reply to your comment – which was a good one…..the editor deleted it.

No profanity, just a little criticism. I can say it here, though – a bunch of wimpy-assed putz’ that missed journalism 101.

Dave Hardin

I hope the guy makes an effort to correct the story. Sometimes they just need to be pointed in the right direction.

AverageNCO

Yes the reporter was young, but unlike my other research on reporters who allow themselves to get duped; I’ll give this kid a pass. He shows up at a VA sponsored event for POW’s. Why would he be expecting a phony. The same thing happened in 2012 with David Groves. The VA dropped the ball on this one, not the reporter. I spoke with the Amarillo VA Public Affairs Office today. They said they could not comment on whether Billings has received any of the extra VA benefits afforded to genuine POW’s. Hell, we already know he’s gotten a few free meals out of it.

Silentium Est Aureum

Could not, or would not? Bit of difference.

Eden

I know his boss personally. . . And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this fake POW before, too. I also know someone fairly high up at that VA. . . Time to get to work.

CLAW131

I’ve talked about it before many times and there it is in black and white on the Form 2-1.

All you have to do to be MOS qualified for 57A-Duty Soldier is be a three time deserter.

Easiest MOS in the Army, no school training/AIT involved.

HMCS (FMF) ret.

Let’s go down the “POW” checklist:

1. Served with Lon Duc Dong – Check
2. Helo shot down – check
3. Captured by NVA/VC and moved by some sort of transport – Check
4. Appetite for Cream of Sum Yung Guy soup – Check
5. Dresses like a “real deal” Nam vet – Check

Three SCM’s – what da fuk? Must be a cockmeat sammich connoisseur… along with his Korean War buttbuddy, Dick Stoops!

Airdale USN

He must have went to Nam during all that time off when he took a break from the Army.

CLAW131

No, he went to some big green grassy field in upper NY state. That’s where it all went haywire. That’s where his “in-country tour” occurred.

Note that he was in a Deserter Status for the period of 15-18 August 1969.

I wonder how many children he claimed to have fathered at Woodstock? That’s where the doo-rag syndrome started and his memories of being herded around in a cattle train came from.

It was the mud, the endless mud of Woodstock and the “native peoples” throwing shit at him that got his brain all twitterpated.

A Proud Infidel®™

Maybe he drank Dutch Rudder Gang Cocktails to chase the brown acid?

GDContractor

Looks like he missed the announcement about the brown acid.

3/17 Air Cav

How in the hell can a substandard, deserting, embellishing asshole, like this guy even think of getting disability? I’ll tell you how. Everyone of these embellishing/posers have one constant in common! It’s called honor, which none of them have!

This lying fuck is approx. my age. If I look as bad as he does, someone please put me out of my misery!

CLAW131

Well you don’t look as bad off as him. Remember, I’ve seen you in person.

Scoobie took one look at this critters’ picture and promptly ran out into the yard, dropped a big old steamy cow pie, and then looked at me as if to say “Hey, Pops, Look, same-same David Billings.”

Roger in Republic

What? No service dog? Phonies all gots service dogs.

Hondo

Well, he was held prisoner during the Vietnam War. So that means he’s a Vietnam PDW, right (prisoner during war)? What’s the difference?

Seriously: as Jonn notes above, a quick check of escaped and returned POWs at DPAA show this a-hole is lying through his teeth.

http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_returnee.pdf

http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_escapee.pdf

No one with the last name of “BILLINGS” was taken prisoner by the enemy in SEA and returned alive. In fact, no US soldier with the last name “BILLINGS” appears to have ever been MIA in SEA.

http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_acc_p_name.pdf

http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_una_p_name.pdf

Bastard.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

This rat bastard was locked up because he was a fucking deserter, and now he’s telling tall tales about derring-do while rocking a disability he probably self-inflicted while incarcerated for being a fucking coward who deserted.

Sometime you need a good piece of hickory to send a proper message to a lazy, worthless piece of shit criminal pretending to a man of honor and dignity.

Not that I would ever advocate violence against anyone, no not me….

sapper3307

Can somebody design a badge or medal for POWs from Fort Leavenworth’s DB.

Dapandico

He got 40% for getting his arse reamed while in the stockade.

Climb to Glory

Wow, busted twice now. So he’s a full time professional shitbag. Fuck him.

CLAW131

At least he does things in threes.

Three AWOL’s/Desertions.
Three Summary or Special Courts Martial.
If I read his 2-1 Assignments correctly, he was a recycle each time for Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training, and for the stint at the Ft. Riley Re-Training Brigade.

If there was ever a biography written up for that Joe Shit the Rag Man we all knew in our different assignments, this is it.

The way he describes his attendance at the gathering, he has been coming for the free grub for a number of years. I wonder just how, given the odds were 15 to 1, the reporter zeroed in on him. Was it because the other attendees were fairly well dressed and cleaned up with a POW affiliation ball cap, but Billings was the only one dressed in a dirty T-Shirt and a Doo-Rag and fit the stereotypical pot head Nam Vet description that caught his eye? Or did Billings ambush the reporter at the door with a “Boy, have I got a story to tell you” approach.

OK, there’s my beatdown for the day. I guess we’ll have to wait for next year to see if he returns for another round of free chow.

Hondo

Please, Claw. We must be polite these PC days, lest we offend someone.

It’s no longer “Joe Sh!t the Rag Man”. Rather, it’s now “Joseph Excrement, Dealer in Scrap Cloth.”

(smile)

CLAW131

Well, I just can’t help myself when these old turds resurface and start rowing around the bowl again. Just blame it on Old Sergeant’s Syndrome.

I probably should have made another entry in the “threes” line-up as he did time in three different stockades, Ft. Dix, Ft. Lewis and Ft. Riley.

But speaking of Joseph Excrement, I’m sure as a 57A Duty Soldier for the majority of his time, Billings was very familiar with scouring powder and a toilet brush during his daily duties.

But, Thanks for the advice. I’ll try to be softer and think about the PC community’s widdle feewings before I post again.//smile

Taurus 0302 USMC

I have become so sceptical of anyone claiming any sort of combat experience or POW status.I wonder if the same thing happened after WWII?

GDContractor

Not sure if you saw this before. https://archive.org/stream/WartimeRacketeers#page/n5/mode/2up

Jonn posted about it here http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=39920 in FEB 2014 which is how I found out about it… and bookmarked it.

Taurus 0302 USMC

Thanks

Cpl/Major Mike

I will hate these lying fucks til my dying day, even more than useless fucking hippies.

JarHead Pat

Straight out of central casting

Silentum Est Aureum

Here’s my rule of thumb, and while not by any means universal, has held together very well in my experience.

The gents who I have encountered who are REAL POW’s, MOH recipients, and the like, comport themselves very well, take pride in themselves, to include their appearance, etc.

Those who look and act like a bag of ass are almost always as fake as a $3 bill.

Eden

And they usually say very little, if anything, about their experiences and awards.

streetsweeper

These two are about to have a couple of best buddies on their trail. Might not be too cold of a winter in the Panhandle for ’em. Heh.

W2

I want to kick that guy square in the bean bag. He has a major malfunction to be sure.

Therapist

I have to wonder, of the relatively few bona fide POWs out there, are there that many in Amarillo Texas? At any given VA POW event outside of a major city, if there’s a lineup for food, they probably have fakers.

W2

Excellent point!

Daisy Cutter

Billing’s wife has no problem chowing down even as the cameras roll.

Nothing beats a free meal and all you really have to do is say a few words to the camera.

She HAS to know so is guilty as he is, unless he met her years after his “POW” days.

Green Thumb

I do not blame her.

She probably saw someone like Turd Bolling in the parking lot.

Got to get in the chow before the rest of the clowns start rolling in.

Harry McNally

I got a reply from the local news on their Facebook page:

“Thank you for your note. We followed up on your information. The Amarillo VA says Mr. Billings is a former POW. They tell us the local VA business office previously verified Mr. Billings’ former POW status with the federal government. They make these verifications before inviting people to be special guests at events such as POW luncheons. They tell us they verify statuses through the national VA or Department of Defense. Because of our inquiry, they plan to attempt verification again. You are welcome to contact the VA regarding their process.”

AverageNCO

That’s it, I’m calling the VA IG on this one. Everything here points to this clown getting POW benefits.

GDContractor

“local VA business office previously verified Mr. Billings’ former POW status with the federal government.”

A FOIA request to the Amarillo VA Business Office of that exchange might yield some interesting information. You’d think a “journalist” might jump on that one…

Green Thumb

Good luck getting it.

You have a better chance of getting a hot cup of coffee or a double strawberry infused latte w/ extra cinnamon from a cracked out, drug dealing, transgender penguin on the lamb in Antarctica.

Their General and Regional Counsel offices (to include OIG) will shut it down. These turds in senior administration are all in it together.

It seems the VA hires more attorneys these days than physicians/clinicians.

And why do they have problems?

rb325th

I recently was able to verify the status of a WWII POW for our Business office by checking the DoD list of POW’s.
The Business Office includes Eligibility personnel at the VA, as well as several other departments.
I do not know how they handle claims of POW status, or what proof they require. I do know that it is quite easy to alter/falsify documents and that the VA has a substantial number of Veterans listed as POWs than there are actual POWs.
Hope they find this guy was getting fraudulent benefits, and fry his ass.

CLAW131

Anybody wanna bet a fake (ala Forgin Frank Visconi) DD214 was submitted to the Amarillo VA?

Any takers?

Andy11M

so, any bets if they take the DoD list as gospel and say he’s not a former POW, or stick to their designation that he was a POW so they don’t have to admit they were wrong?

Green Thumb

They do that a lot.

Especially in the realms of medical malpractice.

Harry McNally

I’d be interested to know the results of this so I can throw it back at them. If it ends up you get results before they post anything, then I’m going to ask them why.