Poseur lawyer; everybody is SF
Jeff sent us a link to a lawyer’s webpage in which Kelly Gamble (Murphy) makes the claim that she and her husband were assigned to a Special Forces unit;
I met my husband (also an Army Veteran) while finishing my last overseas tour of duty in 1988 – we were both were [sic] assigned to a Special Operations unit.
Jeff tells me that he was in the same unit as Kelly, back in the California Reserves in Oakland and he doesn’t remember anyone in his unit being assigned to Special Forces. They were in a civil affairs battalion, which could have had dealings with Special Forces units, but as an assigned member?
And her records don’t bear that out either;
Sure all Special Forces A Teams have a veterinary food inspector assigned to them, it’s as important a job as the weapons, demo, commo and medical team members. Who else is going to check the food of the Team’s puppies and kittens?
Gamble makes the point of telling her prospective clients how she is proud of her 11 years of service and then she pulls the “Special Operations” thing out. Apparently, she wasn’t proud enough to refrain from pulling the Special Operations shit out.
Jeff says that he warned her to pull that reference off of her website before he wrote to us. I guess she doesn’t know what dicks we are…until now.
Category: Phony soldiers
Just to play devils advocate….
Civil Affairs were considered part of the Special Operations community for awhile.
Just gave her a call about how I hope her son was proud of her Poseur Ass!
This is a classic “Qualification by association syndrome.” It never ends. I once hung out at the Indy 500… but sure as hell was not a Formula 1 Racer. Maybe I need to start using the “Qualification by Association”… hell everyone else does! May they burn in hell. CAUGHT! BUSTED!
PS… I read her bio as well… John F. Kennedy School… hell we graduated from the same school! Never mind… mine was at Bragg. My bad? Hmmm Qualification by Association? I’ll try that with her.
Civil Affairs is under USASOC and is considered by the US Army to be a Special Operations unit. They didn’t declare that they were Special Forces as in Green Berets. Sometimes the usage of Special Operations Forces gets confused with Special Forces.
Psy Ops is also a Special Operations unit. It’s on soc.mil if you think I’m blowing smoke.
#4 Panthersix is spot on. The Army considers CA and PSYOP to be special operations. So the lawyer was accurate, while still having target location error.
Let me clarify, CA was assigned to USASOC until about three years ago, when Rumsfeld decided USASOC didn’t need us. There is an Active Component Brigade (the 95th) and multiple Battalions, most at Bragg, when we deploy, not everyone is Opcon’d to Special Operations units, OPCON is placed under Operational Control,meaningthat we become their Civil Military Operations element, the liason between the Operators and the locals. So technically, they are telling the truth, but only technically. I want to know, are these two schoolhouse trained by 3rd BN 1st SWTG(A) at Bragg, or by Hunter Liggit or Dix at the Reclass school and whether they were with the 425th or 445th, or from the BDE or CACOM level…… And once again, please, please know that notall of us in the CA community are know-nothing retarded, window-licking, mouth breathers that we are made out to be. There are some pretty tactically competent and high speed individuals inside our community. They are typically split into our Direct Support Companies and Teams….
I’ll leave the military distinctions to all of you as I am not qualified to speak on that subject. But to my civilian eye, whether she was “technically” assigned to a Special Ops unit or not, the reality is the average civilian isn’t going to know that. She is stretching the truth to further her cause…then again she IS a lawyer so, there you go.
I don’t see anything wrong with her language. She was in a Special Operations unit. My brother joined that same unit back in 2005, and at that time it was under SOCOM.
— Uber Pig
Uber Pig is correct, technically her language is correct, she should have worded things better.
This isn’t some tricky law school question where you get to parse each phrase to discover the alternative understandings and perceptions of the terms. If one says that he was assigned to Special Operations, the receiver of that message (rightly or wrongly) pictures either Sergeant Rock or Rambo. And the person presenting the message knows that. Hello! That’s why the ‘Special Ops’ is so often the MOS of choice among phonies: instant awe. But that’s not the only game being played, it appears. If you say that your “last” overseas assignment was in a particular year, there must have been multiple such assignments, no?
I always used to preface Civil Affairs as the ‘Softer side of Special Operations…” due to the job description and the sheer number of roles that we are asked to perform.
Far to often we make exceptions for “technicalities”. Short version is she tried to play up what she did in such a way that the dumb ass POG or Civvie will think “oh hey she was with SF”. I’m kind of sick of that kind of crap.
Civil Affairs was part of Special Operations Command, it was a Special Operations Unit. It’s meant to trigger a specific reaction in the civilian population not really in line with the reality of what most people in CA do but it’s still correct.
Based on what others are stating, I don’t think she is technically wrong in her claims.
Though I can understand how some would see her trying to play up that ‘Special Ops’ angle to the general public, many of who have no clue as to the technicalities of these things.
That said I think I have seen more egregious examples of people trying to make themselves out to be more than they are (were).
This is more semantics than anything, there are people out there who have done far worse over the past year or so in terms of stolen valor. If there is a sin here, its more one of omission if at all. That being said, there are Brigades and Battalions in Civil Affairs on the Reserve side that are Airborne and they still very much have the SOF mentality, and so do Battalions such as the one that I am in, that focus on the four man Direct Support Team model, where we embed with a maneuver or Special Operations element as their direct line between local nationals and NATO, and even in some cases empowering the representatives of GIROA to facilitate the reconstruction of their own country. Its really a pretty cool MOS when you get past the Gulf War era stereotype of the fat lazy POS Reservist that doesn’t do anything aside from get drunk, lounge in kiddy pools, and get into trouble…..
Don’t often have bitch with postings here, but…. SOCOM has a crapload of units besides SF (18 Series). The SFG(A)s, the Ranger Bns, 160th SOAR, CA, PSYOP, SOSC, SOSIG, etc. Last I checked the JFKSWC still was the proponent for CA & PSYOP, so anyone assigned those units were a part of SOCOM. I’ve got no gripe with anyone that did their time and did their job. My tired old 11th Grp ass knows the difference between a long tab and an assignment to SOCOM so lighten up a bit Frances.
WOW! I’m famous…but guess what, check this link out and read it carefully…so, now that all you HATERS realize you are WRONG……
http://www.specialoperations.com/default2.html
I will await an apology before contacting the Dept of the Army about your little bullshit blog here.
you war vets need to back the hell up and understand who supported you while you were out there. we don’t feel any less patriotic or proud because we were not deployed to Iraq. you guys are really making jerks of yourselves…and barking up the wrong tree. perhaps
and by the way…for you illiterate HATERS…it says Special Operations (which we CLEARLY were) not Special Forces!
I don’t know, I have to agree with Lucky and Janaburg.
When I re-read the original quote, again I have seen far worse examples of people trying to make themselves out to be something they are not. She is just stating that she met her husband while they were both assigned to a Special Ops unit. Which, technically, she appears to be correct.
As Lucky points out it is more of an omission than anything else.
But she certainly won’t be winning any fans here with her recent post I’ll tell you.
Mrs. Gamble,
Look lady, if you’d just shut your mouth this would have played itself out and that would have been the end of it. There’s a stack of regulars here pleading your case. But your dumb ass coming in here and starting to call people illiterate and then threatening to “contact the Department of the Army” makes you look both petty and like a crappy lawyer. So please, in your expert legal opinion, what is contact the Department of the Army going to do for you?
In all honesty, I’m more upset about her grammar than anything else.
(I said, as I typoed my blog’s address)
Uh-oh, the Department of the Army is going to be contacted?
Better watch out Jonn, don’t want to get CID involved or anything, hahahaha….
NotSoOldMarine, great response, ROFL!!!
As hilarious as I found the threat to call DA, for some reason the repeat use of all-caps ‘HATERS’ makes me chuckle a little harder. It’s almost like she’s taking a break from simultaneously prepping legal documents and posting on Justin Beiber’s Facebook page to come over here.
I just had a gripe with people trying to play up the “special” part of their career. But now that she threatened to call DA on me, I’m all scared and shaking in my very civilian boots.
I didn’t give a shit what DA said when I was in, I give even less solid bodily waste now. Aside from their AMAZING ability to state the obvious (hey guys watch out for IEDs!) and oh so helpful tips (try going slow, you may get ambushed but at least you’ll see them? oh that didn’t work? try going fast. That didn’t work either? try going medium) they have a knack for inciting boner killing policies, essentially ensuring that any QT with a sensible woman is interrupted by some form of horse shit, or even better change policy, and forget to tell anyone before Article 15’s start rolling out. So please, do enlighten this HATER, what exactly DA will do to me, or rather us here? What are they gonna do send me to some shithole with no idea what they want me to do, only some nebulous idea like “improve security”? Please explain. I’m going to go get my popcorn.
Hah! You illiterate army pricks sure are going to get it now! The Dept. of the Army is going to roll in, and they’re going to shut down your pathetic little blog. Then, after all you HATERS are jailed forever in Guantanamo, it’s just a simple matter dialing up the Dept. of the Navy, and BAM! Navy/Marine Corps blog!
I mean… that’s… that’s how this internet stuff works, right?
I have to apologize and she is calling DA and they are going to bend my dog tags and send me back to Iraq? I am an illiterate hater… what about this gal who hired her:
Lisa W.
Oakland, CA
Updated – 9/12/2011
I trusted Kelly to help with a very important matter, she always act as thought she knows exactly what she is doing, however it turns out she has made a complete mess of my situation, by filing improper motions, and not communicating with me effectively. I spent hours researching my situation via Law library and found she was not doing things correctly. when I confronted her about my concerns she rudely stated ” You don’t pay me enough to research how to do it correctly for that county.” She also threw me out telling me to find another attorney and kept my retainer, she also told me later she was not qualified to service the county the situation occurred in even though she knew this from the start Horrible experience and I’m very distraught. she threw me out of her office.
HMMMM Special Operations?
Much ado about nothing here. Her reaction aside I think labeling her a “poseur lawyer” is unfounded.
Well, I had misgivings before I posted this. I finally decided to post it because someone from her own unit took offense at her use of the term “Special Operations”. If anything solidified my decision to leave the post up, it was Gamble’s own comments.
Yeah, this infracton doesn’t reach the level of a Ballduster or Soup Sandwich, but if someone who served with her is offended, I have to think the post has merit.
I’m anxiously awaiting the Army’s interdiction of the business of the blog. I guess all of that traffic I get from the Pentagon and SOCOM doesn’t mean that the Army is already aware of this “little bullshit blog”.
I don’t get the HATERS label. Is that a California thing?
I’m a lawyer in private practice and also include reference in my bio to my assignment with a rather high-speed unit that my MOS wouldn’t normally include. My DD214 would not reflect this either, although some awards and CAB do provide verification. My bio also mentions the specific outfit I served. But with this post, I very much wanted to jump in to defend this attorney because I do see some parallel. However, assuming the IP address verifies that this was a real response in the comments, I must question her legal skills. If a blog such as this (as opposed to random ax grinder/disgruntled client) posted this about me, I would take a slightly different tact. First, I would send a private email addressing the misunderstanding, and probably offer up an award or two to verify my claim. If I then still felt the need to defend my service in the comments, I sure as heck would posit something articulate and professional. I certainly wouldn’t refer somebody to a lawyer who flies off the handle so easily… Ok, enough pontificating.
2-17AirCav –
I always thought it was a Guido thing.
Guessing by the fact that someone from her former unit took offense, the story about her attitude with a client and the internet police attitude here, I wonder if there’s not more to what she says past the website. Otherwise she’s telling fish stories to drum up work, which is in bad taste, but as stated above nowhere near as bad.
On a side note, isn’t brow beating frowned upon in her line of work?
There ought to be a separate category for veterans who do not lie about their service but, just the same, strive to create the impression that their service was a cut above the mundane. We have seen this many times with folks who do not make outright false claims but, nevertheless, do play cheesy games. The “in support of” qualification comes to mind. “Assigned to” is another. Perhaps this should be known as the glory by extension rule (GBER).
Anon–quite true. But again, just because I worked with SEALs does not make me one, nor would it be correct or ETHICAL to claim I served with them, owing to some people mistakenly inferring that I in fact did so.
While I understand that lawyers are going to pad their resumes just like everyone else to drum up business, putting up what are at best questionable bona fides aren’t exactly going to help, particularly when clients find out the truth and it can (and does) throw the entire relationship and trust issue out the window.
Put it another way–as a fast attack submariner, I did a number of Spec Ops (Special Operations). Does that mean I qualify as a Special Warfare operator? Not even close. I would have suggested to her that she reserve that claim for 18X MOS group members, even though she might “technically” be correct.
And when the supposedly highly educated lawyer comes in and threatens us (badly, at that) with a lawsuit or reporting us to an authority which has fuckall to do with us, let alone any authority OVER us, pretty much any credibility she had goes flying out the window, as you so aptly pointed out.
Bottom line, she’s another one of the Oily Taint School of Law graduates, and frankly, anyone who uses her services would have been better off with Branum, etc.
Given that she’s being accused of stolen valor, I don’t think her response is out of line.
I don’t believe she is trying to pose as a special forces operator. While, the wording could have been written better like using the word “supported” special operations in winning the hearts and minds of villagers with preserving their food for sale. I’m just spite balling here but I think his site is splitting hairs here. Me and my wife like to role play where I’m the B-17 pilot in London during WWII. She’s the blackout Warden. Would you guys bust my balls for my class “A” jacket not being of the WWII era and has NCO stripes sewn on or her English accent?
Whoops…seems some other folks don’t like her either…
http://www.lawyerratingz.com/ratings/6602/Lawyer-Kelly-Gamble.html
Seems like there’s a few folks who don’t like her amidst the padded comments.
buster, yeah, it’s out of line. As Anon stated, a simple e-mail to Jonn explaining the situation would have been more than sufficient and Jonn more than likely would have either taken it down or put in an explanation.
But nooooo, she had to play the badass, and poorly at that.
I see that she was at Ft. Sam in 1984… when there was still the SF 300F1 Course. Although I attended that course years before … it was well known that many female students were turned into “Comfort Ladies” and were “ruined-used” by many 300F1 students. Maybe she got ruined-used and thus the vitriolic nonsensical diatribe. Just say’in.
Yeah, if she was merely “proud” of her service, she could have just mentioned her 11 years of honorable military service without the Special Operations qualifier. Who knows the harrowing tales she can tell about putting flea collars on dogs in the Philippines, and checking the nutritional value of the local puppy chow.
NHSparky,
I’m not going to defend the whole ‘I’m gonna report you to the SECDEF’ threat, but she called her critics illiterate and haters. That seems pretty in-bounds for a blog that coined the name ‘Ball Duster McSoul Patch’.
FWIW, I don’t think she’s fuzzing the lines by listing her prior affiliation as “Special Operations”. She wasn’t supporting SF for a mission or a deployment, she was assigned to a unit whose MACOM was USASOC. Why should she have to caveat that?
@39. I read the feedback. The comments are all spaced out out over time EXCEPT for a grouping of positive comments, strikingly similar, that were posted over a couple of days in 2008. Some of them read as if Madam wrote them herself!
Shit like this pissed me off because it gives Civil Affairs Soldiers a bad name, not all of us are this straight retarded. Just wanted to put that out there, CA NCO’s are actually some of the smartest people in the military.
Pretty much agree with the comments that suggest that claiming to be attached “to” a Special Ops unit is not all that offensive, particularly in a very short bio where there simply isn’t room for a lot of explanation about anything.
However, that said, assuming that it really was herself who posted a response here, THAT was offensive and suggests motives beyond simply being proud of her service and trying to state it accurately in a very breif format. (Not that what “she” commented was overly defensive, ya think?) It was at that point that my radar pinged. And makes me wonder what she claims or implies face to face.
My entire service was in flying units. No other way to say it. But to couch it in terms that would suggest I was a pilot would be wrong. And entirely unnecessary.
Is the 445th CA BN aware of her antics? I mean if she is still in, her behavior on here comes close to the definition of conduct unbecoming……
Did her website formerly have “Special Forces” instead of “Special Operations?” Where is she claiming SF? (Not that she has endeared herself in any way here, again assuming that to be herself who posted earlier, but if she is being accused of something she has not done, a reactionary response is a tad more understandable.)
As far as I saw, it only mentioned SOF, so Idk, bit to react in that manner, instead of keeping her bearinhand going off half cocked like that, is why the CA community has the reputation we do, and its her generation of CA that helped give us it too, so pardon me if I am a little offended by her reaction, just because you are feeling fright, doesn’t mean you react in such a fashion….
Feel all the offense you care to there, lucky!
(Just for the record, I don’t have a negative outlook on CA, not even now. But if someone can furnish me with a good reason to attribute some, based on one contact, maybe, with someone who might have used to be in the career field, I’ll work on developing one.)
I wonder if that means that I was assigned to a SF unit because I helped sign a bunch of those guys in at the Lewis Mob Station…
Then again, I was a full-bird Private back then (SPC), and according to my sergeant I was highly qualified for the *Special* Forces… Short bus special, that is.