Another Poster Child of the IVAW
It’s been a while since we profiled an IVAW member. They get real excited and you get to learn about the folks behind the black T-shirts. TSO is a little bored of burrowing into the research, but I kind of like it.
This week’s star is Zachary Findlay-Maddox. He’s been on my radar since Winter Soldier II back in March when he first emailed me. He began his email telling me that he was a Marine veteran and that he’d suffered from PTSD after his combat tour and that my treatment of his fellow IVAW members was unfair and it was causing him some distress. He claimed my dismissal of their stories was causing him to suffer even moreso than usual from his bout of PTSD.
Normally, I’m sensitive to troops who suffer from PTSD, because I’ve had some problems myself…not the least of which was soon after being in WSII. So I asked him about his combat tour and I commiserated with him. Well, it turns out his combat tour was at the Marine barracks at 8th and Eye Streets…in Washington, DC’s Southeast neighborhood. According to Findlay or Maddox or Whatever, hardly a night went by that he didn’t hear the locals busting caps at each other in the ‘hood. Well, for those of you who don’t know, 8th and Eye isn’t even in the “hood”. It’s near the shipyard on the “safe side” of the Anacostia River. It’s barely part of the infamous Southeast at all.
Well, my sympathy pretty much dissipated by the time I finished reading that (did I mention, that he’s a bit of a blowhard who types endlessly). I tried to explain to the youngster that DC isn’t considered a combat tour by anyone’s standard and that he shouldn’t tell people that or they’d make fun of him (sorta like what I was doing). I just figured he was a mixed up kid.
Well, I found his profile on the IVAW site the other day (at the link above) and I see he didn’t take my advice. He tells of his brief taste of combat;
We found our platoon, and went down stairs to draw out our M-16’s and bayonets, and other gear. My platoon assembled on our platoon floor, which was on the fourth floor of Alpha company side of the living quarters for the Marines. I could see the Pentagon that day, only because of all the black smoke that was pouring out of it. It turned the sky partially black in that area, it was pretty horrific. I watched on T.V. President Bush coming back to D.C. in marine one with two gunships, and they flew right over us at roof top level. We stayed at the Barracks until that evening, when finally we were allowed to go home.
Terrifying isn’t it? As a reference, he was about eight miles from the Pentagon. Most of DC was between him and the danger. But that moment changed his life, apparently. He got to go home on leave a few days later;
Everything was kind of calm back home; it didn’t affect people as much. That has always been a weird thing for me to grasp, because being a marine, in D.C., you feel like Pearl Harbor just happened again, which it was in a sick sense. Even today, it’s hard for me to relate to most people, people who have no idea what is at stake in the world right now.
Well, to make the blowhard’s story short, he started hanging out with his car dealer, started smoking pot and drinking, came up hot on a piss test, deserted for the love of a good woman for a few days and got booted. Never left the States, never went to Iraq, never even packed his bags for anywhere except his trip home. He guarded his barracks, which was terrifying, too;
I was completely by myself at night, and I was unarmed. That’s right, our nations capitol gets attacked for the first time since the British invaded back in the eighteen hundreds, and I was completely unarmed. Oh, I’m sorry, I was armed, but with a twelve inch METAL POLE. The marine I had enitially relieved had given it to me with a smirk, when I asked him what we would be protecting our selves with. The normal marine security forces had pistols and shotguns, and I was an infantryman, so I was trained on how to use an m-16A2 service rifle, and among other weapons. So I was kind of shocked by it. Anybody by the way could walk up and through the post, the side walk for I street south east was right outside the glass doors. I also had at this time very “Osama Bin Laden” looking guys coming through my post, to deliver pizza.
Poor thing…all of these guys who like Osama bin Laden wandering around and all he had was a piece of pipe. One of them might have over-powered him with a meatball sandwich and he’d have been toast. There was probably a good reason they didn’t give this drug-adled adodolescent an M16 in downtown DC.
But it all piled up on him and he succumbed to the siren’s song of pot and beer. And of course, it’s Bush’s fault;
We got to stop Bushie and Tricky dick before they get away with this, as a victim of 9/11, I think its complete bull for them to use this as an excuse to terrorize the world….
Got that? He was five miles from the Pentagon (not to start a pissing contest, but I was two miles away) and chose to take drugs and lay up with his honey instead of going to work, he’s a 9/11 victim. You can find a common thread running through most of these IVAW members…a good number of them had a disciplinary problem in the military and the war (and Bush and Cheney) seems like good excuse.
Oh, and you can Google Zachary and find his comments posted on message boards at NORML and High Times. His problems aren’t just with the military.
Crossposted at Talon
Category: Politics
LOL… Oh wait, I think I hurt myself.
ATTA BOY Jonn. I needed that.
He’s the winner of this year’s IVAW sponsored “Jesse Macbeth Award”.
This guys a real Al Hubbard. I always told the IVAW puppets that their VVAW puppetmasters had them repeating the 60’s, nothing more, nothing less.
This guys IS the Al Hubbard of his generation. Kelly Dougherty needs to resign so this guy can fleet up to new Al Hubbard’s rightful position of ExecDir.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…
Gee Jonn:
All along I considered you to be the compassionate sort. Here you are picking on this little red cheeked wussy puss. How will he ever be able to stand proud with his combat buddy Jessy McFake? You have probably ruined him for life cuz we know that war heroes like this don’t need that sort of verbal abuse. What if he just loses it and comes after you with his 12″ metal pole? Will you be able to defend yourself from this war hero that saw Marine 1 and all that black smoke? You should be more considerate of these IVAW hero types; sheesh!
nuf sed
OK, maybe I will get back into it, but this guy was such low hanging fruit I just couldn’t take it. It’s like Manny Ramirez particpating in a T-Ball league.
This is my favorite from his profile:
“I am proud of my accomplishments in the Marines, I am proud, and always be proud of what I accomplished. I was a good marine, I did what I was told, and “sucked it the f**k up” all the time. That what I was trained to do.”
You got chaptered Dickhead. You were a piss poor Marine and a scab on the legacy of the Corps.
If I saw this punk and a real Marine in a bar, I wouldn’t stand too close to the whoop-ass locker.
Jonn, keep it up on IVAW and I hope your keeping archives. Ten or twenty years from now when some of these shitebirds are running for office, it will be nice to have them on record concerning their current actions. Just another sad fact of Once A Marine, Always A Marine not being true in all cases especially someone claiming victim status.
Maybe he comes from a long line of liars?
“My grandfather on my dad’s side was in World War 2 as a dauntless dive-bomber tail gunner.”
The SBD Dauntless dive bomber was primarily a USN aircraft but was also used by the USMC and in a very small way by the USAAC. In none of its variations did it include a tailgunner.
Sorry Zach, Pops was not a tail gunner on a Dauntless.
Maybe Gramps was a tailgunner in the shower…………..
nuf sed
Hey! During the 1st Milblog Conference (May ’06) Matty of Blackfive organized a pub crawl that started at that Marine barracks at Eighth & I. We went through five or six bars. We were unarmed. I didn’t end up with PTSD, but I was moving a little slow the next morning.
Does any of that count?
Nah! I didn’t think so.
What a jackass.
TSO, no talking about Manny, it gives my heartburn, baby.
Maggie — according to those people, wow, do you ever have PTSD. You were in and out of action (the bars), you had to deal with the civilian population (you walked on the street from one bar to another) and you were often surrounded by unruly crowds (milbloggers)! Therefore, you clearly were in a combat arena and suffered from it (your head was a little woozy the next morning)!
It’s all in how you play it out.
I can totally feel this dude though, particularly after my role in the invasion of Panama. I was at The Citadel when the invasion went down, and all the planes for resupply etc were coming out of Charleston AFB. Well, it was exam time, and I was busy studying, but with the drone of aircraft taking off 24/7 I couldn’t adequately study. Ever since then I have had really bad PTSD that manifests itself in dreams that I am in class, and about to take an exam I am unprepared for. Oh, and I have no clothes on.
It was dangeros my friends. But I am proud of my role in the invasion. (IE, monitoring engine noise and the doppler effect as they went over the barracks.)
Ahhh yes… I remember when we invaded Grenada. That was the night we had to walk back to pier Charlie and the boat from the Enlisted Club, thru the dark and scary swamp that was Charleston Weapons Station with only the beer we had in our bellies to protect us from the fearsom gators and gar that lurked there. Now everytime I hear a splash I must down a can of ice cold Miller Lite or I break out into a cold sweat and start muttering “Where’s the f&*%$&# liberty van?” over and over and over…. the horror. (shudder)
Good Grief! All this reminds me of how I almost got caught up in the Vietnam War. Being in from 1960 to 1964, I barely got out in time, whew! Thank god for that silly sky-diving accident that made me unfit for further military consumption. the horrors of watching the evening news and seeing actual HUEY’s just like the ones that I crewed when I was in, OMG and the stories of the bad Elvis impersonators in the bars at Da Nang. Still gives me shivers or something like that just to think that my beloved 101st Aviation went all the way over there.
Poor baby Zack, roll yourself another doobie and do like you did in the Corps and “Suck it the F*#@ up”.
IVAW is a flippin’ Joke.
nuf sed
The SBD had a rear gunner. For the non-aviation buff, it would be an excuseable mistake to call it a tail gunner.
What a f*cking POS that guy is!
First of all, I never told anybody I was in combat. I volunteered to become an honor guardsman in the marines. I started smoking pot because I felt like I was having a mental breakdown. I was scared, I was scared of my insane roommate, who kept a loaded pistol in our house, and threatened to kill me and my other roomate. Plus I was still dealing with 9/11 and shit. I was too afraid to ask for help, because I DIDN’T want to bitch about it…….I didn’t think anybody would give a shit anyways. I’m sorry I didn’t get to deploy and MURDER people for our fucked up beyond belief federal government. Combat infantry badges don’t mean shit to me…….Wow, so you engaged and destroyed third world people…….HOW BRAVE OF YOU ALL. WAR IS MURDER……… “War is a RACKET!!!” Gen. Smedley Butler USMC. I’m sorry I didn’t choose to use cocaine, or crack, which A LOT of marines use because it doesn’t show up in their piss after a few days! Geez, I wonder what the military did when ALCOHOL was illegal? I can’t even imagine a military without its favorite drug…….. HOWS THE GLORIOUS WAR GOING FOR YOU PRO WAR PEOPLE? HOW MANY MORE YEARS YOU THINK WE NEED?
Military glory–that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood–that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy… – Abraham Lincoln-
Force always attracts men of low morality.
~Albert Einstein
Its pretty sad when we get a poser of a poser on the site…
How many Marines out there got the CIB…
Hey Zach,
You’re obviously a product of public education and haven’t learned how to correctly spell you name … it’s not Zach … it’s Losermotherfuckingpunkasscowardandwhiningbitch. Tha’s your first name … when you learn to spell that one, I’ll give you the other names…
Get a life LMFPACAWB, you’re disgusting!!!
Public or private education, it’s what you make of it… how many fortunate people do we see down-grading themselves for that swampland level of publicity? And how many unfortunate people do we see up-grading to the zenith of hope?
HA HA HA this turd was in my platoon in boot camp. He barely had an IQ Above room temperature during winter in San Diego. I cannot believe he was considered “Squared away” enough to be stationed at 8th and Eye… but at least this fuckup was not in the fleet with me putting my ass in danger. FUCK YOU MADDOX!!! Do you have any idea how many side straddle hops mountian climbers and pushups you caused us being borderline retarded?! I wish a 747 had landed on you you shit-bird.
Damn… What do I get for crossing Shit River in the P.I?
Repeatedly…for months…
Oh, and Zach.. What’s the matter with a crazy room mate with a loaded gun? I had them for years, and I felt quite safe, but the there were real bad people out there. You want to feel fear ?? Try the real jungle youngster.
What right do ANY OF YOU have to insult and bash someone for the experience they had?????!!! Seriously. We all handle experiences differently and have varying levels of tolerance. Just because someone wasn’t as immune to the brutality and violence as you doesn’t make them any less worthy of your respect. I am ashamed to be living in a country where people would treat their fellow comrades with such disrespect. Wow. Your negativity has BLOWN my mind.
I know Maddox and while I wouldn’t consider him a friend, I would never show him the disrespect or ignorance all of you have.
P.S. This is Adie. Zach- Rise above their bullshit.
@ Adrienne, if you are asshamed to be living in this awesome country then get the fuck out, go to the Middle east and chill there, wear a bomb strapped to your chest, and by all means show that you are a liberal, lesbian idiot over there.
When it’s overblown bullshit, pretty much anything we want. Sounds to me like his tolerance level would be to sit in the corner of McD’s in the fetal position and sob uncontrollably if he didn’t get the right toy in his Happy Meal.
And Adie–shitbags are shitbags and don’t deserve respect. The fact he pissed hot and went over the hill makes him a shitbag by pretty much any definition of the word.
Finally, “brutality and violence”? Since when? Again, 8th and I ain’t Ramadi, Fallujah, the Korengal Valley–hell, I’ve seen worse in East St. Louis, parts of Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Detroit.
I never really got into the NWO version of Illuminati. Is there a “US Military” card?
Isn’t that Metthis’ bitch?
IVAW, Illuminati, NWO? Is there a program, so one can identify the various bags? WCW, ISO, Vets for Sitting on Our Hands. Man, it’s just so confusing.
I saw a fire once, from several miles away, does that count, Zach? Do I have PTSD, or flashbacks from witnessing a fire?
Smoking pot because you thought you were having a “mental breakdown”? How would you treat a gunshot wound, shoot yourself again?
NHSparky you’re a tool
And you’re a deluded little girl who really needs to get out a bit more.
Oh, and to coin a phrase, “Lighten up, Francis.”
Or did the “shitbag” label hit a little close to home for ya?
Hell, if 8th & I was bad, imagine how it felt on Fort McNair before the area was revitalized. 8th & I is landlocked in the yuppie part of town, with both the President’s Own barracks and the Navy Yard about 1/2 mile away. McNair has water on two sides and ghettos on the other and floods every couple of years. I knew a few Soldiers who got robbed, mugged, or were chased in the attempt to do so. My squad was one of the few to take a right out of the gate through the projects; most others chose to run the waterfront to the Mall.
In my not-so-expert opinion, this kid has anxiety problems anyway. At the very least, he has dedicated himself to a life of smoking, and perhaps that is taking its toll on him. Check out his comments in these links (there are too many others to list):
http://stash.norml.org/contra-costa-county-california-wont-prosecute-assaults-thefts-and-burglaries-due-to-budget-crisis
http://stash.norml.org/one-marines-marijuana-story
http://hightimes.com/legal/jgettman/3281
The “One Marine’s Marijuana Story” is nice. I guess more than one service member feels exempt from the military’s substance abuse policies.
At least his PTSD doesn’t stop him from playing airsoft:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RD8WFF57187ZS
@NHSparky you were in the Navy right? and by the way you have your head up your ass you were probably an officer, this IVAW guy you are mocking has probably seen way more than you have. Glass houses
@34
I think you will find that most real combat vets typically refrain from engaging in pissing contests over who “saw more.” As for being an officer and prior enlisted, I see nothing wrong with someone earning a degree and moving up the ladder, especially in the context of demeaning officers in order to support a guy who by at least the account posted/researched here has committed the cardinal sin of exclaiming the much maligned “no sh!t, there I was.” The other item of note is that he is affiliated with IVAW, a group that likely started with good intentions of actual Iraq vets. But even their founders may acknowledge the takeover in terms of manpower and influence of non-Iraq vets and groups such as ISO that do not have a record of tangible veteran support. Bring in the IVAW “no sh!t, there I was” exagerators and your friend here has what is known as a credibility problem.
“Probably seen way more”? Oh yeah, he saw smoke!!! And, Marine One, or one of it’s decoys. And don’t forget the “Osama bin Laden looking guys”. He outghta take a cab just about anywhere in the country and check out the drivers.
But, that’s ok, just go back to the bong. MJ will fix up whatever’s wrong with his head.
…this IVAW guy you are mocking has probably seen way more than you have
Lemme see–he never deployed. ANYWHERE. I did five Westpacs. Eight years at sea. Almost 12 years total time.
FAIL.
And depends on your context of “seeing”, I suppose. I didn’t “see” shit–I WAS ON A FUCKING SUBMARINE, GENIUS!!! Now I’m not going to bore you with details of, “No shit, there I was…,” but guys like nucsnipe and BubbleheadRay who also post here have BTDT, and without knowing specifics, can get a pretty good idea of what I’ve done based on what they themselves and done and where they’ve gone.
Or NOT gone….
Bobogirl2012:
“this IVAW guy you are mocking has probably seen way more than you have. Glass houses”
Really? He never left 8th and I, popped hot, and went over the hill. How can you equate that he has probably seen way more than Sparky? Please explain that for us, because I would love to hear how that is accomplished from inside CONUS. I can’t figure out how you can defend someone who has admitted they never left the barracks with such bullshit as you have espoused here.
Old Trooper said: “I can’t figure out how you can defend someone who has admitted they never left the barracks with such bullshit as you have espoused here.”
Don’t trouble your mind trying to figure that. It’s simple. She is a delusional, liberal/progressive, who surely voted for the empty suit whose name she uses in her “handle”.
“What right do ANY OF YOU have to insult and bash someone for the experience they had?????!!”
“I could see the Pentagon that day, only because of all the black smoke that was pouring out of it. It turned the sky partially black in that area, it was pretty horrific… as a victim of 9/11, I think its complete bull for them to use this as an excuse to terrorize the world…”
Zach claims to have been a “victim of 9/11.” Let’s give that its own paragraph just so it sinks in:
Zach Maddox says he was a victim of 9/11.
Because he saw smoke in the sky. And some Al Qaeda pizza men. And you chide US for insulting HIM??
If Zach Maddox is a victim of anything, it’s his own runaway imagination. Whether his love of weed contributed to this end is anyone’s guess, but… http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20110301/marijuana-use-linked-to-risk-of-psychotic-symptoms
Anyone think that this turd stands 1 chance in 100 of making anything of himself? I’m guessing homeless and/or a felon inside of 5 years.
Obamagirl2012 I dont think so he is a POG, just like all of the IVAW assholes. They have not seen action, except while giving each other verbal hand jobs while sharing thier bullshit war stories, and trying to console each other for being chicken shit disgraces to the uniform of the branch he and she have truly disgraced.
I remember when we invaded Panama….I was trying to get home from NTC and got stuck on an Air Base in California….We finally hitched a ride on a C-5 for Ft. Hood but we all knew they were gonna keep going past Ft. Hood to Panama with no tanks, or weapons….we DREAMED of having a metal pipe. I suffered from PTSD until we actually landed at Ft. Hood….I still have nightmares…..Obamagirl, this guy is a douche…defend someone worth defending…
I feel ya bro, I am so sick of these bleeding heart liberal trash and these antiwar vets… At least if the vet has seen action (real combat) and not the fear of being deployed then I can relate to them you know? These IVAW morons have not seen anything kind of action, and they claim they saw shit. Have any of you here talked to one of those clowns? Did they lie like crazy?
To be fair, CH–some of the IVAW members (very few, but some) have in fact been in Iraq, and some even went outside the wire. I may not agree with their take, even though I never went to the sandbox, but I’ll give them a lot more credit than some whiny pothead UA douchenozzle whose entire “trauma” consists of seeing a building on fire from several miles away.
#35: Spot on.
ObamaGirl2012: you’re missing the point of the exercise.
Had Findley-Maddox said:
I was a Marine at 8th & I
I saw the smoke from the Pentagon and was on alert for Xx hours.
I made two short-sighted, stupid mistakes
Now I’m a former Marine.
Boring, accurate, and does not rise to the level of credibility desired to make a political statement. IVAW is a political organization that must have actual veterans of combat in Iraq to give it integrity.
The membership requirements are easy. One must have been there. Have actually killed someone (the more innocent the blood, the greater the integrity of the outrage). Must have experienced a moral epiphany and joined the side of humanity. The only problem with my description is I’m not accurate. Many of the leaders of the IVAW over the years are not veterans of Iraq. Many are false veterans, or who’ve destroyed their integrity with tales of faked combat.
Boring and accurate and no Combat Action Ribbon means the Findley-Maddox is not an Iraq Veteran. His membership is bogus. While he fits in with the IVAW crowd, he’d never get membership in the VFW.
You’re defending a liar. You are knowingly defending a liar. Unless you’re a defense attorney or a defense contractor, there’s no excuse for your doing so.
H
How is his membership bogus? IVAW’s website states that a service member need not have deployed anywhere in order to join. Maybe that makes the name of the organization meaningless, but give me a break, I got an invitation to join the VFW after my first deployment which was a 4 month stint in Kuwait. According to the VFW representative handing out literature at the PX, it only takes an AFEM to qualify.
A little off-topic here, but maybe this guy’s big scary roommate is the one that beat up a young TOG private years ago.
Poor Private Hojo (name changed to retain anonymity) had a bit of a drinking problem that was first noticed when he crashed into a 20-pack bus. On base. His second day at the unit. When he was still 19.
Poor guy tried his best to do right after that and called a cab one night while partying in D.C. The cabbie couldn’t make out where he needed to go and just dumped him at 8th & I since he was military. Poor Hojo was a bit proud of being a Soldier and reminded the Marines, who flexi-cuffed him and beat the hell out of him.
The following day a few of us had the joy of hearing our CO, Major Cirino, chew some ass. A snot-nosed LT got on the phone after the Major finished with the Corporal at the desk and tried to sound important (probably figuring it was a pushover junior NCO on the other end). He said the wrong thing and Major Cirino flew off the deep end. Good times.
Hojo ended up getting chaptered but never once did he complain about his job or even the treatment his so-called brothers in uniform gave him. He was just a man with a problem and is now living a successful life. Funny thing is, through the wonders of my new-fangled Facebook I’ve found at least two other guys who got out for various issues and are now leading successful lives without a need to blame their problems on the Army, 9/11, GWOT, etc.
Houser–what does the “I” in IVAW stand for?