Philip Allen Keith; unnecessary embellishment
Scotty sends us his work on Philip Allen Keith, who was a real deal Navy pilot with a tour in Vietnam. Who needs to embellish something like that, right? Well, apparently Philip did. He added another tour to Vietnam and three Purple Hearts and a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry to an otherwise stellar career. Scotty has the instances of his lies, but here is his FOIA;
Seriously, these bug the shit out of me.
Category: Phony soldiers
Hmmmm. Discharged from the USNR as a CDR less than 2 years short of completing 20 years of service, eh?
Boy, I’d love a look at this guy’s complete records. I’m guessing there’s a story there that’s . . . interesting regarding his departure from the service.
Of course, I could be wrong.
it is odd that he didn’t do the full 20. Though I know 2 E6’s that said screw it at 16 and 17 years…..
brian: after taking a second look at the FOIA reply, I guess that could be the case here as well. I don’t see the Armed Forces Reserve Medal listed, which would show 10 “good” reserve years in a 12 year period. I guess it’s possible he didn’t get enough “good” years to make it possible for him to qualify for reserve retirement (he’d have needed a total of 20 qualifying years, and he’d need 15 more after he left active duty – his active duty time would have given him nearly 5 “good” years) and decided to “beat feet”.
Of course, he had 23 years to get those 15 additional “good” years (a CDR can serve in the Reserves until 28 years total commissioned service). So that would also mean he had less than 5 “good” years in the 13 years between leaving active duty and discharge. I can’t see how he’d be competitive for promotion twice under those conditions, though I guess it’s possible. Those were the pre-ROPMA “fully qualified” days for Reserve officer promotions.
Hondo, I was thinking the same thing. Something is up when a reservist punches out at 18 and doesn’t do 20. Hell, even in the IRR he could have found a way to make 2 more good years without drilling.
Bobo: no guarantee all his years listed were ones qualifying for reserve retirement, amigo; some might not have been qualifying years. But he still had 10+ years remaining before his mandatory removal date when he was discharged. I find it damned hard to believe he didn’t have 10 “good” years by that point and yet still managed to get promoted 2x in the USNR.
I’d love to know the “ground truth” here.
One thing that hits me: outside the Air Medal, no personal awards of any kind. No Navy Achievement Medal, Commendation Medal, nothing. Even the most jacked up JO’s I ever knew had some sort of personal awards, even if it was the “thanks for showing up, now GTFO NAM”.
NHSparky: I noticed that too. Other than stuff that says “been there” and that Air Medal (which may just say “flew there” vice did anything spectacular – in Vietnam, the Army often awarded them based on the number of flying hours performed in-theater), I don’t see a helluva lot else.
I’m also kinda wondering about that AFEM listed on his FOIA. Based on his active duty time (1968-1973), Korea, Cambodia (29 Mar 1973 – 15 Aug 1973), and Thailand (also 29 Mar 1973 – 15 Aug 1973) are the only places he could have earned one. I don’t see an assignment to any of those 3 locations, and he left active duty on 3 Apr 1973 – which doesn’t give him the time to have the requisite 30 consecutive/60 nonconsecutive days in-country/over-country as aircrew. So I’m still scratching my head about that one.
In no way do I support embellishing of any sort, especially among those who have served honorably enough to receive an honorable discharge from military service.
That said, it used to be fairly common for reservists to leave service without obtaining a full 20. Usually it was when balancing civilian and military careers forced concentration on the full-time at the expense of the part-time job. Doesn’t mean that this clown had no other issues, of course, but I wouldn’t put too much weight on “early separation” as an issue.
Simple fact is that career building, either in the military or the private sector, can be difficult. When building two careers simultaneously, it most often was the part-time career that was let go.
Age can be another factor. I worked with a reserve GySgt who had been in a long time, mostly IRR, but never had enough ‘Sat’ years (50 points in a year) to hit 20 before age 60. Once he realized he wouldn’t be able to complete it, he just never bothered to re-enlist again. Thought it was kind of a waste, but it happens. Not sure with this guy.
CWORet: the guy claims to have been commissioned immediately after graduating from “Harvard” (see the link to Scotty’s site). Even if he was 30 at the time (which is kinda old for a Harvard grad in the 1960s), that means he wouldn’t have hit age 60 until 1998 – or 2 years after his MRD.
OWB: true. But it’s still IMO noteworthy that he punched when he did. I know from personal experience that it’s simply not that hard to get 35 points a year (50 – the 15 gratis membership points) via a combination of IDT and correspondence work. And the man was promoted twice (to LCDR and CDR) after leaving active duty.
At least in the USAR, folks being considered for promotion had to meet certain mandatory professional educational requirements to be selected for promotion. Meeting those educational requirements generally guaranteed a number of good reserve years from correspondence work or school attendance alone, even if an individual was in the IRR.
If those weren’t met, the individual was a guaranteed nonselect. And 2x nonselect for either O4 or O5 would result in the individual being forced out – although in the latter case, not until the individual had reached 20 years total commissioned service (NOT 20 “good” years). This guy made both O4 and O5 in the USNR.
All told, to me something just doesn’t add up here. You may be right, but I think there’s a good chance there’s “more to the story”.
I noticed that too – “Discharged” instead of “Retired”. Does the “Not On File” comment in the “Transcript of Court Martial Trial” mean that there WAS a court-martial?
Marine_7002: I don’t think so. Best I can tell, many of the NPRC records techs seem to use that interchangeably with “Not applicable” when filling out their FOIA reply form. I’ve seen it on a load of them.
Sad, looks like a fairly decent job in the military but I think alot of you are on to something here….we’re not getting the full story.
I’ve been a Marine for almost 26 years as a communicator and don’t have any awards for valor, I don’t have a CAR (and let’s face it, if it hasn’t happened before now, it’s not going to…LOL)…nothing really sexy…but what I do have is my pride in serving. Where do people lose that and do sh!t like this?
Again, I would love to know the full story on this guy.
With all of that backstabbing and inter-office shennanagins going on back on Okinawa, that sure could have qualified as combat.
Yeah, Hondo, must agree that it is worthy of note, just that it should not carry as much weight for a reservist as for an active duty trooper.
Then there is that Navy thing. I am “assuming” that there were similar things going on in their reserve forces as in ours. I knew several of them back in the day and one of them retired as an 0-5. (His would have been 0-6 were it not for a health issue which required him to retire early.) I just got the impression from them that manning with them was not completely different from ours. But that is an impression, not a known fact.
I would not read too much into him not getting to 20 years and leaving the service. Once you get to the CDR level (and I assume it is the same now as it was then) if you want to stay in a “pay” billet you more than likely have to travel for drill, all on your own dime. I know as I have not drilled locally for the last 8 1/2 years. Even if he was in a flying status as a reservist, he would still have to pay to go to drill and that does suck up a good bit of the drill pay. I know more than a few folks that have just decided to resign and continue on with their lives rather than pay to drill.
OWB: from what little I know about the USNR promotion system of that era, it was quite different – it used an active duty “running mate” concept that I never could wrap my mind around, and still don’t understand today. But I believe there were still educational “gates” for consideration for O4 and O5 in the USNR. And the 2x nonselect rules for O4 and O5 were common to all services.
If there are any old USNR personnel hands reading this, I’d be much obliged if you could chime in. Education is always a good thing.
Hondo: got ya, thanks. Seems like they’d standardize the language, eh?
I noticed that the form doesn’t indicate whether his Air Medal was for an individual action or for strike/flight awards, nor does it indicate multiple awards. IIRC, a Vietnam carrier cruise would be long enough, and the aviators would fly enough missions to qualify for multiple Air Medal awards. So seeing a single Air Medal would seem a bit odd.
Is it normal on that form to only list the awards/medals themselves, and not indicate multiple awards? It’d be interesting to see his DD-214, for that and other reasons.
bullnav: that’s often the case in all the reserve components. Senior officer/enlisted slots just aren’t that common.
You could well be right. However, the fact that the guy’s “rockin’ the lie” on several counts makes me think that’s not the case here. He’s claiming being WIA 2x but has zero PHs (and the claim about the circumstances surrounding the 1st PH is so ridiculous as to be literally unbelievable). He also claims to have been a “Captain” in the USNR, which he clearly never was.
IMO something here just doesn’t pass the proverbial “smell test”. I could be wrong, of course.
Marine_7002: I may well re-file my own FOIA request on this guy. It looks to me like the NPRC tech may have been extremely busy and/or done a not-so-good job on this one.
The result should show number of campaign stars for the VSM (those are awarded per campaign in which the individual participated, not 1 per tour) If there were multiple awards of the AM, those should be noted. And I’m particularly intrigued by that listing of an AFEM with no assignment either to a ship or to a base in Korea listed.
In short, I think this FOIA leaves out more than a few pertinent details. Maybe a second try will provide those.
The FOIA has a clue, if you look at his duty assignments.
Bainbridge, MD; NAVSTA San Francisco; Moffett Field; NMRC San Diego; NAVSTA North Island, CA. But his actual duty roster isn’t there, which would have more clues.
My guess is backseat driver, as in crew member and/or observer, if he actually was in the air in Vietnam. I don’t see anything that indicates his being a pilot. If you know about ‘Bat One’, then you know that the recon flights were fraught with danger.
In reading his ‘bio’ about his time ‘in the Nam’, he’s gets shot out of the air in an F-4 in 1972, but somehow still manages to get that battered plane back to a carrier deck and has it skidding to a stop.
Hmm…. not buying this bit of BS for one good reason: aircraft carriers back there in them there good ol’ days of ‘you’re a lying ass’ had TAILHOOKS. The tailhook brings the landing plane to an abrupt halt.
ANY PILOT WHO FLEW OFF A FLATTOP KNOWS THAT.
There was also, for a while, a net that was used to assist a stop if the tailhook broke or didn’t do the job. Note that he doesn’t say exactly which carrier he ‘flew’ from, does he? No.
Maybe Our Phil doesn’t have a full 20 because he got caught tell tall tales and someone checked on them. Personally, I think he was a desk jockey who got to go flying once or twice, partly because most pilots have old photos of themselves with the planes they flew and sometimes with their ground crews.
Hey, Phil, I’d like to see the scar on your head from that shrapnel. It’s too early to play the cynic, but here I am doing it.
You sure you didn’t get that from getting crocked and hitting your head on the curb?
Damn, I can’t believe I missed this before: he went through flight school (see Scotty’s article on the guy) – but where is his Naval Aviator badge listed on the FOIA reply?
How would someone who completed Navy flight school not have that badge?
PH-2: good points. He might well be bullshitting about being an F-4 pilot. To fly missions in an F-4, he’d have had to have been designated as either a NA (Naval Aviator) or NFO (Naval Flight Officer). I seriously doubt that he could have gotten into the back (or front) seat of an F-4 if he was neither.
Now that I think of it, Hondo, wouldn’t the FOIA form have indicated his status as an NA or NFO? You might be right, the FOIA tech might have been in a hurry. His DD-214 would indicate which one he was.
Air Medals could have been earned for flying in aircraft other than fighter/attack, if those flights had met the qualifying critera, you don’t have to get shot at to earn an AM. He would have had to have been under flight orders, but not necessarily a designated aviator.
Here’s a pretty good summary of the current requirements (which, from what I can find, were in place during the Vietnam era):
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/navawards/blairmedal.htm
And PH2, the net you’re talking about is the “barrier.” The carrier deck crew rigged it when it was known that an incoming aircraft would not be able to make an arrested landing, had severe damage, or had other problems (such as a landing gear strut that wouldn’t come down or lock into position) that made it advisable to rig the barrier and help stop the aircraft. So theoretically, it could be possible that an aircraft would “skid to a stop”. Check out this video of a Marine F-18 taking the barricade (from the pilot’s view – that must have been quite a ride!). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD_mUwzpUs4 For more YouTube videos of barricade incidents, do a search for “aircraft carrier barricade.”
This gets curiouser and curiouser.
Hondo: great minds think alike 🙂
Look closely at Scotty’s blog page on this character. Scroll down to just below his official photo. There’s some entries under “Education and Training Completed” that shows he went to flight school (11 months), legal school (8 weeks), and air intelligence school (5 weeks). Maybe Scotty has more documents on this character that he didn’t post on the blog?
Oh, and for Keith’s story about being wounded while on patrol with a Marine recon unit: pure unadulterated bullshit for a large number of reasons.
*snort*
You folks have pretty much covered it all. I just ask why? Why do that to an honorable service?
This kind of stuff just makes me sad. I can’t even be angry. Just sad. 🙁
Good question, Sparks. Maybe he has some deep-seated psychological problems from having a bad childhood. Maybe he’s a Walter Mitty type who uses fantasies to compensate for a lack of excitement in his life. Maybe he’s frustrated that he really didn’t have the chance to perform daring feats of heroism during the war.
Or maybe he’s just a fucking idiot.
I vote for the latter 😀
Marine_7002: Maybe he’s just pissed that Royston Potter beat him out for the title of “least distinguished retired reserve O5”. (smile)
And yeah, Nicki – seeing someone with honorable service prostitute themselves this way via trying become the “hero they never were” through lies is damned sad.
Hondo: dayummmmmm, I completely forgot about Potter. What a turd. Keith is a piker by comparison.
His story relays his second Purple Heart in 1974 when his records say he was released from Active Duty on 3 Apr 1973.
So is he a pilot or not?
Also, claiming three PH’s in aerial combat should have also facilitated a host of personal awards as someone pointed out earlier.
NavCWORet: yeah, that’s problematic too. And he keeps adding to the questionable claims when he claims to have been awarded a Navy Commendation Medal.
That NCM must be the invisible version. Like his Naval Aviator wings, it’s not listed on what NPRC sent Scotty either.
@John or Hondo, do not know if you have this web site but if you have the right info for Navy folks it will give you pretty much every thing. It is NDAWS, Navy Awards system.
https://awards.navy.mil/awards/webbas01.nsf/(vwWebPage)/home.htm?OpenDocument
Green Thumb: I don’t think there’s much question that he was a Naval Aviator at one time. However, it’s my understanding that – like jump wings – aviator badges can be revoked under certain circumstances.
It’s also possible that his wings were merely omitted from the previous FOIA.
I’ve filed a separate FOIA. I also requested specific confirmation that the man is entitled to a Naval Aviation badge. If his was revoked, presumably the answer will be “no”. If it was inadvertently omitted, it should be on the reply to my FOIA.
Any Naval Aviators out there, please weigh in and confirm or correct the above.
CBSenior: thanks. Two questions, amigo:
1. Is there a way to check an individual’s decorations on that site?
2. If so, does the site go back to the Vietnam era? (We have the guy’s full name and old-style serial number.)
To check indidual awards middle tab(Personal Awards). Then top right corner Query Indiviual Awards. To the right of Personal Awards is the Unit Awards and it goes back to Vietnam. It is the Official Navy Awards Message with the Dates, locations, and Unit allowed certain awards. Top right corner is the Query for these awards also.
not defending this guy and certainly don’t know the Navy that well, but I believe any boat/ship commander got called Captain – does he have any command time anywhere? They do that for shore units or is that only for stuff that floats/sinks? I’m wondering if that could be some cause for exaggeration versus outright lying…. at least on that point.
CBSenior: thanks. They may have this guy listed via SSN (he was in long enough for the transition). Got a “nothing found” for him when I ran the query using his zero-padded serial number.
CO’s are called Captain for Afloat or Ashore units.
Hondo: here’s a rundown on how the Navy evaluates an aviator’s fitness to continue on flight status: http://www.medicalcorps.org/manuals/flight_surgeon_handbook/5evalboards.html David: he’s lying – not merely exaggerating – about awards that he didn’t receive (Navy Commendation Medal, 3 Purple Hearts). He’s lying about being a member of the MACV staff and being wounded while on a patrol with a Marine recon unit. He claims that occurred in 1974, but MACV was disestablished in March 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Assistance_Command,_Vietnam Not only that, but the last Marine infantry unit (1st Marine Regiment) left Vietnam in June 1971. http://www.paperlessarchives.com/vw_marine_corps_official_histo.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Marine_Regiment_%28United_States%29 Another “gotcha” – he’s lying about being aboard USS SANCTUARY while recovering from the nonexistent wounds he received during a July 1972 mission over North Vietnam. SANCTUARY was tied up at Hunders Point during most of 1972: “In commission, in reserve, as of 31 August 1971, Sancuary was decommissioned on 15 December. The next 11 months were spent at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard where she was converted for use as a dependents’ hospital and as a commissary/Navy exchange retail store. Another change brought the assignment of two women officers and 60 enlisted women to the ship for other than medical duties, and, on recommissioning on 18 November 1972, she became the first United States Navy ship with a mixed male–female ship’s company.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sanctuary_%28AH-17%29#Vietnam_War So…David, to answer your question, from looking at the results of the FOIA, I seriously doubt that he has any command time. Furthermore, it would be disingenuous on his part to claim he held the rank of Captain based on being being a captain of a ship, whatever the ship’s size. “Captain” of a ship is a title, not a rank, and should not be used when not actually in command of a ship and not actually holding the rank of Captain. What’s really astounding is that he has written a couple of books on ARMY history (http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BRDDQS) plus several other military history-related matters. Howinthehell can we trust his credibility as a writer of history when he can’t even do the most basic research to come up with PLAUSIBLE lies about his service?… Read more »
Wow that first Purple Heart: He must have been hit so hard he went back in time. He said he was shot in July 1972, well the USS Sanctuary was De-Commed in 1971. So how was the Medal pinned to his pillow. Second PH was with MACV 1974. Well the Awards Period for MACV and All Subordinate Units,(There are 2 Unit Awards)ends 28 Mar 1973. Making it more that likely that the MACV was not even in country. Wiki says the MACV was disbanded 29 Mar 1973 after the Paris Peace Agreement.
Oh, now, he’s almost my age, isn’t he? Geezers tend to forget the facts, y’know.
I’d take issue with his age graduating from Harvard in regard to being a fighter pilot. 30 isn’t too old to get a pilot’s license. You can get one at any age. But it’s a bit past the age range that they were taking for NAVAIRCADs in that time, isn’t it? If he already had a pilot’s license, that would be different, but that seems to be a stretch of the imagination to me.
My late uncle flew F-4s in Vietnam. Also heavily decorated.
This guy, if indeed he did embellish, is a clown.
@42: All the info he put out about receiving the PH in 1974 is bullshit. There was no MACV in 1974, as stated by you and others. MACV was deactivated in early 1973, and the Defense Attache Office (DAO) took its place as the principal U.S. military office in Vietnam, but with only 50 active U.S. military personnel assigned to it (with many more contractors, either U.S., TCNs, or locals), and they were strictly prohibited from taking part in any RVNAF military operations, and confined to the bureaucratic/administrative aspects of RVNAF funding and support. There was no U.S. Marine recon combat ops south of Hue in 1974, and certainly no DAO personnel that took part in any of it. We followed the Paris Accords fairly strictly, even if the NVA/VC did not. This PH crap from 1974 seems to be coming strictly from Keith’s fevered imagination….
Hmm, you’re right Hondo. His service period runs from June 68 to Aug 86. Odd indeed. Mine runs from May 86 to Apr 2013, however once IRR time was compressed out, total was 23 ‘good’ years, active/IMA/SMCR. I could almost buy the long travel part, as the last drilling years I did involved a 300 mile commute each way, pretty much burning the whole paycheck up and was an all around pain in the ass timewise. But as an 05, I think he could have sucked up that last couple of years – or do correspondece courses in the IRR at very least. Someone’s gotta have some dirt on this tool.
@47: After my back-to-back deployments to Iraq and PACOM during 2006-2009, I returned to CONUS and basically did what you did. I drove 250 miles each way (500 miles total) one weekend a month to duty to complete and pad up my 20 good USAR retirement years. I basically lost money on the deal, as the gas and lodging expenses really added up, but it was worth it to add to and pad up on the additional retirement years. And as a O-5, you don’t have many options as to where you go to fill what billet was available, especially as a command historian…
@42: Now that I see he has written military history books about Vietnam, it is possible that he inflated and embellished his military career and Vietnam service in order to pad his Vietnam author bona fides so as to sell more books…
@44 Ex-PH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! You cannot be near his age! You are and always will be the same as your photo in the Member’s Gallery. You and I are still YOUNG and always will be. It is what is in our heart’s that makes and keeps us young. Not a number or a birthday. 😀 😀 😀
Have a great day Ex!