Michael Douglas McDowell; Phony General gets 5 years probation
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram which reports that Michael Douglas McDowell, who we talked about last year, pleaded guilty and got 5 years probation for his cute little stunt;
Michael Douglas McDowell, who entered his plea Tuesday, also pleaded guilty to bigamy, for marrying a woman while still married to his estranged wife. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports he was sentenced to five years’ probation in each case.
McDowell often wore medals and ribbons, and had a Purple Heart license plate.
Tarrant County prosecutor Joshua Ross says the 57-year-old McDowell “perfected the art of stolen valor.”
McDowell’s ruse came undone when he visited Fort Worth police Chief Jeff Halstead in 2012, offering him a tour of the White House or Pentagon. Halstead became suspicious and asked investigators to check his background.
Apparently, McDowell had been doing this for 15 years and getting away with it.
This is what we wrote last year about his elaborate ruse;
Dude had a drivers’ license with no picture of him because he had convinced Texas motor vehicle folks that he was an intelligence officer and couldn’t have his photo in the public record. He had Purple Heart license plates, walked around with three cell phones so “Washington” could stay in touch with him – and he’d have imaginary classified conversations with other people in the room. He carried files marked “Top Secret” in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He even had a vehicle with government plates with which he’d pick up VIP folks from airports.
Category: Phony soldiers
This is where the term “Bat-Sh$t-Crazy” comes from.
Green blouse with shoulder boards? Gold things on lower sleeve? I didn’t get that memo.
He was kendude crotchrot’s commander in the 9999th Top Secret Squirrel Mystery Commando Brigade…I think greggy banks and the rotund ranger reports to him too…
Are you f***ing kidding me?
5 years probation?
This jackass needs to stay off my radar.
How in the fuck does this guy just get 5 years probation?? Are you fucking kidding me? It was not just playing dress up for this guy.
He had to take the epaulettes off of the jacket to get the shoulder boards on. Not the brightest bulb.
Ha!!! Lifer stripes for an officer? Yeah, totally legit!
Yeah, I’d have liked to have seen him get some time. But so long as it’s a felony conviction, I guess I can grudgingly live with him getting probation.
Hopefully the judge specified the probation to run consecutively.
5 years probation is a long time. They will catch him again … he will be a violator in no time at all!
I know uniforms have changed; but that mess looks like a cross between blues and greens?
Sad to say…. this guy is as screwed up as real generals.
Clowns like him make me look better and better.
Haven’t studied it in a very long time, but used to be that very few folks on probation made it past a few months without messing up. With this sort of attention whore, it will be impossible for him to do 6 months, much less 5 years.
Assuming that the laws in TX have not changed, he WILL be doing hard time, without parole, in short order.
Good.
2 stars on the CIB…I don’t think so but you younger Iraq/Afghanistan vets can help me out and tell me if that’s possible now. In my day, yes. Korean and Vietnam vets had 2 stars. Plus the lifer stripes as Old Trooper pointed out. But then again…he is a poser. Why not go all the way. Sad, just sad. By the way I always keep three cell phones so the Pentagon can reach me. Even though I mustered out in ’77. You just…never know.
sparks, here are the award periods for the CIB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Infantryman_Badge#Qualifying_conflicts_and_periods
a list, though not official, of 3rd award recipients is kept at the Infantry Museum at Ft Benning, and it’s not very long
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Infantryman_Badge#Qualifying_conflicts_and_periods
Dud has the potential to replace the dishonorable COL at APL.
One imagines the judge gave him probation as a hat tip to his long service to this great nation.
Sparks: someone with 2 stars on a CIB was possible during Vietnam. It’s not possible for anyone on active duty today.
There have been 4 CIB periods to date:
World War II (1941-1945)
Korea (1950-1953)
Vietnam (1961-1995)
GWOT (2011-present)
To have a 2-star CIB today, someone serving would have to have served during the Korea, Vietnam, and GWOT CIB periods. Anyone who served in Korea would have been born NLT 1936. That would make them a minimum of 77 years old today – and in their mid-60s in 2001, when the current CIB era started.
I’m reasonably certain we did not have any infantry or SF soldiers in their mid-60s deploy to Afghanistan and serve at Bde/Group HQ or lower levels. I’m also reasonably sure we didn’t have any infantry or SF soldiers in their late 60s deploy to Iraq and serve at Bde/Group HQ or below, either.
Too bad he didn’t get shipped to Huntsville or maybe he will get a female parole officer with short hair and a really, bad attitude.
@17 Hondo Thanks. As I was saying it was not uncommon in my day to see the guys with service in Korea and Vietnam with 2 stars but I haven’t seen it since I got out. Too much age and time span between Vietnam and all things Mid East.
@14 Andy Thank you. Those are interesting links. I would like to have met a man with three stars on his CIB.
@20 CORRECTION. Three awards= TWO stars. Not three stars as I posted. My bad.
Sparks: what prevents seeing it today is that the Vietnam period lasted from the very beginning of Vietnam until after Somalia – 44+ years. No matter how many times someone saw combat as infantry or SF during that period, they only got one CIB. It was only authorized to be awarded once per qualifying period.
All known 2-star CIB guys served in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam.
The real General McDowell
http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/files/images/HD_mcdowellII1c.jpg
Coincidence? Me thinks not.
Hondo @ 22. I am not an S-1 type but i know a company commander who got a second CIB during OIF. He had enlisted time in Desert Storm. I thought our S-1 folks were pretty meticulous, but I could be wrong.
@17.
Grenada, Panama, the Dominican and I think various actions in Central America as well.
Hondo, after re-reading your post I understand you were talking a third award not two. My bad.
Green Thumb: all of those operations qualified, as did Laos (1961-1962) Korean DMZ, Desert Storm, Somalia, and maybe some others. However, they were all during the Vietnam Conflict CIB period. That period ran continuously from 2 March 1961 to 10 March 1995.
Only 1 award of the CIB is authorized during any qualifying period. See
https://www.hrc.army.mil/TAGD/Awards%20and%20Decorations%20Branch%20-%20Combat%20Infantry%20Badge%20CIB
Why does that jacket have a Commodore’s fat stripe on the sleeve?
@22–and IIRC, there were fewer than 500 of those (3 CIB awardees) and almost none left alive today, given the fact they’re at least in their late-80’s.
@PH2
That at least is the correct cuff braid for a General Officer in the Army
http://cdn.marlowwhite.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/520×350/602f0fa2c1f0d1ba5e241f914e856ff9/0/9/09k-190.png
NHSparky: last list I saw listed 324, but the list was from 2012. A few others may have been documented since then.
— break —
Ex-PH2: if I recall correctly, Army General Officers (GOs) wore a broad gold stripe on the cuff (much like a Naval Commodore) and dual stripes on the old Army Blues trousers.
The broad stripe IDed the individual as a GO and was to signify that GO assignments are virtually all technically branch immaterial (though selectees for certain positions were always from a given branch – e.g., infantry divisions were commanded by former Infantry officers in virtually all cases). Officers O6 and below wore a narrower gold-bordered cuff stripe including their branch colors between the gold borders. Dunno why the dual stripe on the trousers for GOs.
I think the same is true with the newer ASU, but I’m not positive.
30: O4E But not on a green blouse.
SJ: don’t think that’s a green blouse, amigo – I think it’s a Blues jacket, or maybe the newer ASU.
However, as I recall GOs wore a wide cuff stripe on the Greens jacket and dual stripes on Greens’ trou also. They were just black vice gold.
@32 SJ
On my monitor it look dark blue / black….
Wow. This clown and rotund Willie should enjoy a cell together. They could swap war stories, like:
“There I was, Veterans Day ’09, at the local steak house for my free dinner, when all of a sudden …”
@27.
Got it.
Re greens…yeah, you guys are probably right…that could be a Dress Blue blouse. So that would make him legit /joking.
RE: CIB 3rd award: I remember a few when I first went into the Army (August, 1980.) WWII + Korea + Vietnam would give 3 awards. Every one I saw was some crusty old CSM or COL or higher.
The post commander at Fort Benning at the time was MG David E. Grange, JR and he sported the CIB with two stars.
CIB with one star (Korea + Vietnam.) was pretty common among senior NCOs and field grade officers.
Most of the Drill Sergeants had CIBs and right-sleeve patches (combat patches.) Hell, some of the recruits who went through basic with me had CIBs as well (there was a rule back then that if you had been out more than a certain number of years, you had to go back through basic training and we had at least 4 or 5 of those guys in my platoon.)
@38: Martinjmpr, I went to OSUT at Benning in Jun 1979, and MG Grange was already the post commander by then. During my OSUT at Sand Hill, General of the Army Omar Bradley came by Sand Hill to meet the trainees and cadre, but my mortar platoon was out in the field training that day, so we missed seeing General Bradley, which was unfortunate…
I had to look them up, but yea, both charges are 3rd degree felonies in TX, with a possible 2-10 year sentance. Not sure why he got off so light, but employment opportunities just shrank a bit for this clown. Guess the judge didn’t think he was violent or anything. They need to keep an eye on him.
Dude looks like the love child of a Klingon and a Ferengi. just sayin’
Just wondering how this idiot makes an actual living.
And why is he getting off with probation? He’s a con artist, a repeater. He needs a roadblock, not a wrist slap.
Well you guys from the Army nailed the uniform.
And it is a travesty that this a-hole got probation. He should be doing time in Leavenworth where his sorry butt can meet some former military that would be GLAD to teach him a thing or two about military life.
I like how he’s lookin’ all hard n’ shit, like he’s ready to take on the baddissmofo in the slammer. What he really looks like is he’s trying to pinch off a steely turd and can’t quite get it done.
He’d better practice up clenching those butt cheeks–I predict an early return to the Greybar Hotel for this FunSize douchenugget.
As has been foretold so frequently and accurately here before, Stolen Valor is a sign of other problems. McDouchenugget here looks like he has more than his fair share.
Attention whores like him CANNOT stay quiet and off the radar even if their lives depend on it, I also say yeah, FORGET about if, it’s WHEN he’ll fuck up again and end up yelling “WEEEEEE,… WEEEEE,… “WEEEEEEEEE,…” for Bubba & Thor!
haha @44 Open Channel D….looking all hard indeed. Wannabe tough I bet, I imagine whenever someone questions his integrity or his military background. He decides he is going to get aggressive with them and start talking shit. Hoping it scares them away. I bet he spent his nights in jail crying about all the stupid things he has done.
Look’s like a real Black-hawk down kind of guy.Throat punch.
Criminal.
War/Conflict/Operation Qualifying Period (CIB)
World War II 7 December 1941 – 3 September 1945
Korean Conflict 27 June 1950 – 27 July 1953
Republic of Vietnam Conflict (qualifying service in Laos) 2 March 1961 – 10 March 1995 (19 April 1961 to 6 October 1962)
Dominican Republic 28 April 1965 to 1 September 1966
Korea on the DMZ 4 January 1969 to 31 March 1994
El Salvador 1 January 1981 to 1 February 1992
Grenada 23 October to 21 November 1983
Joint Security Area, Panmunjom, Korea 23 November 1984
Panama 20 December 1989 to 31 January 1990
Southwest Asia Conflict 17 January to 11 April 1991
Somalia 5 June 1992 to 31 March 1994
Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) 5 December 2001 to a date to be determined.
Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn) 19 March 2003 to 31 December 2011
Like my former 1SG who has been a Sheriff’s Deputy for years once said “Forget about if, it’s WHEN he’ll fuck up again, that type always does!”.