Thomas Cole – Phony Urgent Fury Commando

The folks at MilitaryPhony send us their work on this Thomas William Cole fella.   Cole comes to us from Pendleton, Indiana.  At the time of this writing, October 2021, Cole is 57 years old.

In the photo above, Cole wears a baseball cap with the designation “PURPLE HEART – COMBAT VETERAN.”  He appears to wear this cap often.

There is also a claim of combat-wounded on his Facebook page.

There’s also a claim on Cole’s Facebook page that he held the MOS of 98G2LAP in addition to serving from 1982 – 1996 with the 82nd Airborne.

And then there is a claim of being a SGT (E-5) while stationed with the 82nd Airborne.

Since there’s a Facebook post claiming that Cole jumped into Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, that would mean he saw action as a SGT (E-5).

There is an implication that Cole is the serviceman in the photo.  This photo is used throughout his Facebook profile, and even used as his profile picture.

However, this photo is from the Department of the Navy, taken by PH2 David Wujcik, has a VIN number of ‘DN-ST-85-02006’ and can be easily searched on the internet.  The official DoD caption for this photograph reads:

In the post above made on Facebook about jumping into Grenada, there is a claim that Cole was shot in the chest. On Cole’s LinkedIn page, there is a claim of two Purple Hearts for being wounded in combat.

Also on Cole’s LinkedIn page, there is a claim of a Bronze Star.

If that’s not all, this photo shows Cole with a long tab tattoo, which implies he was in Special Forces.

. . . . .

So what’s the Army got to say about all of this badassery?

US ARMY HUMAN RESOURCES COMMAND (HRC)

FOIA Result – HRC – Thomas Cole – NGB FORM 22

The entire FOIA result is provided below, but MP extracted and consolidated all pertinent information such as rank and duty stations into a summary table.  This table was not provided by the U.S. Army, but the information that they provided is summarized in the table.

. . . . .

US Army FOIA Complete Results

. . . . .

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MANPOWER DATA CENTER (SCRA)

We searched the DoD Manpower Data Center database and found the following service listing for Thomas William Cole.

DoD Manpower Data Center (SCRA) – Thomas Cole

This database was searched as well for any other active duty to present day. It did not show anything but sometimes the database is not reliable for recall to active duty from reserve status. This appears to be consistent with Cole’s NGB 22, however.

. . . . .

OTHER RESEARCH

A newspaper article listing the servicemen killed and wounded in Grenada does not list Thomas Cole.

A case could be made that the above list is early reporting and therefore not complete but the claim in Cole’s post is that he was shot in the chest on the day he jumped in, so it would represent an early casualty — if true.  Although there were some early recon elements that went in early, the main invasion of Grenada was on October 25, 1983 vs. October 23, 1983.

. . . . .

DISCUSSION and SUMMARY

LENGTH OF SERVICE

There are discrepancies between Cole’s claim of being in the Army and at 82nd Airborne for the length of time he claimed compared to the NGB 22 file.

NGB 22 – BLOCK 18: Prior Service Dates

RANK

Cole was discharged as a SPC (E-4) vs. the SGT (E-5) claimed.  The summary of the FOIA results do not support a claim for the rank of SGT (E-5).

MOS

We couldn’t find that Cole was ever assigned the MOS of 98G2LAP but it could be the case.

SPECIAL FORCES

Although Cole was in the 82 Airborne, there was nothing in his records to support a claim of Special Forces as his tattoo implies.

COMBAT

His records do not support the claims that Cole served in combat.

AWARDS

Cole’s records show no award of the Purple Heart – not to mention the two (2) that were claimed.  Even though the NGB 22, which parallels that of a DD-214, does not have a Purple Heart listed, it would include all prior medals to date.

NGB 22 – BLOCK 15: Awards

 

SUMMARY

If Thomas Cole has used any of these claims to gain anything of value and they are not true then he could be in violation of the Stolen Valor Act.

It would be interesting to see if ol’ Tommy boy can explain all of this.  Right now, he seems a tad busy fixing his Facebook page to get rid of a lot of the above.  Maybe the Army just forgot to mention anything about him being wounded in combat twice while doing all that record-keeping stuff.  

Some of you around here might find this shocking but I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe,  just maybe… Tommy might be full of shit.   Then again,  maybe there is some perfectly reasonable explanation for all those claims. 

Maybe we should start including a “Valor Vulture” Excuse and Warped Explanations Form with each of our cases.  It’s not like we could have heard them all yet…  or is it?  We have had some creative ones over the years.  I just want one of the boxes for selection to say,  “I embellished my actual Military Service beyond recognition with grabasstic nonsense because I have a puss-filled ego  that has gone rancid and turned my life into one giant clusterphuck.” 

I am not saying that Tommy here should check that box, but I am not saying he shouldn’t seriously think about it.  

I am going with either “They tried to give me the medals but I refused them because I didn’t think I deserved them” or “My Combat Records are sealed by the CIA so only ‘Brandon’ can read them now”.  

 

Tags: Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury

Category: Army Poser, Combat Wounded, Purple Heart, Stolen Valor, Valor Vultures