Cover Blown, Pop Smoke! Or, how I quit worrying and learned to avoid the media

OK, so last week I did an interview with Army Times. And something went horribly awry. Basically, I think some pronouns got confusing and when I was referencing folks, the reporter was misinterpreting who I was referring to. Anyway, I am going to go through the article here and correct as I go along. I don’t want to steal an entire article, but honestly I am embarrassed at some of the stuff, and need to set the record straight. Also, the worstly held secret, initially blown by Ace of Spades (of all people), is now public domain. I use “TSO” not to “hide” my identity, but to try to seperate my work writing from my blogging. But, I’ve never truly disguised it either, and Jonn uses videos of me occasionally, so there you go. Anyway, without further ado….

Blogger helps expose alleged military faker
By Joe Gould

jgould@militarytimes.com

Should read “Bloggers.” Wasn’t just me, you guys saw what happened, it was a feeding frenzy of intel across all the blogs. More on that in a minute.

The goateed man was decked out in a formal Army uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his jacket and a Commander of the British Empire medallion hanging around his neck.

To blogger Mark Seavey, the “general” was an obvious fraud. Seavey’s fellow bloggers at the conservative “This Ain’t Hell” posted a photo of the alleged faker online, dead set on smoking him out.

“Wearing two Distinguished Service Crosses and a Combat Infantry Badge with two stars, is analogous to saying someone is a pitcher for the Red Sox and a quarterback for the Patriots,” said Seavey. “If that person existed, you would know about them.” The blog post led to tips, angry comments, media attention and ultimately the Feb. 5 arrest of Michael P. McManus, a 44-year old former Army private first class who served from 1984 to 1987.

More after the jump.

Regarding the Red Sox reference, that is a sort of long standing joke with my dad. He refuses to watch me on TV or read about me unless I mention the Sox because my dad is a flaming lefty. So, I work in Sox references so he will watch or read. Ergo my reference on MSNBC to VoteVets going after Rush Limbaugh is like me going after ESPN when the Sox lose.

It’s not a first for Seavey and the blog’s volunteer staff. Seavey said they have exposed about a dozen others who have claimed unearned medals or insignia, and publicized other cases.

I think the phrase I used specifically was “we.” Ergo the trouble I wrought. I think “we” meaning TAH, and “we” meaning the greater body of Milbloggers may have confused him.

Seavey and his fellow bloggers are among a cadre of self-appointed stolen-valor police. There’s also Mary Schantag, cofounder of the P.O.W. Network.

Schantag and her husband, disabled Vietnam veteran Charles Schantag, founded the P.O.W. Network 20 years ago to record the biographies of prisoners of war online. The work’s flip side became weeding out and exposing people who have lied about their military service.

The Web site, www.pownetwork .org , maintained from their Missouri home, includes a “phonies index” of more than 3,000 alleged cases of stolen valor. The couple collects information and attempts to verify it through official channels and volunteer researchers. When they suspect fraud, they send the information to the FBI and post it online. “We get 10 or 15 of these in a row sometimes,” she said. “[McManus] is not unusual, not in claiming the rank. We have dozens we have turned over to the FBI and we’re still waiting,” said Schantag.

Fakers typically make complex or impossible claims and like to pose as elite troops, Schantag said. “We see Marine-recon-sniper-Navy-SEALs. Now, come on,” she said. “There are 300 reported fake SEALs for every real SEAL who has ever graduated [Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL] training. It crosses every boundary, every rank, every race, every job. We get preachers turned in, we get activeduty military turned in.” Schantag said the frauds are offensive because they cheapen real bravery and hard work. “[Ser-vice members] have earned it, and these guys have no clue what it takes to do that,” she said.

Schantag learned of McManus when a friend’s brother sent her photos he took of McManus at the Dec. 12 inauguration for Houston Mayor Annise Parker.

Schantag posted photos of the man to the P.O.W. Network site and sent them to This Ain’t Hell, where the photo was posted at the center of a mock “wanted” poster.

That section is good. Mary is all that and a case of Guinness. Without her help and guidance, Jonn and I would be stumbling through these cases.

Seavey’s day job is new media manager for the American Legion, but he blogs about stolen-valor cases and other military topics in his spare time for This Ain’t Hell.

I actually would have covered this for TAL, but alas, one of our Legion Posts bought into McManus hook line and sinker, and I will never EVER disrespect one of our posts in a forum that they pay me to write. While I am on that topic, I never EVER publically disagree with a Legion position either here or anywhere else. That is fairly easy since I disagree with so few Legion positions. The only ones that come close are the Legion’s position on Global Warming legislation (which is under review I understand) and the DADT, although I really LOVED the press release they did last week on the subject. But, I say things here that are outside the scope of the Legion. And my work has been phenomenal about understanding that I didn’t abrogate my First Amendment rights and my views when I came here. But I am a conservative, and the Legion is non-partisan. So, I keep my names and my views apart when they differ, and together when they are the same. Hope that part makes sense.

For Seavey, whose blog dubbed McManus “Gen. Ballduster McSoulpatch,” the first big break was an anonymous tip saying the man’s name is Michael P. McManus. From there, readers pointed Seavey toward references to McManus across the Internet. He found several online profiles of McManus, which contained conflicting information about McManus’s rank, separation date and record.

“He claimed to do every job in the military that I could find, and the time frames sometimes covered each other up,” said Seavey. “He retired at least twice at two different levels, according to his story. At one point he was out in 2004, and another he retired in February 2008.” Among the information online, McManus claimed that he was on Gen. Colin Powell’s personal security detail, that he came out to Powell as a homosexual and that Powell retained him anyway. Separately, in the context of his opposition to “don’t ask, don’t tell,” he claimed to have been discharged for being gay. After Seavey got the information he needed about McManus, he contacted him directly.

“As soon I had everything that he had online, the very first thing I did was send him a message via Facebook that said, ‘I hope you enjoyed your time masquerading, now you’re about to meet the big boys.’ And then I said, ‘I hope you enjoy your interview with the FBI.’ Well, he took it all down 20 minutes later.” Seavey said that he has started to see a trend in which fraudsters lie about their service records to further their personal or political agendas, either for or against the war, or targeting military policies. After This Ain’t Hell reported on McManus, the Houston press followed suit. That, in turn, prompted the local FBI to investigate and arrest McManus, according to a law enforcement official.

Seavey said he was gratified to see in the criminal complaint that McManus’s attorney had claimed McManus destroyed the unauthorized uniform, medals and insignia — out of fear of “angry bloggers.” It emerged that McManus has been caught before making false claims about himself. In 2002, he faced federal charges for impersonating an air marshal and an Army major while trying to board a flight in New Orleans.

McManus faces five new accusations of violating federal law related to wearing the unauthorized military uniform, the military badges and insignia. If convicted, he faces up to three years in federal prison and $120,000 in fines.

McManus’s attorney, James Fallon, did not return a call seeking comment.

On Feb. 9, a federal judge set McManus’s bond at $25,000 and set special conditions for his release. McManus must continue “mental health treatment,” submit to a drug screening every 45 days and refrain from the use of credentials and identification documents or wearing of any U.S. or international uniform.

Jonn turned the reporter on to me to do a story on McManus. When I talked to him he said his story had changed to “how military bloggers took down this Stolen Valor guy.” Here is where I made a terrible mistake….I assumed I was a part of the story, NOT the story itself. In other words, I knew he had talked to Mary, and I gave him the Greyhawks email addys and he briefly emailed with them. I even talked to Mr Greyhawk at length afterward, and we were both of the opinion that the article would be a kumbaya compilation of what everyone in our little sphere had done. For instance, Cdr Salamander’s blog is the one that got this thing into the media, with the ABC channel 13 tie in. And, although I don’t know if true, my suspicion is that that TV station had the pictures emailed to them from the Cdr’s site. Meanwhile, Mrs Greyhawk made the poster, Bouhammer was following up on a ton of leads and contacting law enforcement, and CJ was doing the same. When the anonymous tip showed up in our comments, both Jonn and I missed it, and it was another blogger (I think Miss Ladybug) that caught it and emailed it to us.

Now, all night I tossed and turned and was sick worrying about this article. (Actually, the stomach pain may also have been the huge box of dried fruit including prunes I inexplicably decided to eat right before bed.) I feel embarassed and wish I could go back and fix this all. It wasn’t me that did it all. In fact, I didn’t do that much at all. When I talked to the reporter I used the phrases “collaborative” and “symbiotic” to describe the effort. I did some google searches, made a few calls, and sent him a Facebook message. But things like the Wink profile, I never found that, one of the readers did. This guy’s name? I never would have known if not for an anonymous comment.

My point is this, without you readers, there is no TAH, no taking down Stolen Valor guys etc. And without the other bloggers, the Greyhawks, Bouhammer, my friends Matt, Jimbo, and the Wolf Twins of Blackfive, and the other bloggers, we don’t have you readers.

I’ve always said that traffic for military blogs rises and falls for all of us. It isn’t like you guys chose to read us OR Blackfive, you generally read both. And when Blackfive links to us we get a ton of traffic, but he doesn’t lose those readers. Mr Greyhawk and I discussed how “rising tides raise all boats.” I think he came up with that, but he thinks I did. Either way, it is true. I bet that milblogger traffic charts would all be roughly the same as far as waxing and waning.

So, since this is going on WAY too long, let me close with this. I am glad that this article was written, just not the way it was, and I don’t blame the writer as much as I blame myself. I thought that I was fairly clear that it was a group effort, and I thought the email from the Greyhawks sufficiently reinforced that message. Alas, not so much.

Category: Politics