Chasing phony soldiers in Oz

Doug Sterner sent us this link from the Australian Broadcasting Company highlighting the problem of bring stolen valor cases to justice in Australia where laws aren’t jacked around by judges trying to sound smarter than they really are. This is about the gentleman pictured above, Gordon Tisdel;

Tisdell is also on the ANZMI site sporting an impressive array of Vietnam campaign medals on his left breast pocket. On his right, what appears to be the gongs of half the campaigns since the Anzacs went ashore at Gallipoli.

But Tisdell’s photographic career has come to an abrupt end after being outed by the Sydney Morning Herald under the headline “Decade of deception ends as veteran claims exposed”.

The Australian and New Zealand Military Imposters (ANZMI) is similar to the scads of websites here that specializing in outing phonies, like our friends at POW Network and SOCNET. Their complaints about phonies are similar to ours;

A trawl through the ANZMI site reveals another pattern: the fakes predominately claim to be Vietnam veterans and former members of elite units.

“Most wannabes come undone because they choose to be SAS troopers or tunnel rats or clearance divers or snipers. If they choose to be cooks or drivers or storemen they may never be caught,” Bill said.

Also;

He says ANZMI “no longer approach the authorities because they aren’t interested”.

Only a handful of impostors in so-called Stolen Valour cases have been prosecuted in recent times.

“Stolen Valour is not a victimless crime,” said Bill, adding impostors can often cause distress to the families of real veterans who did not come home from war.

In case you missed it the other day, here’s a preview of the TV show ABC is running tomorrow night. I’ll post more if it becomes available.

Category: Phony soldiers