Taking Stolen Valor to the grave
CavRick tells us about a veteran by the name of Wilburn “Wild Bill” Carr Jr. who must’ve been quite a hero of the Korean War. He died last week in North Carolina at the age of 75 and his family wrote this about him in the Gaston Gazette;
Bill was a decorated Korean War veteran and Purple Heart and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Bill served as a member of the 101st Airborne Division with the U.S. Army Screaming Eagles. Bill later served numerous years with the National Guard and American Legion.
When the shooting stopped in 1953, Wilburn would have been 17 years old if his age is correct in the obituary. A 17-year-old Medal of Honor recipient would have made him famous, I’m sure. But, apparently not so famous that he’s listed in the “Home of Heroes” among the 135 Medal of Honor recipients of the Korean War.
Category: Phony soldiers
Sigh, yet another poser who has to embellish his record.
When will the “newspapers” in this country ever learn to do just the minimal checking on anything submitted to them?
Is it just me, or does it seem like these posers all come from non-military family backgrounds? The families don’t seem to have a clue as to whether what they’re being told is true or not.
As far as the reporters in this country…they’re so far removed from any truth about the military, Martians could land and they’d probably think they were Marines.
Either “Wild Bill” told them the lies or his family did, thinking that nobody (?) will make a fuss.
Well, taking the lead from some Congressmen, it may very well be true that Bill was a recipient of those awards, including the MOH. He may have received them at some point from someone who earned the awards. They do need a cleaning now and then and Bill may have been an expert polisher. He also could have been a member of the 101st, just not THAT 101st.Lastly, Bill, it is said, served numerous years with the National Guard and the American Legion. That may be true also. Or it may be that he served as a point guard with a legion basketball team. I’m not clear on that.
If reporters actually did there jobs, I think most of the public would drop from ferret-shock. I know I would.
The bad thing is that this stuff is nothing new.
Check out some of these stories
http://lbha.org/?p=108
UpNorth, The obituaries are written by the funeral home and sent to the paper. When my mother in law died a month ago the funeral home gave my wife a form so she could write down all the information about surviors, etc. I read it yesterday and didn’t think much of it. Last night I got to doing the figuring on the age. So I looked for a MOH citation on him and couldn’t find one. I have sent an e-mail to local editor of the Gaston Gazette. I told him that this needed to be corrected and the phony exposed.
http://www.gastongazette.com
You can read the obit and then look under the contact us and contact the publisher or editor. I am very pissed about this. Embellishing a record is bad enough but saying he was a MOH receipient is too much
CavRick, yeah, I’ve filled those forms out before. Just saying, there seems to be a willful inability to do any checking by most papers these days. Then, they wonder why circulation is in the crapper, and they need a bail-out? IF this guy lived in Gaston for a while, does that mean they’ve done other articles on the living legend amongst them?
If the family wrote that Wild Bill had been president of the United States after Eisenhower, would someone on the paper check on that? I realize that part of the problem is that very few even realize what a Medal of Honor is, but come on, people. Get your heads out.
This is my grandfather you are all talking about. You should learn to show some respect for fallen veterans especially on a day like this. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. You all are a bunch of cowards for knocking on an old man in the grave. This man was fighting for this country before any of you shit heads knew what a medal of honor is. I love this country but it’s cynical assholes like you people that are ruining this country. FUCK EVERYONE OF YOU.
101st Airborne never went to Korea, for one thing.
You’d think that in this internet age newspapers would finally learn to do the most basic of fact-checking, but alas.
Josh
Perhaps you should go and see for yourselves. I am sure that the answers will be quite interesting. Or you could go to the Facebook page for the 101st Airborne.
Oh and we have a long list of reasons why we are cynical about claims of earning high awards and honors considering those that try to pretend to have earned the Medal of Honor.
.
You can tell use off but you owe it to yourself to find out the answers for yourself.
6.8 million men and women served during the Korean War period (Jun 50 – JAN 55 according to the USG, although the cease-fire was signed in JUL 53). Of that number, 136 received the Medal of Honor. That’s 0.0002%. Elite club. Over 70% (97) died during the action for which they received the Medal. All 136 recepients from Korea are documented.
@ Josh,
The following is from
“Index of Recipients of U.S. Military Awards”
http://www.homeofheroes.com/verify/recipients_c.html
“(S) Carr, William D., USMC – Awarded: SS – Vietnam War
(B) Carr, William F., USA – Awarded: SS – World War II
(B) Carr, William J., USMC – Awarded: SS – World War II
(C) Carr, William J., USN – Awarded: NX, 1st Award – 1925 – U.S.S. S-51 Rescue and Salvage
(C) Carr, William J., USN – Awarded: NX, 2d Award – 1924 – U.S.S. S-4 Rescue and Salvage
(C) Carr, William Louis, USMC – Awarded: MOH – China (Boxer Rebellion)
(C) Carr, William M., USN – Awarded: MOH – Civil War”
Further explanation as follows,
Award Abbreviations: MOH (Medal of Honor), BVT (Marine Corps Brevet Medal), DSC (Distinguished Service Cross),
NX (Navy Cross), AFC (Air Force Cross), DDSM (Defense Distinguished Service Medal, DSM-A (Army Distinguished Service Medal), DSM-N (Navy Distinguished Service Medal), DSM-AF (Air Force Distinguished Service Medal), DSM-CG (Coast Guard Distinguished Service Medal), SS (Silver Star), SM (Soldier’s Medal), NMC (Navy/Marine Corps Medal), AM (Airman’s Medal).
Josh, if you were to send off for your grandfather’s discharge papers from the National Archives – Military in St. Louis, MO, then you would be able to refute our comments about this matter.
Josh,
Go screw yourself. Your grandfather was a dishonest and dishonorable man. You need to check yourself because you do not want to be a party to this lie.
@ 10. As a Division in force, you are correct. However, individual units ( e,g., Signal Corps)did go.
@ 9. Your passion is commendable but misplaced. No one disputes that Bill is deserving of thanks for honorable military service. And few would disagree that, on the whole, veterans are a cynical lot. But–and this is the Big Butt–he who claims honors not his is deserving of all the ridicule that can be nustered and thrown at him. In Bill’s case, the oddity is that he himself may not have been the claimant of the MOH. And that matter you and yours can answer for yourselves.
Josh–as painful as it may be, you have to acknowledge the fact that we’re not disparaging his service, we’re disparaging the fact he LIED about the nature of it.
Honor. Integrity. Courage. Maybe had your grandfather shown any of those, we wouldn’t be regarding him, and frankly, the paper which failed to do even the most basic of fact-checking, as something less than he is.
Well, actually, he IS a liar. Something you’re going to have to deal with in your own way, but don’t shoot the messenger, as the phrase goes.
Josh said: You should learn to show some respect for fallen veterans especially on a day like this.
Motherfucker, you should should learn to show respect for fallen veterans on a day like this!!! One of two things happened…either your grandfather lied about his service and dishonored veterans, or your family lied and dishonored veterans. that’s something you need to sort out and not come in a website of mostly veterans and tell us what respect is or isn’t.
There are people you know who you should be discussing respect with and it ain’t us.
Josh; thanks for that. Every time someone claims shit that ain’t theirs, all Vets get fucked, so you saying it is kinda redundant. Whether your grandpa said it and your family just filled it in on the obit, or someone in your family just put it all in there on their own, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is there and it’s your problem (as others have stated) and you should have recognized that from the very beginning. That you haven’t and chose, instead, to come on here and disparage those that actually did the research, shows that you don’t have the maturity, yet, to make the comments you did.
Did you go to the link and see that your grandpa’s name is not amongst those listed for the MoH? That, alone should have clued you in. Not many people write in their obit that they received an Army Achievement Medal or Good Conduct Medal, it’s always the Bronze/Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, Medal of Honor, etc. So, you can understand why we check, because the Medal of Honor is a very exclusive club and not one to be taken lightly, considering the extraordinary sacrifice that has to be displayed in order to even be considered for it.
Spend some time in self-reflection (I understand the emotionalism that guided your first post, because you have lost someone you loved) and then come back and apologize like a man and you will be treated with respect.
Josh,
Use a little common sense. He would have only been 17 when the Korean War ended. It said he graduated from high school. It ended on July 27,1953. There is no way he could have graduated in 1953 and served in Korea. Sorry about you loss but there are many of us that can’t stand some one embellishing ther record. Please go to the list of MOH receipients and see for yourself.
http://www.cmohs.org/
Just a few keystrokes and you will know that he is not listed there.
I can beat Wild Bill. An obituary in my paper recently was about a WOMAN(not a nurse) who was in the Korean Conflict at 16. I didn’t know we had women in combat in the ’50s./sarc
I’m also 75 and was still in high school during that conflict. My diploma was very important to me. I did join the USAF in ’54.
[…] some newspaper articles from the archives of the Gaston Gazette’s own archives in regards to Wilburn Carr. the first is a notice published in July 1955, two years after the ceasefire in the Korean […]
@21. Holy Hannah! That’s some outstanding work.
I wrote to Josh the Dipshit in comment 15 that no one disputes that Bill is deserving of thanks for honorable military service. I am sorry I wrote that and I promise to be more careful in the future.
Anyone else think Josh is a troll? How would he be able to find this website unless he had some sort of military association? I doubt he just reads military blogs for the hell of it.
There is that possibility, but truth be told, Brian, there’s enough of the real ones out there who either 1–had no clue the guy/gal was bullshitting them, 2–know in their heart of hearts and try to defend it, 3–someone tells them about this place.
Believe it or not, for a fairly small blog, word gets around. The Internet can be a pretty small place sometimes. While not saying he’s not, Josh’s reaction isn’t far from what a real family member would do/say. Jonn can check IP addresses, I’m sure. If it were, we’d be the first to know.
@NHSparky: True. I didn’t read this blog until last year and I have been in the military for 9 years. I found it via Blackfive.net, which in turn I found via the Military blogging network. But I had to search for it and someone had to give me the link.
Family wrote the obit with all it’s military medal fraud. Any idea what uniform he is wearing in the top pic of obit in Charlotte Observer. Hope those CMOH recipients gave him the greeting due a fraud. Whoever in the family wrote the obit, what an ASS!!!!
Gaston Gazette still has him listed as a “decorated Korean War veteran” and Purple Heart recipient.
After participating in the exposing of literally thousands of phony heroes, it was obvious to me that Wild Bill Carr was lying about his military service. Sure enough, it has been proved that he was neither in Korea nor the recipient of the Medal of Honor. He must be laughing his butt off at how his friends and neighbors believed all the BS he put out.
He should also know by now that his family are mightily embarrassed by his dishonest behavior. It is a shame that they have to pay the price for his despicable fraud.
RIP, you phony.
Larry Bailey
27-year Navy veteran
[…] nail in the coffin October 4th, 2011 We first wrote about Wilburn “Wild Bill” Carr a few weeks ago on a tip from CavRick who sent us this obituary notice about his daring-do in Korea. SUpposedly, […]
so I guess Josh never came back.
Nor do I think he will.
Hi everyone… This was all started over my grandfather’s obituary. He did indeed receive a medal of honor, he did indeed serve in the Korean War, he did serve on the 101st Airbourne as well, and he did indeed earn the purple heart. We have all the records and the medals to prove it. We had to find them all when he was admitted into the hospital for care and for him to receive the military funeral, because due to a fire a lot of the records of him serving had been lost, at least this is what the VA hospital had told us. Also if any of you did your research the 101st Airbourne did have a role in the Korean War as a basic training division. As for the article that was posted about him “aiding and abetting in drunk driving” this is impossible to be him because for one that was not his address of the time and two he was serving in the military according to the records that we have. If you google Wilburn Carr Jr. there are a 100,000 results, so what you committed with linking his named with that article is illegal and rude. Just as you are assuming because his name was not on one database doesn’t mean that he never served or earned the medals that we said. When writing an obit, especially when you lose someone that close to you, you are only thinking about all the accomplishments they had and the memories you shared with that person. You guys really shouldn’t judge a family or a person that you have never met. Being a veteran I would think that everyone would have more respect for someone who served and worked as hard as you did. I also can’t believe the person who even started the post, posted it on the day that we buried my grandfather. I wish you could have had a little more respect for a fallen veteran and their family than that. Reading everyone’s comments really hurt me as a family member of this hero. He… Read more »
@33.
Right on, clown.
MOH?
Serious?
@34
I think you are the clown in this situation? I have proof to back up my claims…what proof do you have?
No listing of a MOH.
Please stop while you are ahead.
You are about to embarrass yourself and yours.
Move on.
Morgan, a large majority of us here are veterans here that served honorably. Many of us have learned quite a bit about researching archives and data bases looking up information about veteran’s records. I’ve looked up your grandpa’s name and it’s not in any Medal of Honor data base. I’m sorry, but it’s not there. If, as you claim, you have documentation, please provide it to the administrators here and they’ll verify it. We are NOT above admitting a mistake. (Check out Dallas Wittgenfeld. They have admitted some of his awards ARE in his records. Fishy as they are but they’ve admitted they’re there.)
Morgan: according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, no person with the last name “Carr” was awarded the MoH during the Korean War. The CMH Society’s records regarding who has been awarded the MoH are complete and definitive. If someone’s not listed there, they are not a MoH recipient.
If you want to verify this yourself, here’s the link to the CMH listing of MoH recipients. It’s searchable by last name, or you can just look at pages 18 and 19 of their listing:
http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-archive.php
I’m sorry your grandfather had a problem with telling the truth about his Korean War record. But if he told anyone he was a MoH recipient – he was not being truthful. The truth is that he was never awarded the MoH.
Veterans for America’s enemies I assume
I will post his certificates …he served his time and did it honorably . You guys on here are ridiculous and must have nothing better to do !
We will be waiting here so feel free to use the “contact us” at the top of the page to send those documents.
@38 this is not a credible source and if you knew anything about researching databases you would know this…as you can see in the url it is a .org source not credible and reliable.
@37 so are you admitting that is records are there? If so then this blog about my grandfather should be taken down…
I just don’t understand how ridiculous and selfish veterans can be…I guess from personal experience, and coming from a military family, I just assumed that every veteran was as nice as the ones in my family…but I guess it is true what they say about assuming…”it makes as ass out of you and me…” this also goes for what you guys on here have done as well…
thank you for serving our country…but learn some respect.
Morgan- See http://www.fakewarriors.org/pownet.secure/carr_wilburn_b_nprc.pdf
Respect, Morgan? He pissed on all of us by claiming awards he was never entitled to.
Morgan – check above link.
Do you even know what a .org stands for? ORG as in organization, even .com’s are not necessarily reliable e.g. whitehouse.com is a porn site. so your argument is invalid.
all the databases people have searched for in reference to your grandfather(much less took their own time to do so to HELP you) have proved that your grandfather did not receive the MOH. According to fakewarriors, your grandfather entered the Army in 1955, which is 2 years after Korea ended. Again, argument invalid.
if you have any certificates, paperwork, anything pertaining to these medals, feel free to prove us wrong. the people on this site are very forgiving if they have made a mistake, and Jonn is not above reproach. Ive emailed Jonn for a personal matter and within a hour he had emailed me back.
the MOH is not a every day medal, nor it is NOT given out like candy.
Morgan: Go away. Come back when you can handle the truth.
Morgan – also the Archives and other OFFICIAL record holder places have methods that can attain service member records. Even after the big fire. You can get them even if you are not the service member.
If your so adamant about finding the truth, submit a FOIA request, see what comes back(Pro tip: the fakewarriors listing has information from the FOIA request)
The truth that you seek or avoiding is in St. Louis.
Morgan: are you a blithering idiot, or are you just so far in denial you can’t face the freaking truth? The .org in the source address merely indicates that he web site host is assigned to the “org” domain. That was one of the original top-level Internet domains assigned in 1985. Its original use was generally for non-profit organizations – hence the name, a shortened form of organizaqtion – which exactly describes the CMH Society. While use of the .org domain has expanded since internet registration was taken over by the Public Internet Registry in 2003 to include schools, communities, open-source projects, and some for-profit entities, that fact has no bearing on the inherent trustworthiness of any site in the .org domain. Like any other Internet site, its trustworthiness must be assessed individually. The CMH Society is officially chartered by the US Congress to foster the history of and respect for the Medal of Honor. CMH Society records of who has been awarded the MoH are both complete and definitive. If an individual isn’t listed as receiving the MoH by the CMH Society – THEN THEY DID NOT RECEIVE THE MoH. PERIOD. Your grandfather isn’t listed by the CMH Society as a MoH recipient. Doug Sterner’s “Home of Heroes” website is generally held to be similarly definitive for the CMH. Your grandfather isn’t listed there, either. Further: official records on-file and available under the FOIA clearly show your grandfather’s dates of service with the US Army to have been well after the Korean War. Specifically, they show he served from 27 July 1955 to 10 July 1957. He may have served in Korea – but if so, he didn’t serve during the Korean War. And there’s no way he could possibly have earned the MoH during that time frame – because the US wasn’t involved in any war during that period. There’s also secondary public source information (e.g., old newspaper articles) that corroborates these facts. Here’s the proof: http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=26483 http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=26835 Truth is: your grandfather was drafted in 1955, and served a normal draftee tour in the US Army of about… Read more »