Taking Stolen Valor to the Grave; Part II
Someone sent us some newspaper articles from 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 War;
From another article published on April 24, 1953, while the Korean War raged it’s final months, Wilburn Carr, was 18 according to the Gaston Gazette and arrested for “aiding and abetting in drunk driving”
Hard to imagine Wilburn earning a Purple Heart and a Medal of Honor while being a typical teenager on the streets of Gaston, NC. the person who sent us these articles is much more forgiving than I am in regards to Josh. Our tipster, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote;
Hope this helps “Josh” understand more about his grandfather.
ADDED: And, Josh, the reason that we’re so cynical is because of people like your grandfather. Zero Ponsdorf’s father was killed in the Korean War and my father served there in the Navy. I was born at Pensacola Naval Air Station while your grandfather was in basic training.
Category: Phony soldiers
Look at the bright side, Josh. Thanks to the research of TAH, you can now say your grandfather took direct orders from George Patton.
Judge George Patton, that is.
I don’t know who dug this up but thanks. It vendicates what was written yesterday, I did write the editor of the Gazette and ask him to correct the record.
hbretzius@gastongazette.com
Maybe if enough of us complain he will look into it run a story on it. I’m sorry he died but he should not be allowed to get by claiming be a MOH receipient. MOH receipients were men of honor.
CAvRick, I wrote to the editor also, have yet to hear back from him. But, I’m not holding my breath.
@ AP #1………Dude, that is the money shot right there.
When Josh wrote this:
“I love this country but it’s cynical assholes like you people that are ruining this country. FUCK EVERYONE OF YOU.”
It occurred to me that his neither his grandfather nor anyone in his life taught this brat any respect for veterans.
“Cynical assholes like you people that are ruining this country”? Really? Veterans who expose lies about veterans are not cynical. Attacking veterans who expose those lies is, sport.
Fire up the Toshiba there, Josh. If you love this country as you say, it’s time to Google “Mea Culpa” and apologize to the veterans on this page you have attacked. Yes, the very same men who have not “ruined the country” as you have whined, but have made this country great, through personal sacrifice and honor, you sniveling little brat.
Soooo, Josh, was your grandfather one to stretch the truth, or someone who raised his family to think it is alright to stretch the truth? Either way, the truth got stretched to the point of breaking.
Sorry about the slap on the face by reality.\, sonny.
I feel sorry for some of the older Stolen Valor perpetrators and especially their families, particularly those who find out when their loved ones are busted when they die and the obit includes the lies.
You know, Josh was probably not all that receptive to criticism of his grandfather (and humiliation of the family) so close to his death, regardless of the truth.
I can also understand Josh’s jerkiness in the wake of his grandfather’s death, so maybe you guys could cut him a break if he comes back again.
I also think that some of these Stolen Valor guys are mentally ill.
Tojo Jam #7: A curious nom-de-web choice. 12/7/11 marks the 70th anniversary of another event of some note.
Anyway… Of course some of these Stolen Valor types are mentally ill. I’ll allow 10%. The rest are liars, and worse.
Thing is… we seem to have reached a point where mental illness is an excuse, rather than a diagnosis.
@#7 Give him a break? Did he give this site a break with his rant? After reading his rant I first attributed it to the loss he has suffered, but for his disrespectful language in his rant I show him no mercy. Instead of responding in such a childish and immature manner, maybe a little research on his part should have been conducted before replying. If he comes back humbled and apologizes for his rant I might cut him some slack.
Obviously lying about the Medal of Honor does not rank highly on your Stolen Valor meter. It does on mine. I earned everything I claim to have and claim no more than I have earned. If this was only so in all cases these issues would never have to be brought up. Unfortunately we do not live in such a world and poser are everywhere.
In my humble opinion it is every Veterans duty not only to keep their own record straight but to ensure that the sanctity of awards such as the Medal of Honor and other high ranking awards are preserved by bringing false claims to light.
I think some are mentally ill. Others just lie because it makes them feel like they were once or are part of something very special – except they are not. Case-in-point: After / during our deployment to Iraq, the Soldiers would try to wear the combat patches of units which they were providing combat support as if they were physically attached to that unit. In reality, they were only authorized the boring, non-glamorous unit patch. Some have transferred out since then but I imagine a few are still sporting the 101st or Special Forces combat patch. Stolen Valor? Yes, but who is going to question them? At least they went overseas and combat patches aren’t in your DD214. You are supposed to have a memorandum done up by your Commander stating what combat patches you are authorized and then that is put into iPERMS. But that is spotty at best. There are regulations for these things but they not taken as seriously as an AAM or ARCOM.
It gives them all the positive attention they ever wanted but never got. It’d be like if I drove a Lotus to work every day but didn’t tell anyone I was only borrowing it and I lived in a shit hole. It doesn’t make me rich. Appearances are appearances.
I know I have nothing in my records for my combat patch. But also before we left we were told that we could wear three. I was not until after mid tour leave that it came down that you can only wear the patch of the unit at company level.
@Sporkmaster: The policy was murky at first but for the past few years that I can remember it is the highest unit that holds a unit patch and that unit patch must be deployable. For instance, if you are in a unit that has a TDA unit (non-deployable) as your higher headquarters, then you don’t wear that patch, but the next highest for which you are deployed. So a Company may not have a patch, but a Battalion does and so forth.
If you could see the email I get, you’d have less sympathy for these fucks. Mostly family members write to tell me that if I don’t take down the post, or don’t refrain from posting a Stolen Valor post, their family member will be hospitalized or kill themselves (in one case). None of them have been hospitalized or killed themselves yet – it’s more dishonesty.
I’ve written before that the victims of these “victimless crimes” are family members whose last memory of their dearly departed is when they find out somehow that their dearly departed lied to them their whole lives. That’s not my problem. The whole idea of these posts is to make Stolen Valor a crime of some consequence, since the courts have abrogated their responsibility to the military..I sympathize with the family members, but calling me an asshole when it was their relative who broke the law is just being a childish fuckstick.
As to how they find these posts about their family members, if you “Google” Wilburn “Wild Bill” Carr Jr. you’ll see that my post about him is like the sixth result. The more people that click the link to my post, the higher it rises on the page. That’s how most of those goobers find their way here – they “google” their own names.
“Mostly family members write to tell me that if I don’t take down the post, or don’t refrain from posting a Stolen Valor post, their family member will be hospitalized or kill themselves”
…..good. If somebody is distraught enough at being called out for lying and dishonoring veterans…..we’re probably better off without their oxygen consumption.
Years ago when my father died at the ripe old age of 55, the obituary didn’t even mention that he was a veteran of WW II, a sergeant in Mark Clark’s 5th Army. He was no war hero, just my hero. When I enlisted I did so in large part because I wanted to be like him. The flag that adorned his casket is something that I cherish. It represents a generation that met its duty. No embellishments are needed. No fictional accounts of awards and medals are required. I only wish Wild Bill’s family could see things the same way.
Got this from the editor this afternoon.
“Dear Mr. ______,
Thank you for bringing this error to my attention.
It was not the intent of The Gazette to publish erroneous information about an honor that was not earned by Mr. Carr. I have spoken with the funeral home director who has also received complaints since the obituary was published. Although Mr. Carr was honored with a military funeral, no mention was made of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The Gazette has made the correction to the online version of the obituary by deleting the Medal of Honor mention.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have asked the newsroom staff to fact check any similar claims in obituaries in the future.
Hunter Bretzius
Editor
The Gaston Gazette
Sadly, this is likely part of what I call “Almost famous syndrome”. I collect a lot of militaria stuff and a few years ago I found a panoramic photo of a training unit at Fort Bragg dated Aug 1945. I thought, My God, these guys just barely missed the show. I wondered if they were happy or sad.
The glass was cracked and when I took it apart to replace the glass I was floored to find that about 2 dozen of the guys had signed the back of the photo with their hometown names.
With the help of the mad computer skills that Jonn taught me I decided to reach out and try to get the stories of the the guys who woke up one day in training and realized the war was over.
I managed to track down 7 guys or their families in a couple of cases.
To a man, they were all WWII heroes! Complete with stories of daring and specific campaigns etc. Serving with Patton or the Rangers was the most common. So animated and convincing the stories; it was clear to me that they believed every word they were saying.
What started as an idea for a series of articles or even a book left me feeling very sad for a group of patriots that had let over compensation for missing a great military adventure turn into outright dillusional behavior.
It’s always the families that grew up believing it that gets hurt in the end.
As for Josh, I’m really sorry that you had to learn the truth; I’m also sorry that you are a fuckstick who should have learned better manners a long time ago.
“sergeant in Mark Clark’s 5th Army”
Mark Clark, one of The Citadel’s finest.
UpNorth, I got the same reply from him that you did. I sent another e-mail asking that the Korean War vet and Purple Heart be removed too. I sent the articles from the Gastoina Gazette proving he didn’t enter the Army until 1955. I did alos note that with the exception of a few Signal elements the 101st did not serve in Korea.
The real heroes are like my dad. He never mentioned one word about what he did. When I opened his military records box upon his death, a Combat Infantryman Badge fell out, with a diary that was merely a list of unit assignments.
I had to look up the unit histories to find out he’d been in some of the nastiest combat in the Philippines in late 1944-early 1945. But all he ever said was he’d been a P-51 crew chief (yes, he was–AFTER the war, in occupied Japan.)
His obituary just said he served in WWII and received the CIB and “other medals and ribbons.” We still don’t know quite what all those medals and ribbons are, as we haven’t received his records yet.
He was proud of my service, yet what I did was nothing, literally, compared to what he never spoke about.
When we meet again in Fiddler’s Green, I wonder if I’ll get him to talk about it then…
So when I hear about yet another faker, it really makes my jaws clench.
When my Grandad died at age 77 (six months before I enlisted,) there was a lot of reminicance about his life and his Army Air Corps service from “lost relatives” whom I had not seen in years. Grandad had been commissioned early, Dec 1943 if memory serves, without graduating VMI (now VT).
One story was that Grandad had “won” a silver star for valor for saving a pilot from the fiery wreck of a plane that had crashed near an ammo dump in France. It was an amazing story. Not long after his death, we found a medal that I didn’t recognize. Later we found the citation.
The incident happened, but not in France and there was no Ammo Dump. A plane had crashed on the flightline in California and burst into flames. Grandad pulled the pilot to safety and was later awarded The Soldier’s Medal.
Some of the Posthumous cases may not be stolen valor as much as bits and pieces that evolved over time without malice on the part of the veteran or the family. (I am not saying necesarrily hapened this happened in this case.)
The Gazette has made the correction to the online version of the obituary by deleting the Medal of Honor mention.
And that’s ALL they did. No correction to his not having servied in Korea, or the fact he (likely) never earned a PH. Sounds like they’re doing the bare minimum.
#21 HM2 FMF SW Ret. said: “VMI (now VT).”
2 different schools.
Dave, you are correct. I blame my pre coffee state. That should have read VPI (Now VT.) Back in the late 40’s it was Virginia Polytechnic Intitute.
Wow, I need to stop commenting at 6:00 before my coffee cicks in. Grandad was at VPI from 41-43. I don’t know when they changed the name.
#25: A Hokie is still a Hokie! Could’ve been worse: he could’ve been a Citadel grad. Heh
Well, they graduated them early that year and Grandad never officially graduated. Or at least that is my understanding. Grandad loved VT as did Gramma until they both left us for the hereafter.
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 »
Morgan:
To avoid repeating myself:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=26475&cpage=1#comment-672366
Bottom line: your grandfather served as a draftee from 1955-1957. No Korean War, no MoH, no PH.
Truth hurts sometimes. But it remains truth.
Morgan- If you had not dredged up a year-old thread, I would never have heard of your grandfather. Below is a list of all the recipients with last name of Carr:
Carr, Chris US Army World War II (aka:Christos H. Karaberis)
Carr, Eugene US Army Civil War
Carr, Franklin US Army Civil War
Carr, John US Army Indian Campaigns
Carr, William US Navy Civil War
Carr, William US Marine Corps China Relief
http://www.homeofheroes.com/valor/01_MOH/imposters/roster_af.html