Stolen Valor Sleuths under fire

| November 3, 2011

Our buddy, Doug Sterner writes to tell us that a despicable character, by the name of George Gsell who falsely claimed to have earned an Air Force cross has decided to take Virginia TV station WTKR to court because of their report on Stolen Valor which included Gsell and his stolen valor;

Here is the FOIA on Gsell from POW Network;

Am I doing this because I hope to get my ass sued, too? Maybe a little, but I don’t think Gsell has the cojones to face me across the table at discovery.

Category: Phony soldiers

17 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
NHSparky

And yet he claims THREE AF Crosses and shows a DD-214 as “proof”. Nah, 214’s have NEVER been faked, noooooo…

For the record, there are several AF personnel who have been awarded two AF Crosses. None have three.

UpNorth

It sounds like he’s just looking for the station to settle with him, so he can make a few bucks.

tavern knight
USMC Steve

If he files court papers claiming this, and it can be proven that he is a fraud, he can then be hammered for the filing of false affadavits or such with the court, and that would be a criminal thing, not a civil one.

Justin Zeit

If some one wants to exaggurate thier service record to sell a car or get laid I say that this is to trivial a sin to waste law enforcement dollars to enforce. But if a political candidate exaggurates his/her (OK a female would never do such a thing) they should be automatically disqualified.

But now on to a more important subject concerning Supream Courts. A German Supream Court ruling today set free a member of the Hells Angles who was convictd in Febuary of killing a policeman after firing through a door at police who were trying to break in an arrest him. The defendant claimed that he believed the police were members of the Banditos Gang and was acting in self defense.
I find this a very interesting ruling. I am glad that I did not have to rule on this case. I wonder how readers here would have ruled.

Whitey_Wingnut

This leaves such a bad stain on the rest of us in the AF. I don’t ever remember reading about him in the PFE/PDG or anywhere else for that matter if he earned three.

NHSparky

There are only four members of the Air Force who have received multiple Air Force Crosses: (and correction to my last–ONE person has received 3 AF Crosses)

COL James Kasler (only 3-time recipient)
BG Jim Robinson
COL Leland Kennedy
COL John Dramesi

Three of the four were POW’s in Vietnam.

That fat old fuck is just threatening. He knows that he’d never get past discovery without sticking his dick deep into the fan.

Anonymous

Go to jail.

Go directly to jail.

Do not pass GO.

Do not collect $200

Doc Bailey

this is complete and utter horse shit

Beretverde

Public shaming is not enough for some of these nut bags. Ass whipping or jail is the other answer to this epidemic.

anonymous

test

Hondo

According to the sources listed here, Gsell has AF Cross licence plates. To get them, he’d have to apply and provide documentation of same. And the application form requires a signature and certification that the documentation attached is genuine.

Looks like Gsell obtained his plates through fraud. I wonder if anyone has referred this to the local VA state police for obtaining specialized license plates through fradulent means?

Hondo

Having done a bit more digging, it looks like Gsell legitimately did receive 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, presumably during his time in Vietnam (see the 2nd page of the FOIA results here):

http://pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies1198.htm

Why in the hell he felt the need to lie about this boggles the mind. He had 3 freaking DFCs – why did he need to try and “upgrade” them to the AF Cross? Wasn’t that enough?

Kevin

Hondo- I saw the same thing and wondered why there were AFCOM citations in there but nothing for the DFCs.
I looked on http://dfcsociety.net/?page_id=699 and there is no Gsell listed. Obviously neither of the two sources are 100% accurate.
I also noticed that FOIA stated the Air Force Commendation with two oak leaf clusters while one of the citations stated Third Oak Leaf Cluster.

Anonymous

FOIA away here also. Yeah, I could have used the one from POW Network – but I wanted an original reply to send to the Area 46 Office of the VA State Police. Like our phony Ranger Colonel, Jacob R. Cruze, Gsell would appear to have violated Virginia’s fraud statutes (Code of Virginia, § 18.2-168) when he got his AF Cross license plates. And I think his local law enforcement ought to know about that.

Hondo

Kevin: in my service (Army), it wasn’t to uncommon for orders relating to decorations to make it into one’s personnel records without the citation. (Sometimes both did; sometimes not.) That could explain why Gsell’s DFCs were listed only on the continuation page for “Awards and Decorations”. As for the AFCOM discrepancy, I think NPRC just made an admin error there. Per the docs NPRC provided to POWNetwork, Gsell seems to have 4 AFCOMs – not the 3 listed on the summary. I’d guess the person preparing the summary either miscounted or saw the (3 OLC) on the last citation and had a brain cramp.

AverageNCO

According to the Home of Heroes Facebook page, Doug is testifying in this slander case today. I still think something is funny here. Just trying to figure out how a mechanic gets three DFC’s and I’ve never heard about him in any type of enlisted heritage studies. B.G. Burkett has documented guys who were able to get bogus information into their DD 214’s. I’m not saying 100% that’s what happened here, but it still smells funny. Other than the Home of Heroes post, I can’t find anything else out about the lawsuit. I would love to see the transcript of this one.