James Ferris; Prez of Korean War Vet Assoc. revisited

A few weeks ago, someone who wishes to remain nameless, came across an article in the Syracuse Post-Standard about James Ferris, the President of the Korean War Veterans Association who we wrote about in March. In the days that followed the first post, Ferris said things about me which were unkind and he invited me to go to Liverpool for lunch with him – yeah, that won’t happen. I’m not driving six hours for lunch with someone who may or may not show up. I do like the Syracuse area in Spring, but not that much.

Anyway, I contacted the reporter, Mark Weiner who is on the staff of the Post-Standard, but works in their DC bureau and we began to work together. Mark didn’t like the idea that he’d been had in the first article, the reaction of most of the reporters with whom I’ve worked on these things. Anyway, Mark used his contacts to verify what I told him initially, and then he went “needles down” on Ferris. First Mark called someone he knew in Albany and found that Ferris wasn’t authorized by New York State to wear that New York State Conspicuous Service Cross that he’s wearing on the top row of his rack.

Then Mark went on to verify the rest of my claims against him, compared to the 3rd Marine Division’s history and it turned out that I was correct – the 3rd arrived in Japan in August 1953, a month after the ceasefire in Korea and sat there. There’s nothing wrong, that was completely outside of Ferris’ control and being stationed in Japan during that period certainly qualified him for membership in the Korean War Veterans’ Association without adding all of the go-fast-medals.

Anyway, Mark did what I couldn’t do from here – he sent a reporter to Ferris’ house and ambushed him in his driveway. Ferris finally came clean and admitted that he had never seen combat, and he explained that the ribbons he wore were his brother’s who made him promise from his deathbed to wear his brother’s ribbons. Yeah, ok, we’ve never heard that one before. Then he begged the reporter to keep the story out of the press, because he was 81 years old. Yeah, well, what about all of those years that he wasn’t 81-years-old and healthy that he successfully fooled everyone with his brothers’ medals?

Anyway, Here’ Mark’s teaser to the big story. He had to hurry up and spit out something because Ferris told the reporter that he was tendering his resignation to the Association today. Something he could have done nearly two months ago when we broke the story. The board had a meeting to discuss the situation and then kept the results of the meeting from the membership hoping that it blow over. Well, now instead of blowing over, it’s blown up.

So mucho thanks to Mark, to Sam Naomi (who at first became my worst enemy, then my best friend) and our unnamed fellow up in Clay, New York who helped us roll this particular snowball.

Since the KWVA needs help cleaning out their ranks, I have another one for them to read about here this afternoon when Mark’s second article comes out.
Correction: I mistakenly called the Syracuse Post-Standard the Syracuse Herald in the original. I wasn’t aware that the Herald had been out of publication since I left. The Herald and Post-Standard were interchangeable in those olden days.

Category: Phony soldiers