Harold L. Routson, taking Stolen Valor to the grave
From Scotty, we get the records of Harold L. Routson. His obit tells of a Special Forces Vietnam veteran with more than 20 years of service, but his records tell a different story;
So he joined the Army in 1975 – after the last US military member left Vietnam. There weren’t any Special Forces at Fort Campbell in those days. And oh, yeah, 1975-1985 doesn’t add up to 20 years, no matter how hard I try to manipulate the math for him. His assignments;
So, why didn’t he finish 20 years, well, look at block 29 on the bottom part of his DD214;
Usually, at this point, we say “perfectly honorable service ruined by embellishment”, but this time we say “oh, well, no wonder he embellished”.
Category: Politics
Jonn–there’s some PII on the 214 you might want to redact and repost. That being said, it amazes me how nobody in this guy’s family ever checks this, never questions this, never says anything different when they know his claims are BS.
Yeah, he’s been dead 7 years, so I’m thinking he doesn’t care much about PII.
Wow, this person joined the Army the same month I did in 1979. I was 17, he was 35? Wonder what the story is for him joining so late. There’s a story in there somewhere…
It looks like he has 3 years prior service but that still only makes ten years. To make twenty plus years he would have had to enlist before 1965 and to get E-5 in 1981 is really stellar.
Jonn: while the 5th SFGA wasn’t at Campbell at that time, the 160th Aviation Bn (lineal predecessor of the 160th SOAR) “stood up” there in
19831981. TF 158 was there fora couple of yearsa bit over a year before that.This tool wasn’t assigned to any of those units, though. And based on the reason for his separation (Chapter 13 – Unsat Perf) I’m guessing he never supported them, either.
Clearly his 20 years consists of 10 years from 1965-1975 that were so secret even the National Records Center has no knowledge of them, geez you think you guys would know this stuff by now
@1 Sparky, that’s because to most folks this stuff doesn’t matter, they talk a nice game about caring about veterans but in reality it’s lip service and most of this sh1t only matters if it negatively impacts them. That’s because most of our society thinks the drunks, addicts and reprobates on the west coast are the ideal to live up to, every reality show that people watch today shows liars being successful. We are teaching our non-service member youth that being a piece of sh1t, lying turd is the way to be famous. We should not be surprised when they act accordingly, it’s why so many folks come here and ask why Jonn bothers to drag all this out into the open…
@7 VOV-
I say – If am gonna die for something, let it all be truthfull (that and a cup of good coffee) At least when i greet my God i can say i lived with faith and honor and died with it.
@6 VOV – He managed to go back in time and serve those ten years twice.
What is it with these MPs wanting to be SF/Ranger?
What, no air assault badge? The guy was a Mud Puppy that reclassed into MI and got into some type of trouble that made him ineligible for re-enlistment. What is it with these a$$ clowns?
@8 you and me both….I served ARNG as 11b, nothing special nothing interesting beyond a KKK riot patrol in CT in 1982 and some flood protection callouts to save some homes from flooding with sandbag levees…
I did nothing special, I saw nothing special, I was nothing special….but I don’t claim to be anything special either….my best contribution to American society has come after my military service but thanks to my military service I was capable of making this contribution.
I manage and operate a youth sports program (as a volunteer) with over 5,000 youth athletes on 350 teams across a dozen communities in Western Massachusetts. We provide a competitive athletic experience with travel for these youth athletes and their families, we schedule the games, schedule the officials, register the program with the State Parent Organization to provide insurance coverage for all our athletes and administrators and we CORI every single volunteer through our state CORI program. All this from an ARNG 11B…no lies just good, honest work learned from good, honest (if unremarkable) service. Thank you to Uncle Sam for providing me with the organizational skills and self pride and discipline to pull this off.
Same here. My career was spectacularly mediocre. I did get called out once for saying I served 7 years. I then replied, “Oh sorry, I served 6 years 10 months and 21 days, sorry for rounding that out and causing untold turmoil.”
Of course the person complaining was the ex. One reason she’s the ex is she was always looking for something to complain about….then again, I did give her plenty of reason too…
This is another of those cases where we do not have (at least none evidenced here) a claim by the guy himself. I am just not comfortable generally with making much over what is written in an obit not likely written by the vet himself. Maybe he wrote it. Probably not.
But, if shining light on these false obits causes at least a few of us to clearly document the facts of our service for inclusion in a future obit, a worthwhile service has been done.
@2–noted. Didn’t see the year of death. My bad. However, when I go, I’m going to instruct my family only to say I served. No mention of awards, qualifications, etc. That ought to be more than enough.
We’ve had this disucssion before. Unless the guy wrote his own obituary, the fault goes straight to the family’s door.
I agree that pointing out these situations is probably a good idea, just so long as it is clear that there is a question as to where the information came from.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that an E-5 would be booted for “unsatisfactory performance” without being busted down first, at least to E-3?
Unless of course the “unsat performance” was some kind of misconduct and the “unsat performance/general under honorable conditions” DC was a kind of plea bargain deal, i.e. “take this and walk and we won’t court-martial your ass.”
While not common, is it unheard of that failing to pass a school would be “unsat” and grounds for honorable discharge? Seems like I heard stories about such somewhere along the line.
Iv’e seen plenty of E-5 Sergeants and E-6 Staff Sergeants get denied reenlistment and have no disciplinary action. Their fit-reps were horror stories though.
martinjmpr: typically, that’s a Chapter 10 (or was at the time). But that results in an General under Other than Honorable. Chapter 14 is also a possibility for a single serious act of misconduct.
Chapter 13 was typically due to a pattern of misconduct over time that was deemed likely to continue and was sufficient to show the soldier was disruptive and/or would never develop sufficiently to serve effectively. If the individual had 6+ yrs total service, a board of officers was required unless the individual waived it.
OWB: being removed from an Army NCO Education System course for cause could result in either a Chapter 13 discharge or a bar to reenlistment. My impression is that in the 1980s a bar to reenlistment was much more common unless the reason was indicative of more serious issues (e.g., serious misconduct) vice simple academic failure, but that’s been a while and I could be wrong. (smile)
Just an old Dog: in the Army, a Chapter 13 discharge isn’t being denied reenlistment – it’s being thrown out early with an admin discharge vice as the result of legal action. If I recall, typical reasons in the 1980s were multiple Article 15s (NJPs) and/or a pattern of multiple minor civilian offenses.
This guy was an E4, 287th MP’s Customs Berlin. That’s a very premo assignment, especially back in the day. From what I know of customs MP’s, once you make that slot (and you don’t just tell Big Army you want that slot) keep your nose clean and the directions you are able to go from there are pretty much unlimited. This guy could very well have lateraled to MPI to say the least (He’d made E5 right then) on his way to an SNCO or Warrant Officer slot in CID. Crap, any E4 makes it that far in the MP’s you can go pretty much where you want or where the MP Corps needs you.
So, unless he caught a company level beef or three in Berlin (which he could have) we see he ended up at Huachuka (I see an NCO school), back to HHC, 18th BTN MI, Munich then to Monterey DLI. I do know you can’t go to MDLI on a whim. You are either an intelligent SOB with four years of college under your belt upon entrance or you have time in grade and nice, clean service record elsewhere.
So, I’m going to bet he hooked up with a female and inappropiately, therefore terminating his what looks to me to be, a stellar career. As far as his obit goes, I’m going to lay the blame on whomever it was that wrote it for the family.
I debated with myself to make this comment. I am his oldest son, my brother and I look just like him. Neither of us are mentioned in the Obit and we were later adopted. I went to the wake to support my grandmother and had to leave. I corrected the paster about Harolds life and did not attend the funeral. (I was told that the paster did change his sermon after he talked with me.) There is a lot of drama here, but my step dad, who I call DAD raised me, and he did serve in Viet Nam. As Harold’s oldest son, I had my congressman get a copy of his records. This person left my mom, brother and I. Out of respect for my almost 11yrs of service and my Dad’s respect for his service I am writing this. I will try to answer some of the comments I saw above. I asure you I had no hand in the writing of the obit., in fact I did not hear from him until I reached 21. He was extremely smart, and had at least 1 degree prior to the service. From what I know, he lied to the family for his reason on getting out. His widow, whom I have met is an extremely nice lady, and I truely believe she does not know of all this. I agree with my mother in that I don’t think he deserves to be buried at Fort Snelling. It hurts my mother, and would hurt his mother (she is still alive, 97) and his widow. In addition to my Dad (he does know and is not happy either), myself and all my relatives from my adoptive family that indeed did serve, it is a great disgrace. But I can’t pursue a course of action knowing that it would kill my grandmother (his sister died 2 yrs ago and the remaining sister has cancer.) Like others that commented, I didn’t do anything spectacular, but did serve with honor, the typical service ribbons, a NAM and a few others but nothing note worthy.… Read more »