Vet hunger strikes to prevent deportation
Dean sends us a link to the Military.com article about John E. Ferron, who Military.com calls a “Jamaica-born Vietnam veteran being held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona awaiting deportation” and to protest his deportation, he’s on a hunger strike. Well, as you read along in the story, he’s not a Vietnam veteran. He joined the Navy in late 1974 after he was ordered to be deported earlier in the year, which means that he finished his training at about the same time the Vietnam War ended. The awarding of the National Defense Service Medal for Vietnam Era veterans ended in August 1974.
So Ferron, joined the Navy under an assumed named after he was ordered deported. the article doesn’t say whether he was honorably discharged or not, so let’s just assume that he was discharged under honorable conditions. He joined after he was ordered deported and didn’t use his real name. The article goes on to say that he was homeless and destitute at the time that he was apprehended. So why wasn’t the VA taking care of him. Well, he had a rather unsavory career after his discharge, according to the article;
He continued to use the Steele name as late as 2005-2006. His conviction in 2008 on Social Security fraud, passport fraud, identity theft and aggravated identity theft not only got him three years in jail but resulted in the VA stripping him of his benefits after the Navy said it would no longer recognize his service.
King concedes that Ferron is not a sympathetic case because he has had multiple run-ins with the law, though she believes much of that may be attributed to mental illness related to the head-trauma and PTSD.
Yeah, well, apparently everyone who went through basic training, whether they completed it or not, suffers from PTSD, I suppose, I mean that’s everyone’s excuse these days. He needs to go back to Jamaica because we’re all stocked up with crazy here.
Category: Veterans Issues
I’ve never used one cent of VA money, despite being eligible, yet guys like this feel entitled to help themselves to something they didn’t earn. It makes the rest of us veterans look like some sort of class of victims, based solely on the fact that we served. I’m sick of it!
Send him back to Kingston on the slow boat.
Jamaica thinks no way, he’s America’s problem child now…yeah they’re really chomping at the bit to take a bottom feeder like John Ferron back (if thats even his real name). Heck, let him starve himself…save everyone the trouble.
Yup they either have the dates way off or someone who wrote the article has no clue when it comes to important dates… no way he served as UDT in Vietnam coming in late 1974.
Like anything this guys says should be believed? He is already a proven liar. I do not have one bit of sympathy or empathy for him.
Ferron said he served as an Underwater Demolition Team member in Vietnam. Yea, another one of those wanna-be posers too, I see. Ferron comes stateside when he was sixteen in ’72 (something tells me he was living in New York, dunno why)enlisted in ’74 when he was eighteen, recruiting wasn’t accepting 17 YO’s without a high school diploma, a former buddy of mine ran afoul of the law and IIRC, he did a stretch at the state pen instead (and still there).
If Ferron/Steele/(whatever his name really is) wants sympathy, I cordially invite him to look in the dictionary between “manure” and “venereal disease”.
The guy fraudulently enlisted, plain and simple. And he’s a convicted felon. IMO, that’s not immigration material.
Fraudulent enlistment, and a long rap sheet? Send his arse back to Jamaica. We should charge Jamaica for all the VA benefits he sucked up during his time in the US.
One comment: if the guy had served legitimately vice on a fraudulent enlistment he would very likely qualify as a “Vietnam-era” veteran with the VA.
While the NDSM eligibility for Vietnam ended in Aug 1974, law regarding VA benefits defines “Vietnam era” differently and has a different end date. Vietnam-era veteran’s benefits are due to anyone who “served on active duty for a period of more than 180 days, any part of which occurred between August 5, 1964 and May 7, 1975, and was discharged or released with other than a dishonorable discharge.” Legitimate entry on active duty in late 1974 would have qualified him for that status if his discharge was anything besides a DD and he served the requisite 180 days.
Hondo, while I agree with that, he’s still not a “Vietnam veteran” as he claims. I enlisted in “late 1974”, too, and the closest I got to Vietnam was when we were alerted to liberate the USS Mayaguez my first week in my unit. We only got as far as Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, GA, but I’m pretty certain that’s the last engagement that could be considered as “Vietnam service”.
Heck, the only time he probably paid attention to ‘Nam (beside a brief moment at the end of April ’75 when a few of the veterans in his unit were unhappy for some reason) was when Apocalypse Now came out.
“Yeah, well, apparently everyone who went through basic training whether they completed it or not, suffers from PTSD, I suppose, I mean that’s everyone’s excuse these days.” Yeah, in a similar vein, whenever I see a male Jamaican I have nightmares of Jiffy Pop attacking me.
Jonn: agreed. Per the VA you qualify as a “Vietnam Era” vet. However, unless someone qualified for the VSM (or the AFEM for very early service or for FREQUENT WIND) they have no right to call themselves a “Vietnam Vet” – because they’re not.
The VA (and sometimes Federal law itself) has some different definitions than those commonly used by DoD and/or the public. That disparity causes one helluva lot of confusion among the public at times. That’s all I was trying to point out.
I also agree that the guy is lying through his teeth about serving as a “UDT in Vietnam” (or about ever being in Vietnam in any capacity). While that’s not absolutely impossible (a first assignment to some attache office might have allowed him to get there before Saigon fell), that would be so damn improbable for a brand new sailor that I’m simply not willing to believe it w/o seeing documentary evidence from official sources.
I read the article all the way to the end. Then this sentence sticks out like a sore thumb: “I am heartstricken”.
OH, dear me — Ms. King, get a life, will you? He’s a con artist, you nitwit.
Oh, PLEASE put him in a rowboat and tell him to head southeast.
Damn, I got PTSD when my drill sergeant screamed at me for the first time at the beginning of OSUT back in ’79; I just didn’t realize it until now. Better rush off to the VA to go get my bennies…
@13 — Hory clap!! Same thing happened to me in 1976 at Ft. Polk. The incident is seared, seared, mind you, into my memory. If I could only find my magic boonie hat.
@13,14-What a coincidence, the same thing happened to me in 1992 at Ft Benning.
Leech.
As I’ve said before, I was BEATEN with a clearing rod by a drill sergeant in 1972 so you guys who only got yelled at–get behind me in line!
@17, but some of us come from the kinder, gentler generation and our precious feelings are hurt easier. 🙂
@17 and 18.
Don’t make me pull out my stress card.
You guys are just wienies. I’ve been stepped on by horses bigger than your drill sergeanst, with hooves the size of dinner plates.
I do not feel sorry for you.
@14 MAJMike …but Ft. Polk was such a lovely place in 1967! 🙂
if he hunger strikes long enough you can just complete his deportation by dropping him in the ocean in a body bag 12 miles off shore….of course it’s okay with me if we don’t wait until he completes the hunger strike…
Never forget the day I “caught” PTSD. 10 June 1963 when the cattle car stopped in front of receiving barracks at MCRD San Diego and those famous words -Stand in the yellow footprints.
Affected me so bad, had a but a door mat with yellow foot prints when I visited the museum.
Poor guy. If he was Hispanic he’d have just been let go repeatedly without prosecuting and been able to invade our law makers offices demanding amnesty.
Also what is stopping the US government from buying him a plane ticket and putting him on that plane? I’m sure supply could find some past due MREs he can slurp down if he gets hungry on his way home.
” Social Security fraud, passport fraud, identity theft and aggravated identity theft”…
Yeah… Could’a happened to any illegal alien…
He was part of the rescue team that pulled John Louis Woodward and his Gundog teammates out of the shit.
Psst… Ferron, you can’t have flashbacks or PTSD from a war you weren’t in. Just a tip, mon.