Update on Kevin Shakley
We wrote about Kevin Shakley back in August when he told local reporters at the News Tribune that the Army kept pestering him about the discharge that he said they didn’t mail to him after they told him to go home. Well, he was apprehended once again and the reporters got interested in the story again and figured out that Young Shakley is FOS.
When Army police started raising pressure on him in August, Shakely, 28, contacted Sacramento’s KTXL Fox 40 News and claimed he was an honorably discharged Iraq and Afghanistan veteran being harassed by the Army.
“This is not how you treat somebody that went through what I had to go through and made the sacrifices I had to make,” he told KTXL.
Shakely in fact spent less than six months in uniform before deserting. Army records show he completed his initial training and spent just six days at his first duty station – Fort Lewis, before its reorganization as Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
He’s in custody at Lewis-McChord awaiting a Jan. 22 court-martial. He is in the Army jail because he’s considered a flight risk, base spokesman Joe Piek said.
The Army filed eight criminal charges against him. Three are for his alleged desertion; four stemmed from the lies he’s accused of telling the television station.
They called last week and asked for my two cents;
“I’m glad they caught him, and I’m glad he’s facing all these charges,” said John Lilyea of West Virginia, a retired Army noncommissioned officer who runs This Ain’t Hell.
Yeah, I guess that’s all they could use in the half-hour interview I did with the reporter. He told me that the reporter who did the initial report on Shakley had reservations about his claims, but ran with the story any way. He couldn’t tell me why.
Video below the jump auto starts;
Category: Shitbags
I’ll take care of this for Green Thumb
“Turds”
You beat me to it!
Hopefully this tool will like his stay at JBLM. I’m guessing he’ll be Uncle Sam’s guest there a while this time.
Unless, of course, he’s lucky enough to get orders for a “long-tour/unaccompanied” in Kansas.
Well, he says he did what his country asked him to do and, right now, his country is asking him to sit in jail. What a patriot!
“Another reporter taken for a chump by military faker.”
Said no follow-on news segment ever.
What a shit bird.
Just another example of journalistic malpractice.
He told me that the reporter who did the initial report on Shakley had reservations about his claims, but ran with the story any way. He couldn’t tell me why.
They always have an excuse for doing a sh1tty job…I think it’s because most of these little reporter twerps are so afraid of their own f@cking shadows that the idea that someone might be a veteran and not be a lunatic or liar is beyond their feeble minded comprehension. They desperately want to propagate the Oliver Stone troubled, psychotic vet meme because they absolutely believe it’s the vast majority of veterans and not a small troubled minority similar to the civilian population…
Though that IMO is often the case, VOV, I don’t think that was at play here. The guy’s story “fits the model” so many
useful idiotsjournalists are looking to find: the “little guy” being unfairly hammered by the “big, bad military”. There’s also the fear of being scooped and/or deadline pressure. Either would be enough by itself; add the two together, and you have a recipe for journalistic stupidity.As a wise man once told me about artificial deadlines: “You want it bad? OK, that’s the way you’ll get it – bad.”
What an ass!!!
News reporters and Kevin Shakely. Shitbirds of a different feather, but shitbirds none the less.
Hope young Kev sits in the cross bar motel for many years to come. Lying turd.
@9 Or as we used to say, Hondo: We never have time to do it right, but we always seem to have time to do it again.
Wow looks like the Army is going to (rightfully) drop the hammer on this turd. I know he’s facing desertion charges, but it looks like they added 2 more from the UCMC… I wonder what article they hit him on for the 4 charges on speaking to the media.
Used to be the services would just give a swift OTH or BCD to these turds, with a few months confinement at most. Iv’e seen guys who were gone for years who came back or were bought back, put in a casual unit( not even given a haircut or uniform) and gone in a week.
OK, hopefully one of you Soldiers can help me out here:
When you get Discharged (Honorably only for the purpose of this question) and you go through the Admin hoops, don’t they hand you papers that day? It would seem to me that if he was telling the truth, he could have asked the Admin where his papers were before he left.
@14, as I recall, I was issued a set of orders directing me to be reassigned to the IRR (inactive ready reserve). With those orders I got my clearing papers and began out processing from the Army. Getting out of any branch of the military is much more than just handing in your gear and ID card and walking out the door. All sorts of agencies must be “cleared” before you can get out, ranging from the post library to the cash cage at the PX, to the commissary and many other all the way down to your battalion and company. I had my “final out” appointment about 48 hrs before my terminal leave started. I was given a chance to review my 214 and then I signed it. Because I wouldn’t actually be “out” for about 40 days, I was given a “working” copy of my 214, and after my ETS date came and went, I mailed in my ID cared and the final copy of my 214 was mailed to me. so this guys story reeked the first time I heard it, even taking in the fact that the Army can screw up paper work, but not this badly.
@14, yes, you get your DD214 before leaving the Army. That’s part of their checklist to out process you.
thebesig: that was not always the case. My first 2 DD214s were indeed mailed to me – the 2nd one in the early 2000s. I asked why, and was told that policy at the time did not allow them to be given to the soldier prior to their effective date. In both cases I left with a DA31 (leave form) for terminal leave and an unsigned “working copy” of my DD214.
Policy apparently changed afterwards, as my subsequent DD214s were given to me during outprocessing well prior to their effective dates (terminal leave).
Thanks. As a Reservist my experience was different and if I didn’t have the papers I needed on the day I left, I would have been asking questions.
@ Hondo, as of the time he claimed that he separated, they were already giving DD214s out before the final day prior to those ETSing leaving the post on terminal leave or ETS.
“…in 2004, years before Shakley told us he left the Army”
He claimed separation long after the period that you’re talking about.
I ETSed from an active contract, the first time, in 2006. Giving the separating service member their DD214 prior to terminal leave, or ETS if they didn’t take terminal, was standard and common on the active side of the house… which is what Shakley is implying with his service.
His implication was that he had left years after 2004, this would’ve meant that he would’ve ETSed after it was common to have ETSing service members receive their DD214 prior to their separation.
@9 Hondo
Right
Fast
Cheap
Pick two.
@14 NR Pax
Numba 1 son will ETS in March. He is on terminal leave and he has a working copy of his 214.
When I got out, I took my terminal leave in cash. I signed my 214 and was handed the yellow copy — back in the day the DD124 was a multipart form with carbons. You young whipper- snappers probably don’t know what carbon paper is. The outprocessing guys were very particular that I should hang onto it. They told me that if I lost it, there was a long list of unpleasant things that might happen — like getting drafted.
Richard@21 wrote: They told me that if I lost it, there was a long list of unpleasant things that might happen — like getting drafted.
I enlisted January 16, 1981 at the age of 17. (Within days, Iran released the hostages, draw your own conclusion.) Anyway, having enlisted before I turned 18, I never bothered registering for Selective Service. Well, four years later, while on my second enlistment, I received a nasty-gram from our friends at Selective Service informing me that if I did not register immediately, all kinds of bad things would happen to me. It was addressed to me at my Battalion, with my rank and an FPO mailing address. I did register, but nasty things did happen to me, such as Recruiting Duty, and having my in-laws move in short term, and still with me three years later. So kids, be sure to register with Selective Service. It’s the law, and it may prevent you from supporting a worthless brother-in-law.
AWOL = IVAW Losers.
Please please please tell me Branum is his lawyer. That alone should double his sentence.
Terrible reporting. Looking at the video a few times he claims the Army didn’t care about his “problem” for years then all the sudden the Army shows up despite the reporter narrating that he’s been arrested a couple times pertaining to his deserter status. The paperwork he’s flipping through is his Iowa arrest record and his enlistment contract. The reporter just had to look at the paperwork in his hands to see the fact that he was arrested two years into his enlistment for desertion. Verifying that he also escaped custody should have been enough to show his story about this being a paperwork screw up was bullshit. I wonder how long it took the reporter to find out these basic facts? In the video the reporter stated neither Shakely nor the Army could produce documents verifying their side. She couldn’t wait until someone produced some evidence before going public with this crap? If this made it to print, the headline should have read “Lying, cry baby deserter tries to get sympathy from the media.”
@22. That’s funny stuff. I think I’ll close at the day at TAH on that note, smiling.
Shakley – Sharkey?
Is there a connection?
I wonder if he is hanging with this maggot?
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=36381
Richard: I’m quite familiar with that one, amigo. That’s a minor variant on the classic engineer’s/program manager’s tradespace triangle. Specifically: “Performance, affordability, quality – pick any two.”
thebesig: it wasn’t standard practice as late as 2003 at some installations. At that time, mailing a DD214 was still the rule if a soldier was departing prior to the effective date of their discharge. I can’t say precisely when the policy changed, but it could well have been in very late 2003 or early 2004. As you noted, a few years later the policy had changed and soldiers were getting the document during outprocessing regardless of whether they were taking terminal leave or not.
@ Hondo, that’s one of the facts that’s damming for Kevin Shakley… his timeline… math.. and all that. He should’ve claimed ETS prior to 2004. 😀 My first post here answered NR Pax’s question about one of the things that happens during ETS. During Kevin Kakley’s claimed ETS year, the new procedures were already in place.