Phonies I have known

TSO and I were having a conversation the other day about the phonies I’ve chatted with over the years and I thought maybe some of those discussions might be of interest to some of you.

For example, there was Bob King, known as “Spooky 8”, he wrote a book about his adventures by that title several years back. Of course, the book was total bullshit. He told tales about being stationed in Fort Sill, Oklahoma and when the Army needed him for a mission they’d fly him all the way to Vietnam for ten minutes of delivering cash to a Vietnamese general, because there was no one else between Oklahoma and Vietnam who could do that shit.

When I confronted King about his fantasies, he hinted that the records we had had been altered by the government to cover for his secret squirrel activities. I guess that’s what he told the folks back home, because without his Spooky persona, he was nothing but a high school janitor who had a bad conduct discharge for going AWOL.

Then there was Joseph Cryer, my white whale. Joseph told how he was recruited by SEALs out of a video arcade and didn’t have to bother going to BUD/S because of his mad Donkey Kong skills. Then they dropped him off in Libya in 1986 and he had to fight his way out. He tried to shop that story as the reason that he has PTSD at the VA. The first doctor he went to called BS on his tales and denied his application. The next doctor he went to fell for it, though, and awarded him 100% disability, for something that never happened.

Cryer called me when we began posting about him. At first he came out with the threats about kicking my ass (ho-hum) so I emailed him driving directions from his apartment to my house. His tone changed and he became apologetic, not for lying, mind you, but for telling his top secret stories on Facebook. In his mind, he thought he could still convince me, like he’d convinced some gullible doctor that he was who says he was. I guess because without his stolen valor, he was just some sad-assed male stripper shaking his booty for pensioners in Ocean City, Maryland.

Early on in the history of this blog, we were focused on taking apart the Iraq Veterans Against the War. TSO and I met at their Winter Soldier theater in Maryland. The night after the event, I started getting hate mail from some of them. One in particular, Zachary Findley-Maddox was particularly up set that I would rag on troops who were obviously racked with PTSD, like him. The more I questioned him, the more retarded he’d sounded. He claimed that he had PTSD from seeing the smoke rising from the Pentagon from the Marine Barracks at 8th & I Streets in DC. Actually, I was a few miles closer to the Pentagon than he was that day and all I felt was rage.

But he claimed that he had PTSD from that experience as well as the fact that the local pizza delivery guy looked like bin Laden. And the gun fire from drive bys there in Northeast DC. He was eventually booted from the Marines when he pissed hot – he was probably self-medicating from letting the pizza guy through the gates with his greasy wares.

But you can’t talk about PTSD and IVAW without mentioning Jeremy Bergren, who had PTSD because his unit had deployed to Iraq without him. I understand about survivors’ guilt, but he was in a mortuary unit, so I doubt any of his unit were lost during their operations.

Then there was Jim Ferris, the president of the Korean War veterans’ Association who claimed service in the Korean War when it didn’t happen. He wanted me to drive to Syracuse and have lunch with him – for what? He thought he could convince me with words that I should let it all go. To what end? He still claimed service and awards he didn’t earn. A friendly little talk wouldn’t change that.

And there was Ward Reilly who never said that he was a Ranger in Vietnam (he was a mortarman in Germany during the Vietnam War), but he signed all of his email with (Ranger), walked around with a Ranger tab on his boonie hat and wore tiger stripe fatigues and just gave the impression that he had been in Vietnam, though he probably hasn’t even seen pictures of the country. Reilly actually had the nerve to ask me how I could, in good conscience wear a CIB for the Gulf War while he was wearing a Ranger tab that he didn’t earn.

And that brings us full circle to last week’s Christopher David Duke (by the way, what were his parents thinking when they gave him that name?). In my 25 minute phone call to him, Duke spent most of it convincing me that stolen valor isn’t a big deal. He was a good father, a good member of the community and a successful businessman, so we should give him a pass on his lies that he was a Marine Scout Sniper – without a day in uniform. He wasn’t wearing medals or uniforms, so we should just let him go. He said that he was just our “flavor of the week”. No, the internet is forever. Ask Nick Androsky or Michael Patrick McManus. Their posts have outlived them.

In the comments the other day, someone asked what statute these people have violated. Actually they asked what “statue” was broken. The short answer is “none”. The longer answer they’ll probably never understand. A lot of them claim that they earned Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. The only time my friend Tim “Griz” Martin wore his Bronze Star and his Purple Heart were on his marker at Arlington.

A lot of people have died earning their medals and their titles that these ass-monkeys just pin on without the least bit of effort. People like Chris Duke and Joe Teti walk right up to the line of lying without crossing it and just leaving the impression with people that are something they aren’t. And when do walk up to that line, they’ll find us and our friends standing guard on that line.

Then there are the Angelo Otchys of the world who will only tell tall tales for admiration from their friends and family while they shit on honorable service. They don’t all wear stolen medals and uniforms, but they still steal the deeds and accomplishments of our own brothers and sisters when they have not a single drop of the same stuff in them that real soldiers sailors, airmen and Marines are made of.

I do this for the people who can’t speak now. I’ve been blessed with life that they were denied, so this is my life’s mission. If you don’t like that I do it, stop being a phony.

Category: Phony soldiers