Elderly couple scams VSOs in San Marcos, TX
This one comes from those fellas over at The Burn Pit and reported by KVUE in Austin, TX. This fellow they call “Douglas Robinson”, called the local American Legion post commander, Tom Tvrdik and he met them as they stepped off the bus. He claimed he was a Vietnam Veteran with ten years in the country and he was in San Marcos to bury his grandmother, so the post along with VFW gave the dude about $500 for a nice weekend.
By that time the Hays County Veterans Service Office began to suspect something was wrong. First of all, Service Officer Jude Prather says the man claimed to have been an E-9, the highest level for an enlisted service member. Then there were hazy details about what specific jobs Robinson had performed. But it wasn’t until the couple had already left town that they remembered an alert sent out by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
The document warned communities that Robinson had claimed veteran status before in order to obtain benefits, but he had never served in the military.
Apparently, he’d been arrested in Illinois for VA benefit fraud and spent a year in prison for that little game in 2008. The folks in San Marcos said that they put him on a bus to San Antonio, be on the look out, you folks down there. Just keep in mind that Stolen Valor is a victimless crime.
Category: Phony soldiers
Scum-encrusted turds.
Gee thanks, San Marcos. Like we really want him down here….
What happened to the good ole days when folks like this disappeared on the way out of town?
What will we see next, bureaucrats and liberals demanding that the vets apologize for saying mean things about these con artists while handing them more freebies?
The biggest thing this piece of shit steals is the trust that bonds veterans.
As a veteran you take other veterans pretty much at their word. Taint goblins like this make me doubt any old guiy that claims they served in Vietnam.
DITTO, JaOD, According to many sources, for every legit Vietnam Vet that is still with us, there are 5 to 10 POSers riding on their coattails. In times past, I had respect for any man I saw wearing any kind of “Vietnam Vet” apparel. These days, the more “Vietnam Vet” apparel they have on, the more I want to say “PROVE IT!!!”.
This turd’s face is familiar. IIRC, he was on the old POWNetwork database, he pulled some kind of scam back then. A claim of being a retired Army SGM seems to stick in my mind.
Yes he was. If I am not mistaken, Chuck and Mary had his profile on their scam artist page.
I’m sorry boys and girls, but I just had a very racist thought. I’ll write a check to the Negro College Fund and wash my mind out with soap.
Didn’t it occur to the Legion commander to ask to see this couple’s retiree ID cards? If he’s an E-9, it’s almost certain he retired rather than ETS’d. He claimed he served TEN TOURS in Vietnam? Didn’t it occur to the Legion commander how ludicrous that claim is? If nothing else, Legion commader Tvrdik should be voted out out of his position and be replaced by someone who’s less gullible with the post members’ money…
Combat Historian – that would mean that the VSO’s would have to actively screen each of their existing members and new members who wish to join. My guess is that there would be a hell of a housecleaning and some of the local posts/chapters having to close doors or consolidate because of the frauds and embellishers that are in the ranks.
As someone commented earlier in another thread…. any more, it’s getting hard to take anyone at face value. Half the ‘vets’ I meet sound fine at first… until they mention being recruited out of Basic into Sniper school because they shot so well, etc….it’s like we have a whole freakin’ country full of Eddie Murphy’s street beggar in ‘Trading Places’
As a retired E7/E8/E9, you would think that they would have learned how to take care of money problems. My father was a service officer with the American Legion and we did have some bums show up.
He usually tried to assist in a minimum way just to get rid of them (kind heart and small town make for an easy mark), but he could and did call a phony out when they shoveled the BS too deep.
This service officer needs to grow a pair. BZ
Phildo’s parents.