Gary Peters: I don’t see any stolen valor here
I’ve seen this link in messages several times since last night about Democrat Gary Peters who is running for the Senate seat in Michigan. The link is to Matthew Boyle’s article in Breitbart where Boyle tries his hand at FOIAs and interpreting military records. To his credit, Boyle calls in an expert, retired Navy Commander Jim Semerad, to interpret the records of Peters who was a supply officer in the Navy Reserves.
There really is no “there” there. Apparently, Peters said he was an “expert” pistol and rifle marksman, but he was only qualified as a “sharpshooter” – one level below the “expert” designation. Peters also said that he was a SEABEE, but he was actually a supply officer in a SEABEE unit. His only deployment in ten years of service was to Qatar. There are probably scads of reservists who didn’t get that far.
“One of our missions was to build bridges,” Peters added at that American Legion post in Trenton, pumping his claimed experience in the military as useful for him in Congress. “I like to say: We learned how to build bridges while getting shot at. It’s kind of a metaphor for Washington: people are constantly taking shots but we’ve got to be able to build bridges, we got to bring people together…it’s about being a practical problem solver.”
He never built or bridge or got shot at while he wasn’t building a bridge, but to me, that’s no more than boosting your résumé. Not everyone in the military gets shot at, or even deploys, so like I said, this isn’t really stolen valor or anything similar.
Mr. Boyles compares this case to John Kerry or Richard Blumenthal, but they’re not even close. Blumenthal said that he went to Vietnam, when he didn’t, Kerry has memories “seared” into his tiny brain that never happened. Peters gave himself a bump up in the weapons qual badges. This one makes me shrug. It trivializes the whole Stolen Valor issue.
Category: Who knows
You feelin OK Jonn? You usually post what needs to be said so I don’t have to. If somebody is posting using Jonn’s name he is going to be pissed.
Running for public office requires a higher standard of truth. Accepting mediocrity and the mean is not acceptable. Fuck this guy.
Should read ‘mediocrity as the mean’
I don’t have to like him to admit that his case is nothing like Kerry or Blumenthal, and isn’t a supply officer in a SEABEE unit a SEABEE anyway (doesn’t everybody assigned have to attend their extra combat training-I’m asking)? Anyway, he isn’t a particularly good shot and he probably wouldn’t be a particularly good Senator, but he isn’t like the scummy liars who are regularly featured here.
SEABEES are enlisted only. Officers are Civil Engineer Corps officers and supply officers are still Supply Officers.
Well, forgive my confusion, but why then does the Navy issue the “SEABEE insignia” to officers? If wikipedia is to be believed the very first such badge was issued to an officer-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee_combat_warfare_specialist_insignia
I mean, using an example that I’m more familiar with (and that us Army types can grok), not every cavalryman is a 19 series, but if you complete some kind of spur ride you’ve earned the right to wear your spurs and stetson.
Its a skills badge. Anyone assigned to the unit officer or enlisted can receive one. SEABEES are specifically designated as being of 7 construction rates (MOS) consisting of BU, CM, CE, EA, EO, UT, and SW.
Everyone also wears a SEABEE on their pockets of the working uniform. But if an individual is not of a SEABEE rating when they leave that command they no longer wear that on their uniform. (The pocket not the warfare device)
OK-I can see that.
So do you object to Peters calling himself a SEABEE? I don’t know if he has that badge so I suppose that would be something that might make a difference here.
For my part I know medical officers who served with a Cav regiment in combat and if they call themselves Cavalrymen, I don’t think anyone would object.
Simply
I guess I does.
Yeah, this is small potatoes compared to some. Still, he exaggerated his military service and deserves to be called out.
Big whoop. Having been a SEABEE for 31 years, I will give Mr. Peters that fact. I don’t care, and neither do the other group 8 rates… If you are non group 8 [Construction], i.e. BM’s SK’s, HM’s, DT’s, MA’s, NC’s, RP’s, Supply Corp, Medical Corp, Dental Corp, Chaplain Corp, USMC advisor…whatever…. If you are assigned to any SEABEE unit…YOU ARE A SEABEE! Yeah, don’t be an expert when you only qualed as a sharpshooter either… Nothing to see here… move along smartly now. Focus on the serious posers will ya.
Bingo. Anyone assigned to a Seabee unit is a “Seabee”, especially a unit that can qualify for the SCWS or SCW Officer insignia. Although NCRs and NCGs (formerly Seabee Readiness Groups) are no longer qualifying units.
For the qualifying units though, the SCW badge/qualification is open and now required for anyone in the unit regardless of rank/rate, designator, or community, with the exception of Chaplains due to the weapons qual requirement.
Slight update though, the traditional “Seabee” ratings are called OF-7 now 🙂
The only reason I even posted this was so that y’all know that I saw the story and to stop the flood to my inbox.
I guess that didn’t work, either – can you guys stop sending me links to this story, please? I didn’t care about it last night, I care even less about it now.
Didn’t hear the speech in context but my feeling is the comment ” We learned how to build bridges while getting shot at.” seems that it could be a disingenuous one meant to push the listener to assume that he actually was shot at while building bridges in Qatar. Note he doesn’t describe that statement as the metaphor he describes the Washington DC Op Area as the metaphor. Couple that with the fact that he’s a politician, i.e. a professional liar, and yeah…me thinks he may be committing the lie of omission.
But again it is all about context and the way he was speaking…call me jaded.
I would presume the sharpshooter thing is his final qual, no? Because I know I’ve shot marksman, sharpshooter and expert at various points in my career, and the fact that I’m currently a sharpshooter doesn’t take away the expert qual I had a few years back.
I left the boat on this one when they started harping on the “expert marksman” turn of phrase – if that’s the best you’ve got, you need to re-evaluate your story. To me, the strongest stuff was when they focused on how he was probably a space-wasting shitbag of a sailor. That was compelling.
Yeah ditto here. I qualified expert (39 out of 40) in Basic. Then at my next two units Sharpshooter and Expert a couple of times each. It really depended on the range and conditions.
One time we had cross winds so high that I barely made Sharpshooter (I want to say that was at Panzer Kaserne, but we might have been near Wharton Barracks, Heilbronn.) Out of two full platoons on the range no one qualified Expert that day.
Another time I was so wet and and so cold that my fingers were numb, and I was shivering so bad it was hard to keep the rifle steady.
Ahhh winters in Germany … so much fun.
And don’t forget the German Summers either. I almost slept through one once. Slept til noon that day…
I read the article and one has to get deep before the first evidence is offered, the “expert marksman” qual claim. The guy’s former CO all but calls him a malingering goldbrick. Much ado about next to nothing. The thing is, this guy is a Democrat running for the Senate. That’s damning enough right there, as far as I am concerned. He smells of Mom Jeans’ mom jeans, Pelosi’s two-inch thick pancake makeup, and Reid’s embalming-fluid breath.
From the above linked article, two other clowns that got mention on This Aint Hell:
“After Montana Democratic Sen. John Walsh was found to have plagiarized large sections of the paper he wrote to earn a Master’s degree from Pennsylvania’s Army War College, he dropped out of the race. It made the seat an almost sure bet for Republicans to pick up. Similarly, Ron Dickey, the Democratic nominee for Mississippi’s first congressional district, misled voters in his state about his military record–claiming he was a green beret, when in fact he simply a ‘food service specialist’–or line cook–for a green beret unit. While he hasn’t dropped out of the race–his name is still on the ballot–Democrats in Mississippi, particularly state party chairman Rickey Cole, called on Dickey to drop out.”
SEABEE or not he will be the next Senator from Michigan. The Michigan Republican candidates have run some truly awful campaigns in the past but this year’s effort to elect Terry Lynn Land was truly awful. The national Repub. Party threw in the towel – pulled all their ads a few days ago.
Exactly, her ads have been terrible, some of the PACs have done some decent ads on her behalf, but she’s been her own worst enemy.
Peters is the perfect Democrat, you know those clowns who complain about income inequity and rail against the corporate fat cats. It’s amazing to me that during his 22 years as a financial adviser, he didn’t strike gold. But, coincidentally, when he entered politics and stopped working for a living, his portfolio grew—and grew—and grew. According to that ultra conservative newspaper, the Washington Post, his wealth grew 1101% (that’s not a typo) between 2007 and 2010.
Yep. Must agree that there are probably plenty of reasons to not vote for this guy – stealing valor just isn’t one of them.
Not sure what anyone would expect him to say other than what he did. He likely WAS trained to build bridges (or at least to keep the supplies moving) while under fire. Anyone choosing to take that to mean that he actually took fire while building a bridge needs a refresher course in reading comprehension.
Most of us with military training at all had at least some training on something which we never used either in the military or civilian worlds. Doesn’t alter the fact that we received the training. Like how to use a tourniquet. And make a sling.
Hmmmph, getting shot at in Qatar…interesting stuff. Must have been skeet shooting and horseplay in that nice six story mall with a skating rink..
If someone were to pull my 2-1 or whatever, they’d see marksman, because that’s what I shot at Benning 20 years ago, embarrassingly. I had trouble with my glasses prescription, it was what it was. I was just happy to move on to ARM and not be “that guy.”
Later on, I earned my EIB and shot expert nearly every time I went to the qual range. It factored into promotion points each time, too. I’ve noted that nobody has ever updated my record accordingly, but rifle qual appears on previous NCOERs. Should I be pushing for the 2-1/201 whatever it is to be updated? I’m not asking to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but isn’t the same scenario possible?
In BT, I couldn’t hit shit. The instructors were quite–shall we say–miffed, and our company captain heard about the idiot who couldn’t hit shit. So, one day at the range he says, “Give me that. And you’d better hope I don’t hit the targets.” Well, down he went into the prone position, took aim, fired and…missed. And he missed again. i can’t recall whether he fired a third time but he never hit the target. He gave the rifle to someone and said something such as, “Have the armorer report to me and get this trainee a new rifle. This one is bent.” True story.
I’m not so sure that the claim of “expert” in shooting quals as an intentional deceitful boost.
Expertise, in the minds of many, doesn’t necessarily mean expert badge.
For lots of folks, just making Marksman means they’re good enough at it to think of themselves as expert smallarmsers. This tends to be more so the deeper you get into REMF land.
Personally, I only failed to qual expert twice. Once while shooting while the leading edge of a rather nasty hurricane was over the base and the targets were so wet and the wind so high that each hit knocked all the stickies off the target so hit location had to be guessed at. Got Sharpshooter that day… mostly as a gimme though.
The other was in my last year in and I didn’t really care that much so got Sharpshooter again.
I never have understood how someone can’t make Expert on a known distance range. It’s not like it’s hard to do.
Yeah he is an officer Seabee and I am a former BT Naval astronut!
Can’t make this up!
I spent some time thinking on it, the critter implies that he built bridges under fire. Actually in the rear with the gear. Running for office telling this falsehood. Yes, he is guilty of SV in my opinion. That’s just me. Joe