George Reece; phony POW/phony SF Vietnam vet (video added)
Someone sent us their work on this George Reece fellow, who was on an Honor Flight to the Vietnam Memorial last Veterans Day. The news folks took down the story before I could screen shot it, but I found enough of the article for you to get the gist of it;
LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) – Army veteran George Reece was just 21 years old when he spent a year in captivity in Vietnam.
He and three other soldiers were heading out to another camp when it all happened.
“We went in, found it,” Reece says. “We got captured, stayed POW for a year, we finally escaped. All of us escaped and got out.”
Not wanting to recount those traumatizing moments, he says he lost 65 pounds during that year.
Thankful to be alive, he says looking at the long list of names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial makes him so emotional, because he sees names of people he once knew so well.
Of course, the first place we look is at DPAA;
No Reece was not a POW in Vietnam. So we ordered his records and he was indeed a Vietnam veteran. But, you’ll notice that he’s wearing a Special Forces cap – and a POW medal on it – in this picture.
He was an artilleryman in Headquarters and Service Battery of the 8th Battalion, 6th Artillery which was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Unless you think it’s Special Forces;
The links to the article were pulled soon after they published (I couldn’t even find it on the Wayback Machine), so I’m guessing that Reece and the journalists got called out soon after the story appeared – with good reason.
ADDED: Here’s the video news report, thanks to AverageNCO;
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
SP5 in an Arty unit? I forget how one went the Speedy path vs NCO, but I think it was usually combat service support like admin, maintenance, cook, etc. Now I see he went to mechanic training at Polk. And was in Service Battery.
All very honorable assignments and he did make E5 in a relatively short time so he probably did his job well.
Mechanic in an Artillery Battery just not as sexy as Snake Eater POW I guess. Damn shame.
A two year active duty Spec5 63B20-Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic.
Probably ended up being the Shop Foreman and Wrecker Operator (a primo duty slot) towards the end of his active duty tour.
Absolutely nothing wrong with his overall record.
Out of all of the Stolen Valor scumbags out there, the ones who 1) pretend to be POWs, 2) falsely claim the Purple Heart, and 3) ingratiate themselves with the families of wounded and fallen servicemembers are the worst, IMHO.
George Dipshit here falls into the first category. As Jonn regularly says, SV is just the tip of the iceberg. Have to wonder how many more lies and deceit Dipshit has spewed.
Wonder if he really was an 8Artillery Guy. His records indicate he attended the Wheeled Vehicle Mechanics Course at Fort Polk, most likely for AIT. I dont see any assigments to Fort Sill, until after he returned from Vietnam and he was only there for a couple of months before he got out. He is currently associated with the VFW Post 6797 in Post, Texas and was featured in the Post, Texas newspaper as a Vietnam POW. I bet the VFW fell for story as well, but I could be wrong.
Interesting. Couldn’t find an email address, but here’s the “snail mail” and phone contact info for the Post.
Post 6797 Miller/Luman Post
PO Box 250
Post, TX 79356-0250
United States
Phone: (806) 495 2026
Meeting Location & Time
1006 E Main St
Post, TX 79356
7:00 PM 2nd Monday
Post QM is listed as “JW Jolly”; post Commander, “Charles Ratliff”. Wonder how they feel about this LSoS? Or if they know about his bogus claims?
Info above is from
https://www.vfw.org/oms/findpost.aspx
with a search using Post, TX, as location.
Pat, I’m pretty sure he’d have been a mechanic assigned to the unit. If I recall correctly, artillery units had a sh!tload of vehicles – and mechanics.
He was just “honoring” Nick Rowe with his tale of POW escape derring-do, and he was just “honoring 5th SFGA by wearing that nice little hat…///
For completeness, here are links to DPAA’s Vietnam POW Escapee, Returnee, and Accounted-For lists:
http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_escapee.pdf
http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_returnee.pdf
http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_acc_p_name.pdf
This j-hole isn’t on any of those 3 lists. In fact, the last name of “Reece” does not appear on those 3 lists.
The last name “Reece” also does not appear on the Vietnam Unaccounted-For list.
http://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_una_p_name.pdf
Lying bastard.
I have used all my tricks to try to find a cached copy of the story and I came up empty.
The only thing I can say is that I once met a guy from Post, TX. He was gay as hell.
KCBD never did a follow up story on him.
BUT…they do have a Facebook account:
https://www.facebook.com/KCBDNewsChannel11
Original story’s author appears to have been a “Gloria DeLeon”. Here’s her bio at KCBD, with contact info:
http://www.kcbd.com/story/28261985/gloria-deleon
From the photo, she appears young. So I’d recommend not “unloading both barrels” in any email – this may be the first time she’s been hoodwinked by a baldfaced liar about their “Vietnam exploits”.
Hondo, you are correct with your recommendation…and wise.
Hopefully, she learned something as a journalist…and this won’t happen again. Most likely, KCBD are embarrassed as well.
Special Forces, POW, Honor Flight. He owes for that. 1 year in jail, restitution for the flight, and a public shaming for the Special Forces nonsense.
Phuk Ewe George.
Pretty sure he’d qualify for the honor flight as a non SF, non-POW Vietnam Vet, DH. So I’m guessing proving the economic loss required for fraud would likely be a non-starter.
(sigh) It’s a shame that being locked in the pillory (or stocks) in the Post, TX, town square is no longer an option. A week or two of that IMO would be about right for the lying bastard.
Hi,Hondo. Reece was an Honor Flight Guardian and according to their Website, Guardian are responsible for paying their own way (that is, if he did pay for it or the VFW Post 6797 paid for his trip). I hope his Church and Pastor and the Post Dispatch find out about this. He has a lot of explaining to do…
Mary Schantag and I had both reached out to the Honor Flight group about this guy. They pulled the Ostrich/Head/Sand routine. They said regardless of the POW claims he was eligible as a Vietnam vet. Mary asked for help obtaining his records to verify the Special Forces claims. They said they appreciated the work she does but would not share any information because of privacy concerns. So they are basically enabling him to continue his BS.
UFB… allowing the assclown to continue spewing his BS to the world.
If someone ever adequately explains this desperate need for attention to me, it will make things a lot more clear. As it is, the only thing I can come up with is greed. And we do see that elsewhere, don’t we?
I hope this person makes a public apology some day, but he probably won’t.
If they only had some of your gravy, they would want for nothing more.
Turd Thief.
FA’-KYOO George Reece, ENJOY your newfound fame!
Just another child molester….screw him!
Unless he is a convicted Chi-Mo I wouldn’t make those type of comments. Certain elements read over these comments and cherry pick them for slanderous materiel.
Just another phony stale old fart.
Shitbags like this are the lowest form of life known why flush a good service record down the toilet????
And what is wrong with being a support guy ???? You served in a time when nobody would… EPIC FAIL !!!!!!
Another member of the “Special Feces” that loves Lon Duc Dong’s “Cream of Sum Yung Guy” soup….
I hope he gets nominated for the 2015 BLUE FALCON AWARD.
This turd deserves a flushing!! I wish the media put half the effort in publicly shaming these dick heads once they realize they’ve been duped.
They’re like dogshit, they are everywhere.
Lots of POWs lately.
Posers don’t seem to know that there’s a nice, up to date list of all POWs available for anyone to look at.
And the number of those who managed to escape is getting out of hand.
A paper by John N. Powers lists only 3 successful escapes from captivity of any American POWs after one year held. And this joker ain’t one of ’em.
90 attempts were made, with all being recaptured shortly after the escapes were discovered. No Americans escaped from North Vietnam.
It’s been a rough year of posers who were actually Artillerymen or in a artillery unit.
And a lot of posers who are affiliated with VFWs…and the Marine Corps League…and the American Legion…and the Tuskegee Airmen…and the SF Association…I could go on and on and on…
He know’s what he did was wrong. but he did it anyways. He gives up the respect he ever got from most service men and women. shame on him.