Michael P. Cody, Jr; phony Silver Star recipient
One of our ninjas sent us their work on this Michael P. Cody, Junior fellow. He was inducted into the New York State Senate Veterans Hall of Fame by his State Senator. While everyone else showed up at the ceremony in nice sports jackets, Mr. Cody wore BDUs with his awards pinned on. So folks started asking questions about his awards.
It turns out that, yes, he did go to Vietnam, and somehow he was awarded a Purple Heart, but he did NOT earn a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, not even the Army Commendation Medal that he’s wearing is legit.
Don’t ask me why they do it – I just report them, I don’t explain ’em. This one hurts my heart because it looks like Cody has done a lot of good things for veterans, but that doesn’t justify his embellishments.
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
Whaaaaa! T! F!
Another turd in the toilet. Too bad he had to “embellish” his honorable service.
(FLUSH!!)
I wanted to be more badass than I was.
I wanted to be a hero but I was only a lowly gun bunny.
“So I tool the liberty of bullshitting you”
http://video.anyclip.com/movies/the-blues-brothers/truth-about-the-band/
Yeah.
What a stooge.
He needed a little extra attention and it caught up to him.
Any real Soldier worth his salt avoids the clown suit and shown this moron put on. I am actually surprised he is not rocking the tiger stripes.
And what I mean about “worth his salt” is common sense, just a touch of class and maturity.
This type of Stolen Valor I never understand. Michael P. Cody, Jr is a sad little man.
Reminds me of another sad little man, Walt Smith, who was a honorably decorated Marine in Vietnam and had actual awards for combat valor. Then one day, while working at the FAA, he decided to alternatively masquerade as a USMC General and a federally recognized ARNG G.O.
The dude was a California State Militia honorary “General” which holds about as much weight as a “Kentucky Colonel” designation. Walt Smith’s highest federally recognized rank was Major/O4 in the Army Reserves.
Even the State Adjutant General told him that and he still maintained that he was really a General. Sad old man negating honorable and valorious enlisted combat service.
Walt Smith also happened to be father-in-law to another Stolen Valor thief, Adam Appel of Anchorage AK,
Holden
The Appel didn’t fall far from the in-law family tree, did it?
rim shot!
Hey Holden, the guy you mentioned, The General even has a bio online, amazing: http://walterssmith.blogspot.com/
Kevin
He had plenty of legit accomplishments to be proud of and yet he threw himself, his name and his reputation into the toilet and pulled the chain himself!!! Showing up in BDU’s while everyone else is wearing suits? Yeah, as classy as some of the jokers one sees at Gun Shows and SoF conventions.
At least he didn’t show up wearing a Shriner fez. Those things really clash with camo…
Sad. Just freaking sad.
Honorable service in combat, plus WIA. And he had to crap all over that honorable service by lying to make everyone think he was some kind of hero.
Perfectly honorable service in Vietnam.
Goes to my experience that there were no clerks, truck drivers or cooks in Vietnam…
They were all CIA killers and super sekret skwirrels…
Not true – I personally know a guy who swears he never saw any VC because he was diving for cover and that his only marksmanship consisted of holding his M16 up with two hands and generally spraying a magazine in the direction of the enemy. Swears he lost more helmets than anyone else in Vietnam because the PRC kept knocking them off his head. Did his year, survived being the RTO, got two Purple Hearts, and came home. Amazingly, there is indeed one guy out there who embellishes nothing. Happy to know him!
My father-in-law was a Chinook mechanic in Vietnam and was very proud of that. He never claimed to be anything else.
My neighbor across the street is Retired AF and a VN Vet, he tells me stories about his times there as a Jet Mechanic. To me, good Aircraft Mechanics are worth their weight in gold, fast movers and choppers can’t keep flying without ’em around!
I was at the VA today and finally met my first Clerk from Vietnam. He said he was a clerk typist for an armored division, the number escapes me now, but he actually told me that he was a clerk while stationed in Vietnam !!!
“Awarded the Silver and Bronze Stars in Vietnam, Army Sgt. Cody survived a machete wound from a VC—only because his attacker, whom he shot and killed, fell on top of him and kept him from bleeding to death for the three days before he was rescued. Believing he survived to help others, Cody’s many community causes have included spearheading the construction of Wallkill’s Vietnam Memorial Wall in 2003.”
http://www.historynet.com/vet-spotlight-michael-cody.htm
Geez. What a LSoS.
Here’s the first part of the statement on the site referenced by Daisy Cutter:
“Michael Cody took more than 1,000 photos during and after the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, filling 80 disposable cameras with indelible images. He happened to be in Manhattan at the VA hospital on 9/11. When the attack first occurred he ran to the site, bought a disposable camera and started snapping pictures. On the anniversary of 9/11 this past fall, Cody set up an exhibit in Wallkill of those photos.”
Gets you wondering if he embellished this also?
First, if he ” took more than 1,000 photos” did he keep going back and buying more disposable cameras?
Second, why didn’t he stop taking photos and try to, oh I dunno, help?
Am I missing something?
IF he dood that, then how much money did he spend getting said photos developed?
Is it just me or does there seem to be an unusual number of Artillery guys doing this shit?
WTF is their problem? Some of the best unites I ever served with were Artillery. If being king of the battle ain’t enough, nothing ever will be.
Phuk Hymm.
I guess the arty guns just aren’t big enough symbols of manhood for them.
This is more than sad. He has a good record and he spits on it. He’s annoying as hell.
I don’t think the woodland camo was issued until 1981. Point is, not Vietnam-era. Special forces had a version of tiger stripes.
Seems like he just adapted a uniform for himself to parade around in.
Slight correction – the ERDL pattern was used in Vietnam, but the uniform he has looks to be M81 Woodland vs. ERDL, but I could be wrong.
Woodland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Woodland
ERDL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERDL_pattern
Certainly looks like he’s wearing BDUs vice Vietnam-era “cammies” to me.
Most of the troops in Viet Nam wore the pickle suit. Ask Sparks. Really warm and dry,too, when the rains came.
Cody is still wearing the BDUs and rack at a 4th of Jyly memorial later that year.
http://hudsonvalleynewsnetwork.com/2015/07/03/purple-heart-flag-honors-vietnam-veteran/
General….lolz
Silver Star…check.
Bronze Star…check.
No first, second or third CIB award? PFFFTTT!
Word.
This clown never understood why the sky is blue.
I contacted the Senator’s office and they jumped right on it, promising an investigation immediately. They said they’d keep me posted, but they alluded that he may have a dd215 listing the SS and BSM. I directed their office here, so hopefully we’ll see a retraction of this embellishing fuckwit from the Hall of Fame.
Well, if he’s got a DD215 . . . apparently there wasn’t a copy in his records at NPRC when NPRC prepared that FOIA reply. The clerk who prepared it appears to have known what they were doing and been quite thorough.
Thats what I told the senators staff. I said if he presents one to them to make a copy and sent it here so we can see if he doctored up a federal dicument for fraud purposes. Im betting we get a “classified” or “lost in the fire” excuse though.
Possible forged DD215 to gain a tangible benefit?
If so, he will be the second individual inducted into the New York State Senate Veterans Hall of Fame in the past year and a half with a forged federal document.
Bert Ruiz? Bert Ruiz? Does this name sound familiar?
But at least Bert probably showed up for his induction in a shirt and tie. Not this guy, though. He couldn’t even afford a five dollar shirt and tie from Goodwill, but he could afford to have his surname embroidered onto a BDU shirt. I hope at least he took the time to spit shine his boots.
The BDU’s with medals combo is my number one “Faker Alert” generator (No’s 2 and 3 being “sniper” and “SEAL” claims.)
I’m not aware of one single genuine, non-embellishing VN vet who dresses like that.
They might like you to think they stuck their medals and ribbons onto an old uniform top, but of course, they are putting their VN awards on a uniform that wasn’t even issued until 1981. Which means these sad sacks went down to the surplus store, purchased a uniform top and then decorated it with all their presumed finery.
Why would any REAL vet do that?
Actually, the more I think about it, I think when I get old and senile I’ll do the opposite: Instead of putting my old awards on a newer uniform, I’ll put all my awards onto a WW1 high-collared tunic and wear it with a “Smokey the Bear” campaign hat. Then I’ll tell stories about how I was a hero at Bellau Wood and that I knew Sergeant York personally. 😀
I plan on wearing my medals over chainmail and talking about my time in the desert with the old knight guarding the holy grail in Indiana Jones.
United Spacefleet, and mine are all completely fictional. I dare you to figure out what they are.
I’m a’ gonna wear my Union CW reenacting uniform and tell folks about my times as General Grant’s Field Bartender! 😀
Because most of us can’t fit into our old uniforms, so if we are going to put awards on any it will most likely be because we had to re-size. I know many, many Viet-Vets and can’t think of one who dresses like that, at least on a daily basis.
I have a friend that is a civil war reenactor. He is single and had just bought a house and was explaining to me that he used the spare bedroom to keep his reenactment gear in. He went on to explain that as the room’s centerpiece he has a mannequin that proudly displays his Civil War uniform.
I thought for a second then advised him that although he was very proud of it, if he ever brought a date home that he may not want to show her that room as his first choice.
There are so many people who have done incredible acts during wars and kept quiet. Then we have honorable men and women who just can’t be proud and screw their reputation by lying… Incredibly SAD…
Ditto that, Reb. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s in a town near a Military Installation and knew WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam Vets, many of whom were Combat Vets that had done their time in every one of Dante’s circles of hell. The ones who had done the most talked about it the least, thus the ones I see wearing as much “Vet Bling” as they can are the ones I am the most skeptical about, this critter running around in BDU’s with ribbons being a fine example as to WHY I am that way!
EX..my pop told me stories about the war and being the PROUD KID, started writing the stories in journals.
I wrote who he fought for and was in shock, when I received several medals and ribbons for his service this summer he never got including the service record. I’ll be receiving several more posthumously this summer or Spring. If I knew how to put pictures on the TAH, I WOULD OF SHARED the day I got them. No the next day..too many tears…
Another great military career RUINED b/c they just can not tell the TRUTH!!!