Roger Sturdevant Sr.; phony Marine infantryman/POW

Pat noticed this story about Roger Sturdevant Sr. in the Waco Tribune. I hope you’re sitting down;

Sturdevant, 66, was just 19 and living in his hometown of Dallas when he joined the U.S. Marines. His primary job was an infantryman, but he also served as a helicopter crew chief and hydraulics specialist when he was sent to Vandergrift Combat Base, north of Ca Lu in Qu?ng Tr? Province, in Vietnam.

[…]

So after basic training in San Diego, Sturdevant found he was on his way to Vietnam, arriving in August 1969. Serving with the Infantry in Mike Co., 3/4 Fleet Marines, he was a foot solider [sic], heading one day to the river, the next day to the jungle, or to a particular marked hill on the following day.

The mission was to locate booby traps or handle any stray enemy that may impede the path of the Army that was to come through. But about three weeks into his tour, Sturdevant stepped on a booby trap with pungi sticks, (spikes made from wood or bamboo) and was injured, not from the spikes piercing his skin, but from breaking his leg.

While Sturdevant was convalescing with a cast back at base, he had some free time on his hands. One day he saw a medevac helicopter with some problems and decided to fix them. The captain liked it so much, he asked Sturdevant to join him after he got his cast off.

Sturdevant had an opportunity to get the cast off a week early, but there was no transportation available to go to the doctor in Qu?ng Tr?. The next day, he took off walking, hoping to catch a ride along the way. There was plenty of traffic at first, but everyone was loaded down with equipment, troops, etc. Soon, the traffic died down and he was alone walking along the road.

Suddenly, Sturdevant was struck from behind and dragged into the woods by two men. They broke his cast, stripped his clothes, and tied him up. The men who captured him carried him about two miles into a village, where he was put in a bamboo cage. They placed a tarp over the cage and would carrying him from village to village in the early morning hours, on their way to “Hanoi Hilton.”

It was a painful experience; women and children would take sticks, heat them over a fire and poke him with them, leaving him with scars all over his body. He got very little food, was spat upon and shrouded in darkness during their travels. The enemy also broke both his little fingers when he refused to reveal anything more than his name, rank and service number.

Fortunately for Sturdevant, a Marine Corp Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol in the area saw what was happening and ended up rescuing him. He was never listed as MIA or a POW, because his commander insisted that he was on “basket leave,” an extended leave of absence, after which the paperwork is destroyed and never recorded.

OK, so let’s look at what was true about that story; Roger joined the Marines a few days before his 19th birthday, and yes, he was assigned to M Company, 3/4th Marines. he was in Vietnam with them. As near as I can tell, he was with them in Vietnam for two months from August 28th, 1968 to October 4, 1968. By the end of October, he was at Camp Butler on Okinawa. The rest of the time, he was stateside at Camp Pendleton, CA, Missouri and Texas. He wasn’t an infantryman – his records say that he was an auto mechanic. Later in his career, he was a helicopter mechanic. Could he have been an infantryman in Vietnam – yep, in the Marine Corps, that’s always a possibility.

Of course, the whole POW story is just horseshit, walking to the hospital with a cast on his leg in the jungle, including the part where they had him accounted for on leave instead of being a POW. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, but, you know, that’s just something you say if you don’t want someone to check the records at DPAA. But I checked anyway;

He was three weeks into his eight week tour of Vietnam and he spent two weeks as a POW, that means his leg healed from a break in three weeks well enough for him to walk through the jungle to get to the hospital.

But it doesn’t end there. There was a part two in the Waco Trib;

After a few years, he went back into the service with the Army when it offered him a $2,000 sign-on bonus and his pick of locations. He chose Fort Carson, Colorado, where he was named Soldier of the Month three times in a row. He was a platoon sergeant and drill instructor.

Orders came in to report to Fort Benning, Georgia, and while there, he signed up for jump school and then Airborne Ranger training. He served as a “ranger aggressor,” playing the role of the enemy, but he never really got to use his airborne skills. Once word came that he would be transferred to Italy unaccompanied (without his wife), he decided to leave the service in 1978.

That’s funny because the Marine Corps says that he was in the Corps until 1982 – but he says he was in the Army.

During his time in deployment in Vietnam, he earned a Vietnam Service Medal, two Bronze Stars and a Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation (Gallantry Cross), among many other decorations.

He must be counting the two bronze service stars on his VSM as Bronze Star Medals. This guy. Math is not his stong suit.

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures