Dan Rather; the phony Marine

| April 5, 2017

Our friends at Military Corruption called last night to tell us about their latest post. It seems that iconic news reader, Dan Rather, put the above picture in his book, Rather Outspoken; My Life in the News. If you do an image search on Google, it’s pretty much everywhere, for example it’s posted at The Academy of Achievement.

The truth about Rather’s brief career in the Marine Corps is that he was discharged before he finished basic training, according to BG “Jug” Burkett in his book “Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History“;

“Rather never made it out of recruit training. He couldn’t do the physical activity,” Burkett declared. The exposer of many a wannabe and phony hero, says Rather was discharged as “medically unfit” on May 11, 1954.

Rather claims that he was discharged because the Corps found out that he had rheumatic fever as a child. From Rather’s bio on Wiki;

In 1954, Rather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps but was soon discharged because he had rheumatic fever as a child.

Regardless of the reason, he was not a Marine, as any actual Marine will tell you because he didn’t graduate from boot camp and he wasn’t awarded the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, but here he is wearing the EGA in this picture.

Rather also starred in another section of Burkett’s book according to Wiki;

On June 2, 1988, Rather hosted a CBS News special, The Wall Within. In it, he interviewed six former servicemen, each of whom said he had witnessed horrible acts in Vietnam. Two of the men said that they had killed civilians, and two others said that they had seen friends die. Each talked about the effects the war had upon their lives – including depression, unemployment, drug use and homelessness.

In their self-published book Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History, authors B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley said they had obtained the service records of all six men, documenting where each was stationed during the Vietnam War. According to the records, the authors said, only one of the men was actually in Vietnam; he claimed to have been a 16-year-old Navy SEAL but, said Burkett and Whitley, the records listed him as an equipment repairer.

Dan Rather – Reporting fake news before it was popular,

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures

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11B-Mailclerk

It is never just one little fib.

desert

Everything about Rather is BULLSHYT…the bastard’s record should just say…”a full fledged chicken shyt coward”

Ex-PH2

Dan Rather – busted (briefly) by the CPD at the 1968 Chicago Dem convention. Went down a hidey hole some place to find ‘splosives or something many years later, for a news story. It all looms large in his legend. He was a so-so anchorman, couldn’t hold a candle to Huntley and Brinkley or Donaldson.
No surprises here, at all.

Hondo

Rather and his ilk in the media created the “crazy Vietnam vet” myth nearly out of whole cloth. Veterans have been dealing with that undeserved BS ever since.

As Burkett and Whitley demonstrated in their book, Vietnam vets as a group are more successful, better adjusted, and less prone to legal issues than their civilian peers of similar age. The image created by Rather and his peers leads people to believe the opposite.

ThErE aRe, Of CoUrSe, ExCePtIoNs. Regrettably.

Trent

I see what you did there. Nicely played.

Yef

I don’t. What did Hondo do?

ThErE aRe, Of CoUrSe, ExCePtIoNs?

Either “TEE R OCUS ECPIN”
or “hr ae f ore xetos”

I don’t get it.
Is there a secret message in this?

MrBill

The reference is to one of our “favorite” embellishers who used to comment here before Jonn banned him, and whose screen name used a random combination of upper and lower case letters.

MSG Eric

And here I was thinking Teer Ocus Ecpin was Latin for something like “there are always douchebags in every group”

Guard Bum

Ha I was thinking the same thing but didnt want to be look like a dolt(more than I usually do!) for not understanding!

JarHead Pat

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, fucking thundercunt, it must be killing him that I closed my FB account a few weeks back, he would send me the most lame crap all the time…ThIs LRrp FoRTy OnE Ov Er, lololol what a toolbag.

LiRight

Rather – JarHead: NOT!

Rather: Dickhead: Yes!

timactual

True. I have always thought of myself as exceptional. Many have told me so. Some even say I deserve to ride around in my own chauffeured limousine. I think they said something like “The shortest possible bus”.

rgr769

I have been dealing with that bullshit myth ever since I got off the plane at SeaTac airport after the flight home from the viet of the nam in Oct., 1971. Several empirical studies have shown that Vietnam veterans are more successful in all aspects of their lives than non-vets. The homeless, drug addicted, or “crazy Vietnam vet” is largely a fabrication of the news media. It was part of the “fake news” of the day of the major networks we were fed every night on the evening news shows of the 1970’s. Wish I had a dollar for every homeless bum or valor-thief claiming to be Vietnam veteran.

LiRight

rgr769,

You’ve probably heard it before, but I’ll repeat it anyway; welcome home brother!

rgr769

Thanks, Li, I never heard that in the 70’s. I had to go to Harvard U at Cambridge, Mass in my class A uni (greens) when I was stationed with the 10th SFGA at Ft. Devens in 1973. You wouldn’t believe all the derisive remarks I overhead from the peeps on the street. With my green beret and jump boots, I was definitely a sight the students had not experienced in person.

LiRight

I have a son that’s currently an SFC with 10th SFGA….another, medically retired with the 5th SFG.

With regards to the peeps on the street – heard plenty after returning in 1968.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Rheumatic fever? Or, was it something else (bedwetting, sleep walking…).

COURAGE, Dan… tell the world the real “truth”.

2/17 Air Cav

I would think that a chronic med condition would have kept him out of the service and not have been discovered between, “Drop and give me 50” and “See that hill?”

timactual

That was my thought, too. They do ask for a medical history when you enlist. A history of Rheumatic fever is disqualifying.

To be charitable, perhaps he lied on his medical history. You know, “fake, but accurate”.

rgr769

Actually, in that instance it would be “fake, but inaccurate.”

Bill M

With Rather, it’s almost always “fake, but inaccurate.”

rgr769

IIRC, rheumatic fever is one of the questions asked in the paperwork for the entry physical. Gunga Dan must have denied having it to get past the initial physical. But I vote for bedwetting as the real cause.

PFM

What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?

Hondo

Nice. (smile)

Hayabusa

Came here to post this… you beat me to it.

Cornholio

IS IT SAFE!?!?

Hondo

Don’t think Rather was in “Marathon Man”. (smile)

MrBill

Hondo

I see the quality of Rather’s singing is on par with that of his reporting. (smile)

If anyone is doing a head-scratch over the connection to Rather, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#.22Kenneth.2C_what_is_the_frequency.3F.22

Dapandico

Release the DD 214 Dan. Harry Reid said you were discharged for being light in the loafers and playing the skin flute.

fedupwithposers

Does it ever stop with these guys. This is the second Vietnam Vet I have seen bullshiting everyone. WTF

He didn’t earn shit…But he sure has that photo like he did.

Twist

This is just your second? You must be new here

OWB

Even more damning of Rather is the fact that he joined the Army Reserves, avoiding the draft for the Korean War by doing so. (page 107, Stolen Valor)

Burkett/Whitley have quite a lot documented about Dan Rather, for those who can get their hands on a copy. His draft dodging adventure in the Army Reserve predates his attempt to become a Marine. That occurred after the Korean War cooled down.

Dan Rather is just an all around lying PoS. He has repeatedly produced trash and lies about veterans all while hypocritically exaggerating (sometimes ignoring) his own experience.

ChipNASA

Fuckstick.

I don’t even want to think that this cum gobbler is worthy of the WALL O INSULTS>
That’s for REAL Stolen Valor cowards.

Dan, you don’t even rate that. (IMHO)

CWORet

Doesn’t even rate the term EX-Marine.
DOES rate the term NeverWasaMarineLyingPOSScumbagMFR though.

Former EM1/SS

On the contrary Chip. You know his publicist/assistant in charge of checking the internet for every mention would get a huge kick out of reading the wall. Maybe he/she is having a bad day and would pass it on….

Wilted Willy

He is just a useless piece of shit and always has been! If he can’t find a story, he’ll just make one up, the father of fake news! And don’t forget, Fuck you cocksucking ass hamster!

The Other Whitey

I think Cronkite was the actual father of modern fake news. Rather was just a camp follower. They can both eat a dick.

26Limabeans

Cronkite has boo coo blood on his communist hands. Rather has fecal matter.

streetsweeper

Did you mean to say, “bag of dicks”?

Silentium Est Aureum

And IIRC, CBS has never issued a retraction or correction, let alone an apology, for the outright lies they told in The Wall Within.

sgt. vaarkman 27-48th TFW

once a dic head, always a dic head

a prime example of why we have such shitty journalism reporting the news, a classic alphabet news channel no integrity anchorman in the late 20th & 21st century

smh

The Other Whitey

I remember reading a little story a few years back, can’t remember off the top of my head which book it was in, of how a group of “combat correspondents,” including Walter Cronkite (who usually “corresponded” from someplace well out of harm’s way) and Andy Rooney were selected to train as aerial gunners in order to fly *one* mission as ride-alongs with 8th Air Force bomber crews in 1943. Cronkite and the other reporters promptly started calling themselves the “Legion of the Doomed” and emphasized the risk they were taking as dramatically as possible anytime somebody might be listening. Rooney, on the other hand, seems to have been the only one to recognize how insulting it was for these reporters to make such a big deal of flying one mission when the crews they would be flying with had to do it 25 times–and were more likely to become casualties than a man in the Infantry. The B-17 and B-24 crews reportedly weren’t all that impressed with Cronkite and his self-important buddies, either. He was no Ernie Pyle or Joe Rosenthal, but you’d never guess that from Cronkite’s version.

2/17 Air Cav

Andy Rooney never forgot and for many years refused to talk about an incident he witnessed involving the death of, I believe, a ball turret gunner. He opposed the war, as a pacifist, and later was ashamed of that opposition. His eyewitness account of American men in combat and his being among the first reporters at a liberated concentration camp changed his views. Andy Rooney was a good man, an honest man, and one helluva writer. I had no use for Cronkite or Rather.

Wilted Willy

I always have loved Andy Rooney, he was the best! It is a shame he didn’t get to enjoy any of his well earned retirement! God Bless you Andy!!

STSC(SW/SS)

Looks like the boot camp picture they take for everyone so the photographer can make some money off lying POS.

Peter the Bubblehead

Since when do Marines smile in their boot camp photo?

radar

Wasn’t uncommon back then, actually. It’s in a similar manner as the old ’40s and ’50s pictures of Marines with their barracks covers tilted to the side in a jaunty manner, something that would get your ass stomped on today.

In 2001 they took those pictures around week 7 or 8 of boot camp so there were plenty of washout non-Marines like Rather who have their own little Marine Corps portrait.

2/17 Air Cav

Back then, every third Boot got a blow job while being photographed. Dan is smiling because he just learned that he would be giving them.

Joseph Williams

When told by the Drill Instructor. This picture is also for the local media to use. Joe

Rb325th

Dan Rather has a long held problem of not being able to tell the truth. Facts don’t matter, when you have an agenda.
They matter even less to the fools who believe him.

SFC D

Dan Rather was a Marine. Brian Williams was at Boot Camp with him.

The Other Whitey

Didn’t they raise the Flag on Suribachi alll by themselves?

Combat Historian

I heard that Gunga Dan and Fabulist Brian marched from the Halls of Montezuma straight to the Shores of Tripoli…

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Another journalist whose casual relationship with the truth reveals all we need to know about his personal character and consequently the body of his work.

Caught telling lies is why he lost his job, apparently lies have been part and parcel of the mix for sometime….

Combat Historian

Gunga Dan trying to sell his “I was a big bad former Marine so I know all about War and the Military and Stuff” bullshit again…

Fuck you, Gunga Dan, and go slither back into that rathole you had just climbed out of…

And oh BTW, you’re a fucking bed-wetter…

rgr769

All of these self-absorbed pricks are fabulists in a addition to being paid con-fabulists.

2/17 Air Cav

I always wanted to thank the guy who punched Dan “What’s the frequency?” Rather at the 1968 Dem Convention. Dano couldn’t keep that story straight over the years, either. He says in his bio that ‘He wanted to be an asshole and that’s what he was.’ Or was that reporter? I forget now.

A Proud Infidel®™

It’s a crying fuckin’ shame that whoever punched him wasn’t using brass knuckles when he did so!

CB Senior

Wasn’t there a nice old timey saying about rocks and glass houses.
If you are going to throw rocks for a living, you better have Lexan windows.

timactual

There is a new timey saying that applies to “Journalists”–“Do unto others as they do to others”.

HT3 '83-'87

I don’t know what’s more disturbing for me: the truth that ‘Stolen Valor’ is nothing new or that journalists have not been doing their job of for 30 years.

C’mom…16-year-old Navy SEAL…what utter bullshit. Steve tells the story of fictional Vietnam vet, John Rambo, from the 1982 film Rambo. As Col. Trautman said, “His job was to dispose of enemy personnel, period!” Steve was in the IC rate (phone repairman) instead of being a killing machine. The other guys were lying too, but Steve Southards wins the booby prize as King Valor Thief of the Day.

I guess it never occurred for any of those professional journalists to do some background checks on any of these guys since the bullshit they were peddling fit the narrative they were trying to reinforce.

The more things change…the more they remain the same.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213341/posts

rgr769

I don’t think the majority of these so called journo’s have been fairly doing their jobs for over 60 years. They have been infected with the bogus “liberalism” since the 1930’s. Most of even the older ones believe the propaganda that FDR pulled the country out of the Great Depression with his New Deal. Just ask our resident “socialist.”

Atkron

Go Fuck Yourself Dan Rather. Dan Rather is a Piece of Coyote Shit. Dan Rather can go suck greasy cocks in truck stop restrooms. I wanna make sure Dan Rather is Google linked here, so everyone can read about his lyin’ ass.

HMC Ret

Maybe Blather should restrict himself to investigating President Bush’s military service. That worked so well for him previously.

Atkron

When has anyone smiled in a Boot Camp photo?

Mick

Now THAT is a very good point.

And that makes that photo even more suspect.

No one smiles in USMC Boot Camp photos, at least not since WW2, and even then, very rarely.

Tom Huxton

by the time for photos, His paperwork was in process. Take the photo, then out-process. If that really bothered him, he would not be smiling.

Get on the bus, Rather.

Son of Loyd

My guess is he was making frenulum froth.

JarHead Pat

My Dad went to PI 1940 his Boot pic is all smiles, I asked him why he was smiling, he said the DI told them that they were having roast beef for evening chow. If i could figure out how to post a attachment i would.

Perry Gaskill

I always thought it was interesting how what led later to Rather’s network anchor job was originally a fluke. For those not aware of it, Rather was apparently working at a one-horse TV station in Houston, and also doing radio play-by-play for the local Triple-A ball club. On September 11, 1961, Hurricane Carla made landfall near Galveston, and Rather was there to provide the first live television coverage of a such a storm. It was apparently some pretty dramatic stuff for its time.

Somebody at the network level in New York saw the footage and said, “Who is that guy?”

Green Thumb

Wow.

Poetrooper

Rather had another phony schtick, trying to make himself look like one of us “ordinary folks” by using pithy, country sayings. When he was engaged in his campaign against the military service of George Bush, I took a shot at his phoniness using several paragraphs of such sayings in a piece called, “The Road less Graveled,” which can be found here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/09/the_road_less_graveled.html

It’s corny as hell but so are Rather’s attempts to sound “Down Home”.

Perry Gaskill

My old man was raised in the Ozarks, and many years later while working for a bank in San Francisco would still say stuff like, “That’ll make the hog eat the cabbage!”

You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. To be fair, Rather was brought up in Texas. That he retained some of that sensibility, even if sounding artificial at times, is probably better than an alternative native Noo Yawk one, IMO.

When somebody says somebody else is not “down home” enough, it also sometimes strikes me a bit like those hipper-than-thou Berkeley numbskulls on the opposite end who get all pissy if you haven’t read Marx and Sartre– in the original German and French.

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[…] Hello Pat, also, Where’s Vinnie? The Political Hat: Woke Babysitting This Ain’t Hell: Dan Rather, The Phony Marine War Is Boring: The Demobilization Of Permanent-War America Weasel Zippers: Schumer Says Trump […]

Just An Old Dog

Boot Camp Pic doesn’t mean diddly shit. While the timing may change these pics are taken at least a month or more before graduation.
The recruits aren’t wearing “their” uniform, its a photographer’s prop. If they make it until the last week or so they are given their pictures ( and platoon book) to pack up for when the graduate.
My guess with Rather is that sometime during training he either exhibited or complained of some malady that got him sent to recruit training. Either by examination or questioning him about his medical history, or a combination of both, his disqualifying condition was discovered. He was either a fraudulent or erroneous medical discharge.

FatCircles0311

This only brings up more questions. How would he get boot camp picture after if the didn’t graduate. Was this picture actually taken after he left bootcamp?

OWB

The Burkett/Whitley book has a pic of Rather taken in boot camp that looks like a young Rather. That one was supposedly taken just before he was dropped from the Corps, is not in dress uniform, and he is not smiling. Not entirely convinced that the guy in the pic above and the one in the book are the same individual. Could be, maybe. Some similarity, but also some differences – which may be from the smile. Or not.

Can someone else with the book please compare them?

Guard Bum

I don’t know how he would have gotten the picture back then but if I remember correctly when I went through in 1977 they got sent out in the mail(mine to my GF)so that could have been it.

Marines, unless they are the platoon honor grad, do not get dress blues issued to them in boot camp. Those uniforms are like dickies, you have kind of a fake blues jacket and a hat a thousand others wore before you and you sit, they take a picture and you take it off for the next guy of similar size.

None of us smiled in our pictures.

Twist

The “Class A’s” that I wore for my Basic picture didn’t even have a back to it so that recruits could get into and out of it quicker.

Just An Old Dog

“How would he get boot camp picture after if the didn’t graduate.”

If he was dropped right before Graduation he would already have the picture in his possession.
Also the platoon books often would not be corrected if he was a late drop.

Twist

When I went to Basic in 1992 my photo was taken while I was still in 30th AG (reception station). I think I had only been there a couple of days before the picture was taken.

Josnik

Yeah, I had mine taken at reception as well. Around Week 6, we got the whole sales pitch on buying those photos and a bunch of other crap. My understanding was that if you made it to the point where you could pay the money, you got the photos.

Mark Lauer

I have to say; he’d have made a fine LOOKING Marine.
But it takes more than looks to be in My Beloved Corps (even though I still turn the heads of women with my amazing handsomeness).

A Proud Infidel®™

FUCK Dan Rather to death up the ass sideways with rusty tangled concertina wire wrapped in asbestos alongside “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.

streetsweeper

Thanks for that visual. I think…lmao!

Mark Lauer

Don’t hold back, brother! Let us know how you REALLY feel about him. LOL

FatCircles0311

What a shitbag.

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SidneyBroadshead

Remember the Train Songs album Rather forced CBS Records to make as part of his renegotiated contract? They had to advertise it during the ad break on 60 Minutes. There’s shots of him in the ad wearing an Osh-Kosh railroad cap while he was recording it.

I think he has brain damage from all the concussions he’s had. It is the only explanation for his crazy behavior. (The asshole stuff was hardwired in him from the start)

Josnik

What a dickbag. He couldn’t handle the physical activity? That’s code for “has no fucking heart”.

I hope someone calls him out on his fuckery anytime he wants to spew more bullshit about the military. Better yet, maybe he should just shut his manpleaser.

Hrd2Stbd

I’d bet this one incident in Rather’s life set him on a course to discredit anything and everything American or military.

Jay Russell

Dan Rather reported for CBS (Consistent Bull Shit), so why am I not surprised?