Benjamin Jesalva; phony Navy SEAL
The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow, Benjamin Jesalva who claims that he was a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.
The Navy doesn’t remember his career like that. He doesn’t appear in the database of folks who trained to be SEALs according to Don Shipley and the Navy is convinced that he was an E-4 cook (SD3) on a couple of ships.
He does have a Vietnam Service Medal, but two of the ships he was on, the USS Cowell and the USS Arnold J. Isbell, were near Vietnam during their patrols of the Taiwan Straits. While he was on the USS Haven, a hospital ship, it was stationed in Long Beach, California as a floating hospital.
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
Not a SEAL, but I hope this douche at least cooked up some good grub for the ship’s mess when he was in…
Even if he was a good cook I’ll bet they would eat dirt before consuming his fare now.
Maybe he and Sticky Bums cooked together?
I was going to say they exchanged recipes and spit while they showered together in the wee hours of the morning.
Just a lowly, lowly cook.
“Yesterday was the only easy day” as his favorite quote.
Now he is going to find out how true that is.
But not for reason he had in mind.
Without the cook, nobody eats. That seems a pretty essential – if not glamorous, job.
But with all the cooking shows and celebrity chefs, even that can become somewhat glamorous it seems. Get ol’ Gordon Ramsay into one of the ships’ kitchens and teach him what “Hell’s Kitchen” really means.
But Benjamin Jesalva has hereby defecated in his own soupbowl. Idiot.
From reading his assignment chit, looks like JeSalva was recruited into the USN as a Philippines national. USN and the Philippines had an agreement going way back to the early 20th Century whereby Filipinos can enlist in the USN to serve as mess stewards and attendants.
Until 1971, Filipinos who enlisted in the USN under this program could ONLY serve in the mess ratings. Since they were foreign nationals, they could not even receive security clearances. So how in the blue blazes could this guy get into the SEALs and go on classified secret combat missions ???
The USN policy to limit Philippines nationals to mess ratings up through 1971 is a historical fact; this douche is hoping everyone is totally ignorant of that historical reality…
FWIW the SEALs didn’t have their own ratings until just recently. There have been plenty of SEALs have had the ratings of BM, QM, AZ, DC, etc. etc.
I bet dollars to donuts there weren’t any SEALs who were SD’s with no security clearances…
I do believe the odds are in your favor good sir.
But I’m going to take a wild fucking guess here and say SD was NEVER a SEAL source rating.
I’m not sure how the source ratings issue plays out. I was always under the impression that the ratings really didn’t matter for SEALs.
I had a SEAL QM1 sitting in the back of my QM A School class in NTC Great Lakes. I guess he was doing the class as a refresher to help him make Chief. Seems silly that his lack of skill in a compass and a protractor could have any effect on him from making rank. Glad to see that as one thing that the Navy has made some corrections on.
This guy is just lying regardless.
SD, MS or CS (Cooks) were never a SEAL source rating prior to the establishment of the “SO” (Special Warfare Operator)rating.
Prior to the establishment of the SO rating there were (26) source ratings:ABE,AO,BM,EM,EN,ET,FN/FA,GMG/GMM,HM,HT,IC,IS,MM,MR,OS,PH,PN,PR,QM,RM,SA/SN,SK,SM,STG and TM.
If you notice there are NO supply-type ratings listed!
For the guys that came straight from the P.I., there was no security clearance involved.
Hey MAC! as an active duty USN Supply Officer, I politely disagree. Your list shows SK (Storekeeper)which was correct until the SO rating was established. I was the Suppo at Team FOUR back in the mid nineties and had an SK3 (SEAL) who was assigned to a platoon as an operator, not a support tech or the supply department
IME…non-source ratings were accepted for training, but had to cross rate to a source rating within a period of time. That agreement was signed prior to entering training.
Before the SO rating was established, SEALS often tried for a source rating that was not too demanding and had advancement opportunity since they still had to compete in the Navy Wide advancement exams within the chosen rating.
Kinda like back in the day, nukes would take the “conventional” MM/EM/ET exams which had fuck all to do with our rate. Like a submarine electrician working on carrier elevators, ELT’s doing 1200# steam plants, shit like that.
“and had an SK3 (SEAL) who was assigned to a platoon as an operator”
but he completed BUDS, Jump School, SQT etc correct? He wasn’t some sort of OJT.
When I attended the Instructor Training course in San Diego (1998, we had a real mix of ratings. One of the guys happened to be a BM2(SEAL)that was on the mend from a “training accident” and was bored and asked if he could attend a few schools.
Our first day we were instructed that we’d have to give a two-minute intro to introduce ourselves to the instructors and the rest of the class. When his turn finally came, he stood up at his seat and said “Hey fella’s! My name BM2 Jackson I got hurt, asked for a school and here I am, thanks! and then he sat down. The civilian instructors both snickered and shook their heads. They politely informed him that his intro was NOWHERE near 2 minutes.
The head instructor, a retired Senior Chief, asked BM2, “What can you tell me about being a Boatswain’s Mate, Jackson?” He stood up and replied “Not much, I think they tie knots and blow whistles and some other stuff” and sat down!
I was talking to him during break and found out that he originally came in as an Electronics Technician (ET) but cross-rated due to lack of advancement opportunities. He told me that if a group of SEAL’s was in a stagnant job they’d pull-up the advancement quotas and look for one that had a high advancement rate and they’d all cross-rate as a group. Also found out that for them to advance to the next higher paygrade all they had to do was pass the exam but not actually meet the final multiple score which most times was a lot higher than the passing score. They deserved it though!
The Navy wide advancement exam had a few boxes you could check if you were in a certain community. One of those boxes … actually a circle if I recall, was for SEAL
…another was for Diver, another for EOD. There was no Recon/SARC/SOT option, so guys in my community checked the Diver box.
I’m not sure how many points that added to the final multiple score, but, yeah those were designed to help us out since our primary jobs were not centered in our rating.
absolutely, he graduated from BUDS, through Jump school, SQT etc. He was the also best damn scrounger I had ever seen also!
Whoops!!! Sorry ’bout that!You are 100% correct sir!
All good MAC! Appreciate your service; always good to have the Sheriff on your team!
Hey, Steven Seagal played a SEAL cook in those movies, right? Totally legit.
Ha, ha! You beat me to it. I was thinking the same thing!
From the images posted above:
‘former navy seal and wine specialist’
(Nothing to say about that poser claim but BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! And WTF is up with ‘wine specialist’? Really?)
and
‘no comment due security – with Ben Jesalva at Mekong Delta, Vietnam’
(But the photo is posted on Facebook in spite of ‘security’. With these posers everything that they claim to have been involved in is always highly classified and they can’t discuss any of it, ever. Except on Facebook or when they’re on a barstool, of course.)
Totally legit!
That would be a sommelier. Those are highly paid specialist who have a basically have a degree in wine.
A true sommelier is a step above a Paris trained Chef.
I knew a young lady ( unfortunately she’s passed away) who was the personal Chef for both Peter Gabriel and Steve Katzenburg ( she also ran the Dreamworks Studio Cafeteria and events) who was a trained sommelier.
I think that is part of his bullshit too.
If EVERYONE who says that he was a SEAL, had BEEN a SEAL, I calculate that the SEAL teams would have had about fifty thousand more members…
special warfare stew burner…pfffft
I’m guessing that he knows Lon Duc Dong and can cook up and snarf down a big steaming bowl of Cream of Sum Yung Guy Soup.
Nice Sixteen Candles reference; You forgot to add the gong sound after the name Senior.
now ME, I was never a SEAL, I was a Secret Squirrel CIA Ranger Scout Recon Sniper EOD Airborne instructor.
Ooops, open Facebook settings….now all his friends are seeing the article.
One of his Facebook photos reads, “Survival training…Wigbee Island” Never heard of that one. Whidbey Island yea but Wigbee, I don’t think so. I don’t think Whidbey did survival training either but then again, I’m not former Navy. Closest survival school is at Fairchild AFB. If I got this lying ass clown wrong, please set me straight.
I know NAS North Island had a SERE school.
Thank you Atkron. Still makes him a lying piece of shit though, but thank you, I did not know that about NAS North Island.
SEALs generally go to high risk SERE..not the more generic Navy SERE schools.
As a SARC I went to Navy SERE and advanced SERE..asked for the high risk SERE, but never got a billet.
and btw…when asking guys that went to the Navy sere and high risk here in the GB pipeline, every one of them said the high risk is no better or worse than the Navy SERE school
Maybe “Wigbee” is how you say Whidbey in Tagalog. After all, he is from the Pillipeenes.
Naw, puck chu, mang.
What the hell is an SD? I thought back in the day they were Commisary or Mess Management Specialists? Was there a separate Rating for Stewards?
GO about have way down the page at this link for a short history:
https://news.usni.org/2014/12/03/brief-list-old-obscure-obsolete-u-s-navy-jobs
Knew a doctor in the early 80’s that originally enlisted in the Navy as a Ships Steward, got out and went to college and medical school in the states and joined back up as a Internal Med doc – good physician and man.
Thanks Senior…I figured it had to be a separate Rating.
A steward is a glorified egg-slapper who has to kiss the Officer’s asses
His nose is a deadly weapon.
Honorable service in wartime, and might even have “fast tracked” him towards US Citizenship. And the LSoS had to go and take a dump right on top of it.
Fahk’heem.
Turd.
“No comment due security”
This guy has been talking to William Wise.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?attachment_id=71896
So….. “SD” means he was a Cerial Killer?
I’m no cammo expert, but the random squad pic looks like they are wearing mid-80’s USMC cammo. Can anybody say for sure what they’re wearing?
Not sure what camo, but that is not elephant grass. It’s much too fine a blade for purpureum, which has a very broad blade and stands quite high.
This photo might be informative.
http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/156650046
Also there appears to be a couple of M-203 grenade launchers. I didn’t think they had those in 1968.
No, they did not have the M-203 in service in 1968. My company received some in late 1970 in RVN. They were still designated XM-203 (X for experimental) at the time. Also, the subject photo appears to show some men armed with the XM-177 (CAR-15), the precursor to the M-4. I carried one in RVN in 1970, but am pretty sure there were no SEALs armed with them in 1968.
That early in the war there should be a few M-14 rifles in the photo. I don’t see one.
Did Navy issue them back then?
I was issued an M-14 upon arrival in 1970.
When I got to Nam’ in 1982 they gave me an AK. Of course the whole country was communist by then…. Can’t talk about it of course it is all classified Cosmic Top Secret. Let’s just say “Chuck” and I were there to take care of unfinished business.
Looks like he might have gotten stuck at E4 and couldn’t make 5 so he was out the door. Half of the 20 done and poof, he’s gone. Not a bad career, 9 years, but now he’s Google famous for all the wrong reasons. Well, welcome to stardom, Dingus.
Prior to the early 70s, the SD/MS/Similar ratings were primarily Filipinos and Blacks.
While waiting for a script recently at my retirement command, a Navy Hospital, I walked around. I went into the chow hall. I saw one person not a civilian. The duty cashier (some things never change) was an HM3. Good times, good memories.
My time in the Navy still had a shitload of Fillipinos in the galley.
I thick it was partly because of security clearances needed for most jobs and perhaps tradition.
This one always cracks me up.
http://www.duffelblog.com/2012/06/first-non-filipino-culinary-specialist-breaks-barriers-screws-up-constantly/
He must be the guy in the middle.
Rambo sweatband and towel. Movie set photo?
Where do we get such men??
Apparently we get them from the officers’ wardroom or the galley–when they are not serving coffee.
I know I’ve seen that photo in the grass somewhere, just can’t recall where right now. But it does look like something for a movie poster or ad to me, like one of the “Sniper” movies.
Being a cook is just his super secret cover story while getting orders directly from LBJ. His mission was to infiltrate the communist chow halls and take out the enemy with his potent scrambled eggs and bacon. He was to take out the entire command staff armed only with a coffee pot and a butter knife.
am surprised that this guy still has a facebook page up…