Douglas Duane Roberts; stolen valor/gender

I’ve been trying to make sense of this story for a few hours this morning, so if I get some of it wrong, please blame the subject, Douglas Duane Roberts, aka Liz Roberts, and the author, Tony Messenger.

I think this fellow, Doug Roberts, tried to pass himself off as a hermaphrodite to folks after he was medically discharged from the Army. He claims to Messenger that he has been a woman all of his life, but, James Rogers served with Roberts and Rogers says that while Roberts served as a parachute rigger, he was a man. Somehow being a hermaphrodite gives Roberts some kind of credence in the world of medical marijuana advocates, I’m not sure how, but there it is.

So much of what Liz Roberts has told veterans, politicians, reporters and others about her background simply isn’t true.

Hers is a case of stolen valor, say two men who served with her when she went by her given name.

“She was lying about everything,” Rogers says. “It’s a complete disgrace. I’m embarrassed to say I served with her.”

Liz Roberts is not transgender. She is not transitioning.

That is what she told me in a phone interview early this month.

“I’ve been a woman all my life,” she said. “I was one of the first hermaphrodites in the military. The Army changed my sex for me.”

Roberts also claims that he was injured in an IED ambush in Iraq, even though he was never in Iraq.

According to various copies of Roberts’ military records, including her DD 214, the standard record of service issued to a soldier upon discharge, Douglas Duane Roberts served in the Army between 2006 and 2014. Roberts was a rigger — somebody who packed parachutes — who served one tour in Afghanistan. She was retired by the military because of a temporary disability…It didn’t take long for some of Roberts’ stories to raise questions. She told the Gradys the same thing she eventually told The Missouri Times, in a story about her efforts to promote medical marijuana: that she had been injured by an improvised explosive device while serving in Iraq. She told Kara Grady that she was pregnant at the time.

Roberts was never in Iraq. She never served as a woman. According to Jen Rogers, who changed the adult diapers that Roberts sometimes wears, Roberts still has male genitals.

Mr. Messenger started asking questions about Roberts’ background and he was threatened with legal repercussions – always the best way to deflect background inquiries.

It looks to me that this Missourians for Patient Care doesn’t really care about patients as their title suggests – it’s more about legalizing weed than any real patient care. I’m not surprised that they’re embroiled in this whole controversy. Remember Wayward Bill?

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures