Craig Graham; needless embellishment
Someone sent us their work on this Craig Graham fellow. According to former workmates, he’s full of tall tales, like his work history on his Facebook page;
He was a cannon cocker Staff Sergeant E-6, in the Army National Guard for 14 years, an honorable endeavor, but then he had to add that he has training in reconnaisance, basic infantry, long range operations, small arms, demolitions, operational planning, LRRP, and SAS training. He claims 20 years of service in the active duty Army on LinkedIN;
No reason to embellish this record, at all;
In social situations he’s suddenly become CIA agent, I hear.
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Seeecret Aaaagent scam.
I think he did do some SAS “training”
But only a weekend a month.
Yeah and he did it, all the while disguised as John Cleese
Holy Faulty Towers/Monty Python
“NONE SHALL PASS!!”
I thought he was British and would claim fighting down under and winning the War on one of the weekend secret training missions.
SAS = Suck And Swallow
2banana I think you spelled “Ass” wrong….
Is he the inspiration for the TSA? The guy who gave us that incredible story about setting squirrels on fire must know him!
For all we know he could have invented the use of Flaming Squirrels and licensed it to The Stunning Agency!
https://tinyurl.com/js5bpvm
404
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=38023
Sweet Weeping Jesus
Flamming Squirrels as signal flares? WTF
Im dying over here bwahaha
Oh it gets way better. This guy claimed that his SAS training was conducted in a desert in South Africa, in 1986, when he would have been in his 30’s. He claims that out hundreds of SAS candidates that year, only he and one other guy completed the training. He claims that the final ‘test’ was: he and a partner got dropped off in the middle of the desert, with just an egg, a tin cup, an 18″ piece of string, and a match. After several days and nights alone in the desert, his partner couldn’t make it . . . so he left him to die. He claims that he then made it to the designated rendezvous point, and handed his drill instructor a hard boiled egg. He claims he boiled the egg by peeing in the tin cup, somehow lighting the match, and boiling it. The string was somehow used as a spear, not sure for what though.
14 and out? Something doesn’t seem right with this dipshit.
That’s what I was thinking.
Not uncommon in the Guard. Look at his rank – E6 for 7 years. Also not uncommon. My old unit in AZ (M&S Platoon) the highest rank a weekender could make was E5. One E6 and one E7 but both were full-time military technicians. Other option is to change units, but closest one was 140 miles away and 4,000 feet higher in elevation.
He would have either had to suck it up for 6 more years at terminal rank, or move on and let someone else play the waiting game.
My last three years in the USAR, I commuted 1500 miles for each weekend drill. I flew of course. I was already at 23-years time-in-service and did not want to leave the military quite yet.
On my 24th year, while driving back to Fort Knox where I was training soldiers, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver. I spent next 4+ months in the hospital, learning how to walk again. I returned to my unit and they allowed me to stay on with a permanent medical profile. I retired two years later.
I’m better now.
One of those forms shows that he was transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve after those years of service. He was assigned to the IRR for 2 years, 7 months, and 24 days.
Still leaves him way short of 20 years for retirement purposes, even if 100% of his time before and after the transfer was “good” time for RC retirement.
I’m also wondering why someone with 14+ total years would be transferred to the IRR mid-enlistment. That pretty much has to be the case if he still had a military obligation remaining, since he’d completed his initial MSO years before his transfer to the IRR.
Would love to hear the full “backstory” on this guy.
Wasn’t claiming that he did 20 years.
Just making it to where the best he did was get 3 years close to being eligible to retire with pay at 60, assuming those IRR years were good years.
In my original draft of the above post, I wondered if he had an additional 6 years in the IRR, and if they were all good years.
Then I saw the part in his documents saying that he had those additional two years… Not 6 additional years. I didn’t see mention of his re-enlisting in the IRR and if so, if those additional years were good years.
Then I checked the Army White pages. He’s listed as “Veteran”, so that pretty much answered my questions about whether or not he had enough good IRR time, original plus possible enlistment.
As a Reservist I see this. Guys with 12 years re-enlist for six and decide halfway through it, they are too old for this shit. They transfer into the IRR and are rarely heard from again. Life happens sometimes and since they are largely in their late twenties or early thirties (about the time when their civilian career is really taking off and the choice between that and one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, and whatever random other days is hindering their advancement) they opt out.
In the National Guard, its also not uncommon to get hit with the “up or out” mentality. They need to get promoted, but they can’t because there’s no open spots in their unit/mos, or they can’t get the NCOES they need. They are stuck, not going anywhere, and figure, eh I’m out bitches.
That said, this guy is living in his own little world, so I shouldn’t ascribe rational motives with his decision to go IRR and get out. Maybe the CIA told him to do it…
IRR is only good for 15 retirement points per year; far short of the requirement for a good retirement year. I have three of those (IRR years).
I opted for IRR and severance pay when I was involuntarily separated from the Navy. Going into the IRR, or to the drilling reserve, was a requirement to get the severance pay.
Both those IRR years were good for retirement. In fact, all my reserve years are good years for retirement.
In addition to the 15 participation/membership points for being in the IRR, I did correspondence courses. I maxed out the correspondence points for the first year, and didn’t know that they upped the limit the following year. Otherwise, I would’ve maxed out the second year.
Came in handy when I went into the Army Reserve, from the Regular Army. I supplemented my MUTA points, and 15 points, with correspondence courses points, maxing out inactive points (130)each year until you couldn’t use correspondence course completion to get retirement points.
There’s an exception to this, but it relates to MUTA/ATA. Soldiers can’t just jump in, complete a course, and get point credit for it.
You can’t do correspondence courses to get retirement points today.
But, those in the Army IRR can request attachment to a unit in order to drill for points only… Thus still get good years in the IRR. There are other ways to get good years in the IRR. This includes getting both active and inactive points for retirement.
In fact, if HRC has funding, an IRR Soldier, if qualified and if a seat is available, could attend NCOES while in the IRR, on Annual Training/Active Duty for Training orders.
Then there’s the mobilization opportunity if they’re lucky.
I wouldn’t read too much into that, either.
I was one of those guys who did 12 and got out. Mostly because civilian jobs paid a metric fuckton more than staying in, and back when I got out (late 90’s) the chances of me making CPO anytime soon were somewhere between zip, point, and shit.
Not a tough decision at the time.
Not uncommon at all. Often drill conflicts with one’s full civilian employment (drill checks don’t pay the rent); it turns a five-day workweek into a twelve-day work week.
Unlike the Regular Army the government doesn’t PCS you to your next promotion assignment. Much like the civilian world, someone needs to move on or die for slots to open. I was on the major’s list for two years and the LTC list for one looking for positions within my commuting distance. And the retirement benefits are nice, but you don’t collect until you’re 60. So it is not uncommon for dudes to decide another six or eight years just isn’t worth it.
It bugs the hell out of me when dudes with honorable service feel like they have to spice it up though.
Where are the Seal Posers for starting off the week????
Forget about if, it’s WHEN we’ll see another!
I was offered a job with the CIA as a contractor shortly before I left AD. I turned them down.
That’s just the sort of thing a CIA spy would say.
And put on their Facebook page
I was offered a job from Black Water right after I came home from Iraq. I turned them down.
Then an Intel guy who worked with the CIA (and who I’d never met before) asked me why.
It was weird as [bleep].
No operative would admit to being an operative. Most everyone knows that. So, if one admits to being an operative, something an actual operative would never do, he must be an operative. He’s clever this one.
Hmm. Another liquid lunch, 2/17 AC? (smile)
Burp!
Another wannabe Sooperdooperseekritskwirrel?
Or another wannabe sooperdooper pooper scooper undercover trooper seekret skwirrel life taker heartbreaker kind of guy.
At least he wasn’t an E-1 discharge with a completely fabricated military experience, he’s just an old fool who’s real experience wasn’t macho enough for the local bar stool and his computer.
His AGR service time is odd. Usually, AGR hires start at a one year “try out” contract and then go for longer contracts after that. It used to be 3 year contract during the time he was AGR; they changed it to mirror ordinary re-enlistment contracts either in the late 1990s or 2000s, can’t quite remember.
That being said, an AGR can resign his FTM position and go back to being a traditional reservist without any penalty.
Gee, I have all the training and experience he is falsely claiming, including a SAS course (CQB) in runnin’ and gunnin’ Plus, I have met, and taken a couple of classes from, CIA types. Does that make me a CIA secret squirrel? Guess I should start telling people in bars that I work for the “company” who shall not be named, but “don’t tell anybody cuz that’s top secret.”
Yup.
Everyone knows that one is good to go to discuss classified info in a bar as long as one is perched upon a barstool and waving a beer bottle around for emphasis while loudly prefacing one’s many claims and amazing tales of derring-do with “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…”
It is also acceptable to discuss classified info on one’s personal page on the Book of the Face, as long as it’s under the “SCIF” tab.
I was AGR from 2000-2013 in 3 year intervals and that was in 2 states. We were on “probation” the 1st 3 years due to the importance of the job when normally it was 1.5 years if I remember right. If he didn’t make it to the end of his 1st 3 years, he probably was asked to leave. That in and of itself says volumes because it’s hard to fire someone in an AGR position. I ended up retiring with full benefits with almost 25 years combined service.
SAS training.
— sigh —
Yeah; OK. Sure thing.
Hey I worked with the GIGN in Iraq and did some joint training with them, does this mean I can claim GIGN training?
Why yes, it most certainly does.
Okay so if I’m down range and a SAS guy pops in and asks for an alcohol pad and a bandaid and I supply them. Does that qualify as working with the SAS? ( Add your own level of sarcasm)
Yep.
‘Who Dares Wins’!!!
That’s the way that it works in the Wild World of Poserdom.
And you would also then get the added bonus of being authorized to wear a tan beret with an SAS flash on it while imbibing at the local VFW or American Legion bar.
Oh, the tales you’ll tell!
I was treated by an English doctor who was a Lt. in 2 para during the Falkland Island invasion. He was seconded to the SAS once or twice. Does that mean that I had a gal bladder attack with the SAS?
Sounds like you are a fully qualed SAS sooper trooper under this clown’s standards.
Assclown.
Another 13 Bravo with crazy tales of glory
Craig Wentworth Graham; needless embellishment – Nothing unusual for him.
If you look at his LinkdIn profile, he was a snake oil, oops, used car salesman for most of his adult life before he was hired on to “work” at LegalShield.
Used Car Salesmen don’t ever lie about anything, do they?
Purple 4 score for being a Lying Dumb Ass is 152.
Really like this usually…
Not a very exciting record but legit.
Not a lot of arty action in the White Mountains. Maybe he is the guy that destroyed the “Old Man in the Mountain” with a bolo and decided to change his persona. Hey, it could happen.
After leaving some comments on Craig Graham’s Facebook page, I find tonight that either I have been blocked or he has closed his page. Either way, it confirms that he is an embellisher, too cowardly to confront me with his story. Shit head.
Frankie, he closed his page.
Gone, Poof, like a popcorn fart in a whirlwind.
He also claims an Associates from Syracuse University which I don’t believe is offered.