Martin Gureski was not a Navy SEAL
Someone sent us their work on this Martin Charles Gureski fellow. He passed away last month and his family wrote this in his obituary;
In August of 1962, he enlisted in the United States Navy where he served for four years on the East Coast from Little Creek Virginia Naval Base. Martin’s training at Great Lakes Naval Base in Gurney, IL earned him a license as a first-class electrician. During his service on the USS Ashland, he was on the underwater demolition team, and in 1963, he was enlisted in the 2nd Navy Seal Team organized by President Kennedy where he participated in many important missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Yes, he was in the Navy, he was stationed on the USS Ashland (LSD-1) which was based at Little Creek, Virginia and spent most of the time he was aboard in the Caribbean. Martin left the Navy as an electrician’s mate (E-4). But, no he was never a SEAL, nor did he participate in SEAL Training, nor did the USS Ashland participate in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Since there is nothing that ties Martin to the SEAL claims, it can be reasonably assumed that the family misunderstood aspects of his carer when they wrote the obituary.
Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures
The official record has been corrected; may this man rest in peace…
I’m dying to find out what my family will say about my service.
It’s funny you say that, because my oldest called me for Father’s Day and told me I should write a book about my military service to “be published after my death”.
Turns out because I don’t talk about my time in Iraq and Afghanistan, she assumes I wasn’t allowed too and I just have been doing some super secrect ninja pirate level shit.
If I’d died before having that conversation God only knows what my obit would have said.
You make very good point and we all need to have that talk or at least point them to this site.
My dad was a gunner/armorer on B-17’s but the family insisted he was a bombadier. I even showed them his wings and explained the difference. They put bombadier in the obit anyway. I have his records and everything he ever told me is in there. Didn’t help that he was also deaf like many other crewmembers.
I would rather go straight to Hell itself
than linger here looking at it.
I don’t give much detail of what I did to my kids, but I don’t hold back the basics. My wife put together an “I love me” wall for me after I retired with several medals on it. If they want to go look at it they can for whatever that is worth.
Just recently in the last year or two I have shared quite a lot more with my wife from deployments years before. I think this has been helpful for both of us.
There is no way the wife would put out something bogus in hopes of making me appear more heroic AD. Not her style.
Very similar experiences on my end. I’ve got an Iraq and Afghanistan campaign badge, but I rarely talk about it with others outside of those I served with. However, if I pass away my family and the VA coordinating any military honors for the funeral service would have access to my DD-214 to see what my service encompassed.
Still, in a small town, I can see where wild rumors can easily run rampant without the individual even knowing about it. Especially after he died.
ninja pirate
Awesome.
Geeeeee!…I hope my kids(2 girls) don’t say I was some sort of an F-111 secret belly turret gunner in my obit, that would be embarrassing.
They just know the basics, they know I was in the USAF and was stationed at that hell hole known as Cannon AFB in New Mexico and the far more enlightening experience of the “Heath” in the UK & maybe a 1 or 2 humorous stories, but that’s it.
I helped a family put together their fathers ribbon rack and told them the Silver Star award was for 5 bronze campaign stars. The son cried and cried his dad had a silver star. He got one from somewhere and buried it on his father’s chest. A week later his mother called screaming he was buried with medals he did not earn. The deceased vets buddies set her straight but the son still put it in his obit.
that’s an awful lot of specifics for a simple misunderstanding though. I mean, they went to the trouble of specifically mentioning UDT and *then* specifically mentioning volunteering for SEALs when the teams were stood up.
I mean, thoughts and prayers and all that, but that’s just a little too specific in the timeline for me to accept as a simple misunderstanding. somebody had done some homework somewhere to get that.
I wonder what they’ll say about me when I go. Maybe the Navy will finally have sent me on that grand adventure the recruiter was on about, eh?
To clarify things well in advance: ‘Reaperman spent his enlistment sitting in a number of mildewy office cubes where he did his job. Then he got out and kept doing exactly the same job, until the day he was found hanging from a doorknob dressed in heels and the top half of a batman costume.’ I mean, I just assume that’s how it’ll all turn out.
I could only hope to exit this world in such style 🤗
Somewhere, in some deep aspect of your mind, it made perfect rational sense to dress like that.
i.e. the Superman’s costume was at the cleaners, the green pumps were on loan to your sister, etc.
Freaking hilarious
Up until this point, I had thought that Batman’s outfit was a onesy!
Biff! Bam#*! Another ephipany, not to be confused with an apostrophe.
Hack Stone just finished the 1943 serial of Batman. Interestingly, all of the bad guys refer to him as “The Batman”, not “Batman”. Anyway, watching The Batman throw down with multiple bad guys, why exactly was he wearing a cape? The Batman/Batman doesn’t fly like Superman, so it’s not like the cape gave him some aeronautical advantage. And it would seem that the cape would work as a disadvantage when fighting hand to hand. Inquiring minds want to know.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035665/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_13
Coffee. Hot. Nose. Fookin’ ouch!
And considering he was in boot camp during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Yeah, no.
They put a bunch of incorrect stuff in that “obit” .
NS Great Lakes is in Lake Bluff, IL, not Gurnee. They also misspelled Gurnee, and Gurnee is several miles away from Lake Bluff and NS Great Lakes.
Where’d this guy go to boot camp? Bainbridge? Great Lakes? What?
Doesn’t matter, it’s his family’s mistake, in my view.
The Cuban Missile crisis was in 1962 and his family claims that he went into the Seals in 1963. A little confused on this. I was in my senior year in H.S. in 1962 and Their was an extension on enlistments during the crisis. The LPH 3 was involved in the crisis. I enlisted in Oct of 1963. The Ashland and Okinawa (LPH3) were in the same Comphibron 8 group, so he was onboard the same time as I was but a year earlier and got out the same year I did. We resided at Norfolk NOB and tied up mostly at pier 12.
Thank God the wife was in the same MOS and time I was, she would laugh at the thought of any derring-do. Maybe heroically starting a balky 5k generator in midwinter, or bleeding through the mid shift sucking up static.
Someone left this comment on his tribute page. It may be possible he embellished his military service to family and friends (he’s not the first person to do this, but am preaching to the choir):
“…our sincere condolences on hearing of Marty’s passing we always enjoyed his story telling albeit a bit long…”
Sadly, on a personal note, I have blood relatives who have either lied or embellished their military service. And went to their graves rocking
those lies. And who paid the emotional price for their lies when the truth came out? Yep…their families.
Sad. So frickin sad.
That’s who I always feel bad for in these situations. They built the guy up because of his stories and now the parting memory is that he was a liar.
I’m going to go with the fact that since there is no hard evidence that he was a poser (wearing of unearned medals, patches, embellished DD214, etc.) that it just was a matter of the family not knowing what they put in the obit.
All though it seems he may have been a bit of a story teller and some of the items in the obit seem to be rather specific, the lack of hard evidence of his being a poser is making me lean toward giving him the benefit of doubt.
Just my opinion.
Myself and my three siblings were in the Navy at the same time. Sister got pregnant and got out. Younger brother retired, as did I. Younger brother got a general. He spent about a year in service, most of it in various civilian jails and Navy brigs. Navy gave him a general to get rid of him. But … he tells others he was a sub sailor with many years service. He’s never lied in my presence, but enough mutual acquaintances have independently told me the same things so I believe he is spreading those lies.
If he told the truth, it would go something like this: I spent a year in the Navy, almost all of it in TJ and San Diego jails and Navy brigs. The Navy shit canned me b/c I was of absolutely no value to the Navy or the country.
Now THAT would be the truth.
Another turd shaming his family from beyond the grave.
I’m thinking that the turds are still alive and that the one who isn’t is deceased.
“the family misunderstood aspects of his carer when they wrote the obituary.” Way too kind. I’m thinking that the family didn’t think much of him or were ashamed of his routine military service. So, they lied. Was he a good man? I have no idea. His family chose not to say.
Wow! Our first phony SEAL of the week. Don’t worry guys and gals, we’ll have a “live” one before the week is over.
Obit should have read, “A member of an underwater electrician team.” Mrs Jarhead has specific instructions to print when I leave this earth. “He was a crazy M Fckr who often babbled on T A H.”