The question of course is why? This man had no need to embellish his resume . . . the work he was involved in with the Coast Guard Auxiliary was noble and legitimate . . . why embellish it with fake tin & fruit salad?
Every year they bust out a new one that's been going around like this - guys with standing in the community based on fake medals and fake veteran status. Jim Van Fleet's saga more extraordinary than most because he pulled it off for twenty years in a very public role in a big Navy town, and he got busted during the course of a TV interview. They built him up like its a human interest story, let him lie his ass off then ZING! I never quite saw it done that way before.
They used to get away with it because America is so big and relatively few have served in elite units. The internet has changed the landscape, however. These days we're finding them more & more and busting them out via sites like Veri-SEAL and Stolen Valor.
The craziest episode I'm aware of has to be the case of Admiral Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations back in the early nineties. Boorda was celebrated because he'd worked his way up from enlisted to 4-star admiral - unheard of in the class-conscious Navy.
Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda
A distinguished soldier-turned-journalist. Colonel David Hackworth, busted Admiral Boorda out for wearing false decorations: phony V for valor devices on the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal service ribbons he wore on his uniform. Boorda was apparently so distraught at these revelations that he committed suicide.
Admiral Boorda had a real cult following, in hindsight I suspected this was self-generated because the Navy brass viewed him as an upstart and an outsider. Boorda got himself in the press, they made a big deal about him chumming it up with the enlisted ranks. "The CNO is just like them and he understands them because he was one of them . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah . . ."
Boorda was a politician - not surprising, that's what it takes to make it to the very top of the heap in the military. In the wake of the Tailhook scandal, Boorda faced unrelenting hostility from a majority of Navy flag officers who believed he had betrayed the Navy by allying himself with Clinton administration demands for reform of the Navy's officer corps. In other words, he was a Liberal, and following his suicide the friends and supporters of Admiral Boorda went after Hackworth.
Colonel David Hackworth was the most decorated US soldier since World War II. He served in Korea & Vietnam, and his accomplishments were legendary. Hackworth was run out of the military on a rail because he criticized the military establishment on how they were mismanaging the Vietnam War, he spoke up about it on television, and then he wrote a bestseller about his odyssey.
Colonel Hackworth was later vindicated because everything he said & wrote about was true. When the Boorda episode played out, CNN and the CBS Evening News questioned the accuracy of Hackworth's own military decorations. Dan Rather tried busting Hackworth out for wearing a Ranger tab when he never went to Ranger school. Hackworth said OK fine you can have it, tossed it down on the table during a TV interview.
The truth of the matter - once they did their homework - was that Hackworth earned that Ranger tab serving in combat in a Ranger unit as an enlisted man in Korea. That was before Ranger School existed. Given how quickly the Korean conflict evolved, Special Operations units were being put together on the ground & thrown into combat.
There are Green Berets who served in joint CIA/Special Forces units with behind-the-lines Korean partisans who never set foot in Fort Bragg, did their Airborne training in Japan, never went through jump school at Fort Benning.
The Liberals of the mainstream press tried to bust Hack because he'd outed their darling CNO whom they'd built a cult around. Hack just laughed in their faces. When he threw down that Ranger tab and took it off his official website & records, the truth emerged about how incredibly heroic his service was in Korea. Nothing they dredged up could stick just because he didn't go through a school that didn't even exist during time of his combat service in a Ranger unit.
What was weird about the whole thing was the Chief of Naval Operations committing suicide over a couple of V devices on some green weenie ribbons that were otherwise legit. It didn't add up, and that's when the rumors started flying . . .
This whole episode was right on the heels of the USS Iowa incident. The USS Iowa was a World War II era battleship, a huge behemoth, one of the last of the dreadnoughts. It was a naval gunnery exercise, off the coast of Puerto Rico. Something went horribly, horribly wrong, and turret #2 blew up, killing 47 men.
The final independent post-incident investigations determined the explosion was caused by 'pressure ramming' bags of powder charges too fast and hard into a hot breech, and the charge bags spontaneously detonated. As any demo man knows, all it takes is heat and pressure to set off explosives - it does not always require a detonator.
But in the immediate aftermath of the incident, the Navy came up with this whopper of a tall tale about how it was a homosexual love affair gone bad, that a sailor, Clayton Hartwig, who died in the explosion, had deliberately caused it. During the investigation, numerous leaks to the media, later attributed to Navy officers and investigators, implied that Hartwig and another sailor, Kendall Truitt, had engaged in a homosexual relationship and that Hartwig had caused the explosion after their relationship had soured.
On no evidence whatsoever, the Navy brass tarnished this poor kids name and his family suffered for it. They sued and the Navy had to back down their allegations, but the damage had been done. So right after that Admiral Boorda comes along - prior enlisted, he's "really tight with the men" - then he gets busted for the fake V's for Valor . . . then right away he suicides . . .
Right on the heels of all this shame & dishonor with the Iowa incident . . . so the rumors were that he was gay and you can't keep THAT a secret in the Navy, and that was about to come out so he committed sideways . . . none of this was ever substantiated by the way.
Do I believe Admiral Boorda was gay? It's certainly believable and I've seen crazier stuff in the military. Why else would an extremely successful man do such a thing? If he was it doesn't take anything away from his honorable service. Boorda even had a plausible excuse for wearing the V's; the ship he was on at the time - during the Vietnam War - was decorated - ships get medals just like people, they paint them right up there on the superstructure . . . Naval Commendation Medal, Naval Achievement Medal with E for Excellence . . . in this case Boorda received his award at the same time - true, apparently - and he thought he got the V with it.
A close look at his citation would determine the accuracy, but this was by no means a career-ender. In fact former CNO Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who was Boorda's commander during the Vietnam War and who authorized these devices for Boorda and many others, wrote a letter to the effect that Boorda's wearing of the devices was "appropriate, justified and proper." All Boorda had to do was adjust his rack and drive on. Why would a guy kill himself over a such a relatively little thing like that? It simply does not make sense . . .
Shame and dishonor are powerful drivers. The only possibilities that make sense are that either Boorda was a Russian spy, or he had a few shipboard romances in his sea locker that preceded the Coed Navy - no big deal in the Navy but NEVER DISCUSSED.
All this on the tail of the Iowa scandal where Navy brass basically scapegoated an innocent man who - because he was dead - couldn't even defend himself.
Admiral Boorda's V devices pale in comparison to the Coast Guard commander's SEAL impersonation . . . his suicide was absolutely tragic, of course, and absolutely unnecessary. Regarding Colonel Hackworth, I'd say he earned that Ranger tab. Ten Silver Stars . . . I've heard of guys with two but even that is extraordinary.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Re-blogged at robertsgunshop.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand why people do this. Hell, I was a truck driver in the Marines. Not a Glamours job, but nothing to be ashamed of.
Sean - I agree with you regarding stolen valor.
ReplyDeleteA couple of points of clarification regarding the CG Auxiliary are in order though. CGA does not have 'ranks' as it is not a military organizations. Yes, we use military style insignia to indicate positions. A Flotilla Commander would carry 2 stripes (Naval/CG style), it is an ELECTED position within the member's flotilla (sort of like a club president). The 'rank' would have a white 'A' to indicate an elected position, appointed positions use the same scheme with a red 'A'.
Yes, we do all CG missions EXCEPT law enforcement and military operations. We are all CIVILIANS and volunteer our time to assist. Many of us are veterans but a large number have never served in the military.
All that being said, anyone who commits stolen valor needs to be publicly shamed - and charged criminally if it can be proven that they did indeed profit from their fraud. But please don't bash everyone else (all 40,000 or so of us) in an organization for what one less than stellar individual did.
OTB MCPO (& current Vice Flotilla Commander USCGA) sends......
Thanks for this post. I read Hackworth's book about a month before the Ranger tab controversy, and had never heard the resolution. Good for him! And thanks also for the full Iowa story.
ReplyDeleteI remember, as a platoon leader, inspecting my new platoon and finding a SSG with the Korean War ribbon. I had to look it up! He felt he should have the ribbon because he did a reserve tour (2 weeks) in ROK. It was corrected, but unfortunately he didn't kill himself over it.
I knew a PN...(Personnel Specialist) that helped research Boorda's medals and ribbons for him. She said that his rack was perfectly fine. His suicide was about something else......it sure wasn't those awards.
ReplyDeleteNot a single article written about Boorda mention's his time in Naval Intelligence. Or the intelligence group he came up with UID (Unofficial Intelligence Investigation Division). Or his involvement in many covert intelligence missions that other intelligence officers were killed during.
DeleteWhat I new of Boord before he died was close to what you say. He was admired by many and if you had the privlege to speak
ReplyDeletewith him, then would know he was confident. He had to be confident he was short by my standards and I am slightly above average at 6' or was when I new him. He had to look up to speak to me. That aside he was not gay that I new of. Married and had 4 kids. He was not the type to commit suicide even if he was overstressed. Quite frankly, I think ha was murdered but they won't open the Autopsy to the public. My guess he was murdered as he left his quarters and his body set up to look like he did it. If you are committing suicide you don't shoot yourself in the chest.
I remember watching Hack on the CBS Morning News in 2003. He discussed the strategy of our troop, air and navel positions effectiveness against the Iraqi military.
ReplyDeleteHack struck me as being a leader that made his life choices with gut instinct. -- And Hack also struck me as someone who wandered into the military as a young man and stayed in for several years because he loved it. -- Not because he felt he had nothing better to do.
It's easy to see why Hack was never a General officer, due to his own choosing not to attend War College. -- But one can also see how easily he could transition into civilian life and be so successful in business.
The people that pose as fake war heroes apparently have low self esteem and value what others think of them far beyond what is healthy.
It's too bad we don't have more leaders like Colonel Hackworth
Okay, first of all you either wrote this not knowing the whole story. Or you decided to to leave out key pieces of information to help you vilify one of the best soldiers and leaders the US Military has ever had. Not sure how anyone can write such a POS, and have any kind of self respect. The first decoration in question was at first a ribbon, which was upgraded 2 years later to a medal. A medal, which if awarded during combat operations, granted the addition of the gold V for valor. Jeremy Boorda, developed the fire support plan for an entire destroyer group, shelling Vietnamese target's for 30 day's. This was in support of advancing US Marines, which saved thousands of Marines lives. Boorda served his country for over 40 years, and was devoted to his men. Hackworth wasn't a good leader in any sense of the word. He was a little bitch that quit because the military was changing and he wasn't allowed to do things how he wanted any longer. Instead of leading by example, and adjusting to the changes, he threw a tantrum and quit. Sorry, but that's not the character, nor behavior of a good leader. Then instead of excepting responsibility that his own actions lead to him no longer being a soldier. He felt as though he needed to blame and attack real leaders and soldiers. That he had to proved his dick was bigger than everyone else's. Why didn't you mention that Boorda's commander J.K. Jobe who was also awarded the same decoration for that tour has always worn the golden V on his??? And due to the regulations governing the medal changing multiple times 257 officer's had made the exact same mistake as Boorda. Or the fact that when Boorda was one of the 257 officers contacted about wearing the V, many years before Hackworth started his BS, he discontinued wearing the V's the day he was notified??? I guess that wouldn't help legitimize you completely ignoring all of Boorda's amazing accomplishments and 40 years service to his country. Just to demonize him over a stupid mistake that was made by many others. Man, you must feel like a freaking hero!
ReplyDelete