Team Sergeant
04-07-2006, 09:14
You SF posers can fool everyone except real SF soldiers. They will never learn. Stupid is as stupid does.......
STOLEN VALOR: Acts of Dishonor
Despite laws against it, thousands wear unearned medals
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
The brochure and Web site for his fly-fishing guide service described Jacob R. Cruze as a U.S. Army colonel, and colonel was what he insisted on being called at his country clubs.
Former Army Rangers at a 2004 convention at the Riviera noticed his combat medals and were eager to hear his war stories. With his arm around an attractive blond woman, they photographed him wearing a colonel's blue dinner jacket adorned with a breast full of valor medals including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross, which is second only to the Medal of Honor.
But the medals, his age, and his rank didn't seem to add up and that didn't sit right with retired Army Lt. Col. Bill Anton, a disabled Vietnam War veteran and vice president of the Special Forces Association Chapter 51 in Las Vegas.
It was odd, he said, that Cruze's uniform bore the burgundy of the medical service corps, yet valor awards are generally associated with infantry and other units that are in direct contact with the enemy. Among the insignias he sported were patches for the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division.
"I wanted to talk about the 1st Cavalry Division and he didn't want to talk about the 1st Cav," Anton recalled. "And that raised my suspicions. ... He also claimed to have been Ranger and Special Forces," Anton said, noting Cruze couldn't remember his Ranger class date.
"He gave a roundabout answer of 1969 and we knew that he couldn't be a Ranger because you never forget your Ranger class date. It's seared into your systemic memory banks for those nine weeks and everything is built around that class date. So we knew that wasn't true."
There are federal laws against impersonating military officers, wearing medals that were never earned and falsifying discharge records to reflect accomplishments that never occurred. With that in mind, Anton spent the next year trying to get the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas to pursue a case against Cruze.
He enlisted the help of the POW Network, a tax-exempt nonprofit educational organization in Skidmore, Mo., that tracks military impersonators. A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and a second one filed later by a Las Vegas member of the congressionally chartered Legion of Valor showed that Cruze never fought in combat and received no awards or decorations. Instead, he served as an Army Reserve second lieutenant from July 21, 1988, to Jan. 3, 1994, as an inactive clinical nurse for a Phoenix hospital unit.
Anton turned over the records and photographs to the FBI, which took no immediate action. After a call to Thomas A. Cottone Jr., an FBI special agent in New Jersey known for successfully tackling such cases, Anton was contacted by local authorities.
Rest of the story here....
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-26-Sun-2006/business/6284275.html
STOLEN VALOR: Acts of Dishonor
Despite laws against it, thousands wear unearned medals
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
The brochure and Web site for his fly-fishing guide service described Jacob R. Cruze as a U.S. Army colonel, and colonel was what he insisted on being called at his country clubs.
Former Army Rangers at a 2004 convention at the Riviera noticed his combat medals and were eager to hear his war stories. With his arm around an attractive blond woman, they photographed him wearing a colonel's blue dinner jacket adorned with a breast full of valor medals including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross, which is second only to the Medal of Honor.
But the medals, his age, and his rank didn't seem to add up and that didn't sit right with retired Army Lt. Col. Bill Anton, a disabled Vietnam War veteran and vice president of the Special Forces Association Chapter 51 in Las Vegas.
It was odd, he said, that Cruze's uniform bore the burgundy of the medical service corps, yet valor awards are generally associated with infantry and other units that are in direct contact with the enemy. Among the insignias he sported were patches for the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division.
"I wanted to talk about the 1st Cavalry Division and he didn't want to talk about the 1st Cav," Anton recalled. "And that raised my suspicions. ... He also claimed to have been Ranger and Special Forces," Anton said, noting Cruze couldn't remember his Ranger class date.
"He gave a roundabout answer of 1969 and we knew that he couldn't be a Ranger because you never forget your Ranger class date. It's seared into your systemic memory banks for those nine weeks and everything is built around that class date. So we knew that wasn't true."
There are federal laws against impersonating military officers, wearing medals that were never earned and falsifying discharge records to reflect accomplishments that never occurred. With that in mind, Anton spent the next year trying to get the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas to pursue a case against Cruze.
He enlisted the help of the POW Network, a tax-exempt nonprofit educational organization in Skidmore, Mo., that tracks military impersonators. A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and a second one filed later by a Las Vegas member of the congressionally chartered Legion of Valor showed that Cruze never fought in combat and received no awards or decorations. Instead, he served as an Army Reserve second lieutenant from July 21, 1988, to Jan. 3, 1994, as an inactive clinical nurse for a Phoenix hospital unit.
Anton turned over the records and photographs to the FBI, which took no immediate action. After a call to Thomas A. Cottone Jr., an FBI special agent in New Jersey known for successfully tackling such cases, Anton was contacted by local authorities.
Rest of the story here....
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-26-Sun-2006/business/6284275.html