Posted on 03/30/2011 9:22:12 AM PDT by 0beron
Heads up... the first time it got out there was a few years ago, and someone took some time debunking it back in two thousand eight.
(Excerpt) Read more at eponymousflower.blogspot.com ...
?
Ok, im not Catholic, so no dog in the hunt.
BUT,,it sure seems to me that Corapi is always firmly on the side of the angels,
and that there suddenly seems to be an organized effort to smear him,
and that a woman fired from her job is at the bottom of it all. Am i missing something?
I was thinking the same thing. I’m a traditionalist and also have no dog in the hunt, but I think Father Corapi has changed a lot of lives for the better.
What good priest hasn’t been attacked like this?
If I dare say it, like Our Lord Himself.
You only posted a sentence. Is there more?
Geez.
The Eponymous Flower
ANTE DIOS NUNCA SERÁS HÉROE ANÓNIMO
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Someone’s Dug up Father Corapi’s Military Records Again
As noted before and elsewhere, Father Corapi is challenging the authority of the Bishops to pass rules and ordinances like this, making a priest guilty till proven innocent. CNS points out that no part of Canon Law was cited.
This copy of Father’s military file has been floating around at least for four years, and others have wanted to “debunk” Father Corapi as well. Well, it’s stuck over on Free Republic and it’s a bit hard to read some of the later entries, and it can look bad if you don’t know how to read the document and the acronyms. You have to realize that there are no things that jump out at you saying, “this is a super secret, special forces trooper.” After looking at Wikipedia, it says that Father John was sworn in on April 16th 1967. After finishing up his Basic at what looks like it may be Fort Gordon, he was enrolled at Fort McClellan on 23 June of 1967, where he was first in Charley Company, Second Platoon, 3rd Battalion of the 175th Advanced Infantry Training Brigade. It’s entirely consistent with his story that while he was training as a basic Infantryman, he was already committed to be Special Forces, and looking forward to going with relish. He then attends a course where he appears to have gone to Ft. Knox for a time. That’s mostly Armor there, so who knows what he was doing there but it lists his MOS as 11B10 Infantry, and states that he is a attached as “student”. It’s not too far from Fort Campbell where there is a Special Forces Unit and Air Assault.
Basically, you can come from any MOS and be Green Beret. Father Corapi’s military record is ENTIRELY consistent with his descriptions in his rousing speeches.
In fact, this file has been floating around for a while and was dealt with very well by another poster at the Catholic Answers Forum, here, it’s very exhaustive and does a good job of defending Father Corapi. It would make sense that Father Corapi was hurt and after becoming an Infantryman, was sent to a more appropriate job as a clerk typist in Germany working for a General, when it was very dangerous with all the Bader Meinhof types roaming around.
He might have some time to do this...
Here you go. It’s already linked on EF, but here it is here so everyone can see it. I hope.
Default Re: OMG, Fr. Corapi was an Accountant!
Here is what Bendell says and the Schantag’s support:
He says sarcastically to Fr. Corapi, “What is the bursting radius of a lightning bolt?” He refers to Fr. Corapi as a phony, wannabe, lying, fake claiming he is a “former Green Berets and Vietnam veteran,” especially in the name of God. (Ref. http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies344.htm)
The basis for their claim that Dr. and Fr. John A. Corapi is lying and yet they lie to further their witch-hunt:
Lie #1. Bendell says, “I mention this since your army records, which I have…”
Truth: He has a partial record given him by Mary Schantag. He does not have the DD214 which lists Corapi’s TDY’s, schools and qualifications. What he does show has parts that are blackened out so you can’t see.
Lie #2. He ridicules Fr. Corapi’s service for our country for which he volunteered for “meat-grinder” Vietnam while others were drafted against their will. He says Fr. was merely a leg, not a real soldier who jumped from planes, who guarded his typewriter and desk as a private.
Truth: Fr. Corapi was a Specialist E-4 and promoted to SP5 in less than 9 months of service.
Lie #3. He challenges Father Corapi’s martial arts by praising his very own delusions. He says, “Incidentally, I just two days ago celebrated my 41st Anniversary in the martial arts and have been featured in BLACK BELT magazine, so I also wondered what style did you receive your Black Belt in and what rank are you?” He says, “How dare you claim to be a Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, when you did NOT even attend Jump School, let alone ever take ANY Special Forces training whatsoever?”
Truth: Father never has claimed to be a Vietnam veteran. NEVER! Others, who heard he enlisted during Vietnam automatically assumed he went because almost everybody. However Father was medical board and became a gimp, as the Army calls them. Additionally, Bendell claims Father had no special training but cannot tell you what he did at Ft. Knox and in the Panama Canal Zone on assignment.
Lie #4. Bendell continues to assail Father for his “mediocre” service, as if he was a CSM who retired after 30 years, when he spent less than 5 years in the service. He still assumes Father said he was a Vietnam veteran and Green Beret. He accuses Father of making millions off this lie.
Truth: Father has taken the three evangelical counsels of perfection: chastity, poverty (or perfect charity), and obedience (see e.g. The Code of Canon Law, canons 599-601).
Lie #5. Bendell claims Fr. Corapi lied and told people on his website he had a Bachelor’s Degree before going into the military. Then on Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:43:00 -0600 Bendell writes, “Dear Father Corapi, we see that you have finally corrected the lies in your bio and now correctly-list yourself as a ‘Vietnam-era’ veteran and also took out the BS about being a Green Beret. You even removed the line about being a Black Belt.”
Truth: See what his website biography said in November 2003 all the way to 17 Aug 2007, the week before Bendell’s claim.
Nov. 21, 2003
http://web.archive.org/web/200311250...pi.com/bio.asp
Aug. 17, 2007
http://web.archive.org/web/200708171...com/about.aspx
Did it change? No.
Read what it says today:
http://www.fathercorapi.com/about.aspx
What is Bendell talking about, maybe www.corapi.com?
Jan. 25, 1999
http://web.archive.org/web/199902020...om/corapi.html
Sep. 26, 2002 (the last bio on www.corapi.com and soon the website expires)
http://web.archive.org/web/200210121...com/corapi.htm
What is Bendell talking about? Maybe he is talking about www.soltmedia.com ?
Apr. 7, 2000
http://web.archive.org/web/200006191...com/corapi.htm
Sep. 28, 2002 (the last bio on www.soltmedia.com and soon the website expires)
http://web.archive.org/web/200306180...com/corapi.htm
Perhaps he is referring to Fr. Corapi’s order SOLT biography of Fr. Corapi: (The website is a recent creation and they do not maintain biographies of their priest,)
See what it says today: http://www.societyofourlady.net/welcome.html
Lie #6. He says that Fr. Corapi is lying about his status to get money. Bendell writes, “In your curriculum vitae, you claim to be a deacon and also a priest ordained by the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, of Robstown, TX. S.O.L.T. nowhere on their website under priests, hermits, ministries, or anywhere are you mentioned, although they have a list displayed of all their priests in America and overseas with bios. I will let the Catholic Church address that issue with you. Less than 3 out of every 100 who try actually earn a Green Beret, and it means a lot to each of us, and we will not stand for anybody to pose as one of us, especially for personal and financial gain.”
Truth: SOLT has no such list and the archives reveal there has never been such a list. Fr. Corapi does not receive monies from his book sales, tapes, CD’s, DVD’s or speeches due to his counsel of poverty. In fact, the nearly 4 million dollars he received from a recent landmark court case would have gone to charity.
Bendell prejudicially writes of Fr. Corapi, “I am not Catholic, but I am a Christian, and I will make one major guess: In the verbiage of Special Forces, besides the media, and the FBI, and others, I personally believe that God is really going to kick your unholy a**.”
Lie #7. Bendell says, “You claim you were a football star and claim before the “looming war,” you achieved a baccalaureate degree as well as a black belt (which generally takes four years at legit karate schools), yet you entered the army on April, 1967, without having a degree.
Truth: Fr. Corapi says, “After my first year in college, I decided to enlist...” (Cassette recording at St. Albert the Great Austin, TX 22JUN01)
Lie #8: Bendell claims Fr. Corapi advertised himself as a football star.
Truth: Fr. Corapi says concerning his football prowess, “I was good, not great, but getting better everyday until I injured myself.” (Cassette recording at St. Albert the Great Austin, TX 22JUN01)
Lie #9: Bendell says, “You had to be at least a buck sergeant in those days, as well as airborne to even qualify to try to earn a Green Beret.”
Truth: Privates could enlist for Special Forces in their contract. Fr. Corapi has always maintained he trained to be Special Forces, having completed BCT, AIT and unknown training in Ft. Knox, but was injured so he was unable to continue. (Source: Every oral and literary account)
Lie #10: “You also had to enlist for extra time if you went SF, and you only had a total of 2 and a half years in the army…” Bendell states.
Truth: Fr. Corapi did almost 1,000 days to the day in service to our country. How many months and years is that?
Lie #11: Bendell states that Fr. Corapi had an MOS, or job titles as stenographer, clerk/typist, and personnel specialist so he would not have been SF.
Truth: Any MOS qualifies for SF.
Lie #12: He says, “You never attended any infantry or combat arms training whatsoever. You never earned jump wings.”
Truth: He attended an all Infantry BCT and AIT and was an 11B10 upon graduating.
Lie #13: You never spent one day at Fort Bragg , North Carolina , which is where you had to go to earn a Green Beret.
Truth: The first time at Ft. Bragg was when he stopped there on his way to Ft. Jackson.
Lie #14: He received an army commendation medal.
Truth: He didn’t.
Lie #15: For awards you received national defense medal (which are given for breathing),
Truth: He got it for VOLUNTEERING to serve, not breathing, during January 1, 1961 to August 14, 1974 for service during the Vietnam War.
Lie #16: Fr. Corapi and a marksman badge from basic training, so you could net even shoot straight and that is it.
Truth: Marksman is qualifying in shooting your weapon and hitting.
Lie #17: The only overseas duty you ever saw was behind a typewriter in Europe .
Truth: He was at the needs of the Army. He was the administrative assistant to a General when Communism was just as much a threat to West Germany as it was to South Vietnam. Have you ever played dominos? As for being 70 series, I believe it was Shakespeare who said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Lie #18:He wrote, “Father Corapi, how did you become Rambo for all these years and all those millions?”
Truth: Fr. Corapi is a REAL Special Force, affecting more lives with truth than Bendell is with his fiction. (Bendell is a very good fiction writer). Corapi does not profit from the sales.
Lie #19: He wrote,”I honestly do not believe in this case, however, I need to do a thing but simply just sit back and watch. Read Romans 19: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”
Truth: It is not Romans 19 where it says, “Vengeance is Mine!...” It is Romans 12:19. He has been posting his lies for nearly a year. Bendell, are you watching? Tell us, “What is the bursting radius of a lightning bolt?” If he really believed God would do the judging, he would not have already judged him without all the knowing the facts. If he was trusting God was going to take care of Fr. Corapi why is he constantly posting links and updating his website. That’s does not sound like He is leaving room for vengeance. In the manner, he judges (prejudicially and without mercy) so will he be judged. It is not too late to repent. In Paul’s statement to the Romans (12:19), he is quoting Moses in the LXX here:
“To Me belongs vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.” (Deuteronomy 32:35)
1 John 1:9
Lie #20: Bendell claims Fr Corapi was making money for years falsely posing as a Green Beret, posing as Vietnam veteran, when he was “merely”, in-fact, a clerk-typist in Europe, period.
Truth: Addressed previously.
Lie #21: He said Father took Basic Training (BCT) at Ft Jackson, SC.
Truth: Fr. Corapi had BCT at Ft. Gordon GA.
Lie #22: Bendell, “You did not even attend … even one day of training to earn a Green Beret or any type of combat arms training.”
Truth: Two words- “Fort MacClellan”. This was for 11B10 Infantry training (Combat Arms). For proof that Ft. MacClellan had 11B Infantry Training in 1967, just do a google search. Here is an example, “Christopher Ammons enlisted in the U.S. Army June 1, 1967, one week after graduating from high school. After basic training at Fort Campbell, Ky. and infantry training at Fort McClellan, Ala., he was sent to Vietnam in early November.”
Lie #23: Bendell claims that Father Corapi wore a Special Forces Badge on his lapels. He says, “The tape is 9:59 seconds, his conversion story. At 7:51 he touches his lapel where he wears not a cross but a full-sized SF Badge, quickly pointing at the pin, and utters the words ‘De Oppresso Liber,’ our motto and adds ‘Free the oppressed.’ The pin is there the whole ten minutes. It is not even a lapel pin. It is a full-sized official Special Forces crest. http://video.aol.com/video-detail/fr...ion/2336176400
Truth: SOLT’s Logo
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society...t_Holy_Trinity)
Lie #24: On this video, at about 9 minutes he says he “entered the army with a commitment for the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets.” He says he “attended all the training, a very specialized kind of training and finished it all,” then he says he was injured in a helicopter accident and ended up in Germany pushing a pencil. Watching this Bendell remarks, “Of course his records show he was simply a clerk-typist, period and never did any special operations training, which is a common claim of his apologists. “
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/jo...89?icid=acvsv3
Truth: See Truth #22 He was Infantry first and re-classed.
Lie #25: Bendell pastes an email: 11MAR06/1. Addressing a group of 1500 to 1800 participants, in a Catholic Lenten Retreat service in Lenexa, Kansas, Father John Corapi stated, “I was standing there, wearing my Green Beret...”/
Truth: Two other people who were at the meeting state otherwise.
http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=3724212&postcount=64
Notice the FR link to a Know Nothing Catholic hating bigot?
I just hope now that people see that Father Corapi had a very passionate desire to serve in his country’s armed forces, in the best and finest organization in the Army.
Also, I might point out that it’s possible that Father Corapi was training to go on a B-Team, although they may have had some kind of provisional Q-Course for training A-Team members at Fort Knox where he was assigned for some kind of training which isn’t described.
Interestingly, I looked around on the net too and couldn’t find out much about went on at Fort Knox during Vietnam. Perhaps it was a Phoenix program thing? Anyway, nuff said. I hope.
I see things your way.
It was awesome.
My response was that what poster Waterboard was strictly unclassified information that lists no possible classified information.
Poster Waterboard, to my knowledge did not respond.
I listed my own experience working for GE that there are probably parts of my Security Clearance document that would be classified. This was on the Anti-Submarine Project AN/SQQ-89...
A Novena for Fr. Corapi, March 25 - April 2 [Catholic Caucus]
The posts by poster Waterboard have been removed by the Religion Moderator.
Those were the accusation posts. I posted information to defend Father Corapi
I am glad you took time to debunk this nonsense...
I think the key points are that there are people who have gotten access to non-classified records and are making assumptions based on that.
Additionally, the talk where Father Corapi is wearing his SF pin is very convincing.
Finally, there was a Special Forces Op in North Vietnam to free American POW's. It is possible that some of the Spec Forces involved had not been involved in any Vietnam War Operation except for that one.
That one was quite unique -- the Special Forces went into North Vietnam. There was only one problem -- the prisoners had been moved to another camp (some speculate that someone in the State Department sold out the operation).
But is an example where one's service in Vietname could only be in one classified operation.
This one should work:
???
You mean the assumption that he did not go through, neither begin much less complete, any "specialized" training, other than Basic, followed by AIT, which all infantryman undergo? What exactly is wrong with reading the record to mean that? It is what is indicated.
Looking at the pdf of the record under discussion, there can be seen no additional training after AIT. No jump school, or any other courses beyond AIT, and no Wings, or Parachutist Badge listed in the commendations.
Additionally, it is highly doubtful that there is some sort of "super secret" record as to Corapi's military service, or involvement by him on some sort of "super secret" mission in North Vietnam, if that is what you are implying.
Nice fantasy though.
What is much more real, is that Corapi long claimed to have been a Green Beret, or at least, for a very long time, many years, he didn't correct those whom promoted him in published blurbs concerning himself, prior to his visiting as a speaker and the like.
For now, (the last few years) after being challenged(?) Corapi himself apparently has amended the story to being only that he trained to become one, but was injured in training in a helicopter accident --- so that's why he never really was one, even though he let, even lead people far and wide to THINK he was, in fact a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, a.k.a., Green Beret.
What's up with all this stuff like
unless that be attempt to provide explanation for the little story Corapi is alleged to have told, claiming he was spit upon, after coming back to the States, and while wearing his Green Beret uniform?
So far, I haven't been able to find anything real concerning that small aspect, the "spit upon while in Green Beret uniform" other than this man Bendell makes the claim Corapi told the story at some conference, and elsewhere some one else denies it, saying there were two others claiming Corapi never told that story, at the time & place he is accused of telling it. Lot's of unsubstantiated stuff found there...as is much of the controversy, both this older one, and the other more recent charge made by the woman.
Otherwise, Corapi does say some beautiful things. Much of which I am willing to regard as based upon truth.
This apparent embellishment of his own military record is troublesome. It hurts and detracts from the very messages he works to convey. When he can be heard saying such things as "that a deep peace came over me", and when he woke up he realized God's name was Mercy, hey, I'll buy he experienced that quite directly. And Mercy, is indeed, one of the Lord's names.
Allegedly, the record otherwise under discussion was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
I find that I cannot clearly read the name on the second page. But what if it is all too real? What then?
It would mean, or could be reasonably deduced, that the man Corapi is in fact lying in regards to his long standing, often repeated U.S. Special Forces claims, even limited to the more recently amended or [ahem] clarified claim, that he went through, and in Corapi's own words, completed such specialized training.
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