I was considering a private mail with the guy's phone number to someone to check, when I find it has been posted multiple times already. He's gotten enough calls now that one poster complained he's not answering. Dozens of posts proclaim the guy a poser and there is NO evidence. No evidence and several are saying "email Drudge" "email every talk host".... This thread is a lynching, an embarassment and a frenzy. Without the guy's pre-Muslim name you got nothing. If he doesn't want to talk, you ain't gonna get anything. And there's no reason he should talk. He hasn't done anything. And I hope nobody outside sees this thread because it is everything our enemies say we are.
We got his claim of 5 years SEAL in Vietnam. Like Trav said, SEALs who did three tours were few, and everybody in the community knows who they are. (And a SEAL tour was six months -- they rotated whole platoons in and out of Vietnam). There were more people in my boondock high school than there were SEALs who served in Vietnam.
We got his joining another Navy veterans organisation claiming to have served. From 63 to 66.
"If he doesn't wanna talk, you ain't gonna get anything." There's always FOIA. His Navy record will show if he ever was a SEAL, under any damn name at all.
Finally, there's his ethnicity. He has a Muslim name. If he is from the Middle East, he would be a very rare guy in the SEAL teams (and people would remember him). If he is a black American, he would be almost as rare. The Navy was the last and slowest service to integrate, and SEALs in the 1960s were predominantly white, Anglo guys. Still are, mostly. (Sure, every SEAL platoon has a kid from Iowa who wants to be a writer, a guinea from Hoboken, a black kid from Detroit, a wise-cracking Puerto Rican and a Mexican kid who makes the sign of the cross before every op -- in the flippin' movies).
I do agree that people shouldn't go over the top on this. People, act smart, even if it means you're just actin'. If you are not a SEAL, or a reporter, why are you calling this guy? Leave him be. Let the SEALs deal with imposture in their own way. They are effective.
I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but... if people are posting his phone number in here, for crying out loud, don't do that. People who really need it can find it in a heartbeat.
As far as his claim to be a retired MCPO, that's possible. An MCPO is like a command sergeant major in the other services... he (or she) is the senior enlisted soldier in the command and is the commander's senior enlisted advisor. This means that the person can be a very powerful cat, if trusted by the CO, or can be responsible for dividing up police-call areas and not much else. I don't think that he has claimed anywhere to be a retired Master Chief of the Navy, just a regular E9 (very possible for a thirty year sailor -- IF he is). Let's focus on what he has claimed. It may be that some of his claims are true.
As far as the SEAL claim... it's bogus. If it were true, by some bizarre means, then AP would be all over us by now. By now AP is aware their story has been challenged, and they have tried to contact him to get backup for his story and rub our faces in it. They haven't succeeded yet, have they? (If they got through to him, he explained that his records burned up in that fire... or he was a secret SEAL....)
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
He is entitled to his political opinions no matter how wrongheaded they may be. That's part of living in a democracy.
As for whether or not he was a SEAL, I just don't see a MACM, by definition a responsible individual, making up stories about past exploits. A MACM's honesty, not his dishonesty, should be the default assumption.
First off, claiming to be a SEAL seems to be a common malady of wannabe Sargeant Von Muenchausens. There's a lot of glamour to it.
The reason this Elliott Minor AP story was interesting is that he was a SEAL, ergo supplying glamour to his anti-Bush position.
It's quite true that without his real name, it'll be difficult to verify whether he was a SEAL. But...not impossible.
I don't think he needs to "talk"--he's said enough for us to find out if he's telling the truth, if truth is pursued. If you mean he should not be harassed, you make a good point.
Given the number of lies the MSM has piled on our side, I don't worry that much about what our "enemies" might say. They'll say it, anyway.
Two words: Stolen Valor