Medals courtesy eBay.
Posted on 08/10/2007 2:34:08 PM PDT by Dysart
A 29-year-old former soldier, currently living in Fort Worth, has pleaded guilty in federal court to making false statements and claims about receiving nominations for the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, according to prosecutors.
Richard David McClanahan, 29, used his bogus status as a war hero in Amarillo to secure speaking engagements and scholarships, said U.S. Attorney Richard Roper of the Northern District of Texas.
McClanahan, who claimed to have special operations training and spectacular combat experience, appeared in federal court Thursday in Amarillo to plead guilty to one count of making false statements and one count of making false claims about receiving military medals, according to a news release from Roper's office.
McClanahan lives in Fort Worth, according to the news release. Attempts to reach him for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
According to the news release, McClanahan graduated from Cal Farley's Boys Ranch High School in 1997 and joined the Navy two years later. He separated from the Navy in May 2001 and joined the Army a month later as a sergeant.
But military officials in March 2005 completed an evaluation that found McClanahan "continually lied about civilian life, military career, education and experiences," according to the news release.
Four months later, officials approved McClanahan's request for discharge "in lieu of trial by court martial," and he was released "under other than honorable conditions," Roper said.
McClanahan settled in Amarillo, where he promoted himself as a nominee for the Medal of Honor. He began speaking at schools and on radio programs, Roper said.
Supporting the deception were fake nomination letters for the Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to Roper's news release.
He also tried to get a car dealership to donate a vehicle to him, Roper said. The business declined but agreed to help him with financing. Subsequently, however, bank officials learned that he "grossly inflated his income," Roper said.
A sentencing date has not been set, but Roper's news release stated that McClanahan faces a maximum statutory sentence of 31 years in prison and a $1.1 million fine.
We have these jackasses, and then we have those that actually have died for these jackasses:
Thy Days Are Done
Poem lyrics of Thy Days Are Done by Lord Byron.
Thy days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country’s strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughter of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!
Though thou art fall’n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow’d from thee
Disdain’d to sink beneath:
Within our veins its currents be,
Thy spirit on our breath!
Thy name, our charging hosts along,
Shall be the battle-word!
Thy fall, the theme of choral song
From virgin voices pour’d!
To weep would do thy glory wrong:
Thou shalt not be deplored.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
Sir Walter Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel
He’s a posterkid for the left. Lies and fabrications to instantly turn a good for only filling sandbags shitbird into a war hero. I hope the judge throws this guy UNDER the jail.
Medals courtesy eBay.
The SF and Ranger tabs are not sewn on the sleeve of the dress blue uniform; they are worn as metal tabs on the breast of the jacket...(unless that’s changed in the years since I got out.)
“Stolen Valor”
I wonder how he got picked up for either SF or Ranger school without an Infantry MOS. Notice no blue discs under his branch pins and no blue cord.
People like this absolutely infuriate me. If ever there was someone diserving of full contact wall to wall counseling it’s this one.
I think they should let the military handle this one. Let’s just see what he deserves after all.
This guy’s qualified to be Senator of Iowa now!
(^&#$ing Harkin)
I'd buy it if he was a medic...(and I can't tell if that's an EFMB he's wearing) except for the fact that (again, at least as of the time I resigned my commission) a soldier had to be an SPC/CPL (P) before he could even be picked up for selection, and would typically be wearing SGT stripes by the time he left the Q-Course.
The only ways I can think of that an E4 would be wearing an SF tab and CPL stripes is if he had a stripe taken as a result of a Field Grade Article 15 or if he had an extreeeeemely long break in service rendering him ineligible to reenlist at his former rank and had to work his way back up....
One of the requirements for SF school is 11B AIT right after basic. If he wanted to be a medical specialist he would also have to have a medic MOS (68W, formerly 91W).
That’s another one I would like to beat with a baseball bat.
I always preferred the term, "wooden shampoo." ;-)
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