Posted on 09/12/2004 12:33:28 PM PDT by Travis McGee
Authentic or not, Bush memos no big deal to retired guardsmen
U.S. Servicemen React to Bush Guard Memos (spreading the lie)
Allegations of suspect conduct during the Vietnam war also have been leveled at John Kerry, who won three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in Vietnam.
A group sponsoring television ads challenging his wartime record contends Kerry's own gunfire caused the wound that brought his first Purple Heart. Navy records and other veterans do not support the charge.
Ahmad Majied of Albany (GA) says the latest allegations about Bush's military record are more troubling to him than allegations about service honors leveled at Democratic challenger Kerry.
Majied, a Democrat from Albany who served 30 years in the Navy, including five years as a SEAL in Vietnam, said the memos support his belief that Bush was a "playboy" during his service years.
"He had enough money to get what he wanted," Majied said. "I think his main concern was not to go to Southeast Asia. I bet he never dreamed it would come back to haunt him."
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So Criminal Number 18F checked him out. Here's the reply from "authentiseal."
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Official Reply
NOT A SEAL
Thanks for checking with us - we greatly appreciate your interest in upholding the honor of the US Navy SEAL Teams, and your search for the TRUTH. If the name you provided was "spelled accurately", we do NOT have a listing for anyone named "Majied" in our entire database of slightly more than 10,000 names. Unless he has undertaken the unlikely action of a full legal name change since his claimed service with the SEAL Teams, I can state conclusively that the man NEVER completed SEAL training, and thus he is not now, nor was he ever a Navy SEAL. While there are other training steps that must be completed on the path to becoming a SEAL, BUD/S training is the first and most vital, and that training course is totally unclassified. Without having first completed BUD/S training, a man cannot go on to become a SEAL. There are definitely secret SEAL missions, but despite anything the man might have said, there are NO secret SEALs. If you choose to confront the man regarding his fraudulent SEAL claims, please show him this email message and invite him to contact me - a real SEAL - directly by email with information that will support his claims. I'd enjoy hearing his stories first hand, but I've extended this offer to literally thousands of individuals over the last three years, and in all that time I've received only a scant handful of replies, so I don't really expect to hear from him either.
Again, please visit our web page www.authentiseal.org/realitycheck.htm for some very specific information related to the realities of SEAL training, SEAL duties, and the claims most often made by SEAL imposters.
Thank you again for your assistance in upholding the honor of the US Navy SEAL Teams.
Respectfully, Gregory Platt
UDT/SEAL 1970-1974
SEAL Authentication Team - Investigator
"The only service where all investigators are US Navy SEALs"
Remind me again about this connection - the same phone number belongs to this "Wiley Karriem Mustaqueem Graydon IV" and the "fake" Seal ? IMHO both names sound fake to me... Could this be someone with several names???
Yes.
That is what I'm thinking, as well. The name he presented as a Seal came up on a pdf for new members of Torpedoman November 2003.
He says it is a legal name change, which is fine, but won't give his original name. I don't think we are too far off with the original name. My theory is he won't give it because he knows it won't check out.
Welcome to Free Republic.
No, it's not. The SEAL vets don't maintain their verification site for giggles.
Night bump
I see a great analogy here with the way the computer industry evolved in the late 80's and early 90's.
In the early 80's we had many large mainframe systems. Most corporations had huge computer complexes with dedicated computer facilites with clean environments and false floors housing multi-million dollar systems with concentrated computing power. Users were all networked into the central mainframe.
Then along came the PC and Local Area Networks.
Soon we had the concept of distributed computing. Lots of processing power at the endpoints interacting with each other to perform a far more powerful task than could ever be concentrated in one place.
So it is today, the concentrated media sources that once controlled everything and owned all the printing presses plus the distribution infrastructure have been usurped by millions of individuals enabled by distributed computing power, their diverse experience and intelligence, and their ability to communicate and collaborate to address a problem. You no longer need to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to get your voice heard, you just need to have a credible message.
The "Legacy" Media, as they should rightly be called is in it's Swansong. It's power to control thought has been eradicated, it's influence decimated, and it's credibility bebunked.
The King is dead, Long Live the King!
Strip the links away, just because he's on the Torpedoman's site does NOT MAKE HIM A SEAL... Except in his own mind of course...
*** There are also people out there who claim that every once in a while the CIA calls them up and sends them on a secret mission, and the rest of the time they just do their normal everyday activities. ***
Most of those people who claim that the CIA calls them up on secret missions also consult their DNC secret decoder rings first.
Someone got 47nd!!!
Look, I could care less if some old braggart likes to tell lies about being a Navy SEAL (with 5 years in Viet Nam) in his corner bar.
But when he spins this lie to the national media, where it's printed in dozens of newspapers, that's a different matter.
He's "stealing the valor" of genuine Viet Nam era SEALs to boost his persona and put in a gratuitious slam on the president.
So I have no regrets about slamming this liar down, hard.
Some notable VN era SEALs are now joining the Swiftboat Vets and the POWs to add their voices against Traitor Kerry.
In their mutual imaginations, the fake SEAL gave an imaginary boonie hat to the fake Cambodia mission captain.
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
The liberal MSM types don't know about Boyd's OODA loop theory. Google search it for your report, it could be the core of your report. Basically, we're so much faster than the MSM reporting cycle, that we can fact check them in minutes and return counter battery fire directly on them, before they have the first clue. THey never have a chance to recover, because we keep jabbing them from all directions while they are still off balance. And this is just the leading edge of the "new media" wave.
BFD
Even if the memo is authentic, who realy gives a sh*t whether or not George W. Bush showed up for a routine physical or not 38 years ago?
At least he never went before Congress and betrayed his country and the men he served with - giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
What you said! Right on. We're eye-to-eye, brother.
BTW, this may have set the new world record for fastest busting of a fake SEAL.
Just as Dan Rather, CBS, the MSM etc have to adjust to the new hyper-speed fact checking of their lies, lying fakes like this fake SEAL have to get used to it. He put his name to a lie, stealing the valor of genuine Viet Nam combat veteran SEALs, so shame on him.
In the old days, his lie might have passed for years or forever. Those days are over, and the 'rats had better get used to the new reality.
RE 386: sounds well worth an essay. I think it's exactly right. I'd also look up Boyd's "OODA Loop" theory to use in conjunction with your "mainframe-distributed PCs" analogy.
Based on his claim of being on some ship in the early 60s, and his probable name change at least as early as 1975 based on discovered records, I'm tending to believe his claim to have retired as a Master Chief is just as fake as his SEAL creds. I'm guessing he did one hitch and got out as an E-4, and never got closer to Viet Nam than Subic Bay, PI.
The SEAL database is 100%.
The Ranger SCHOOL database is 100%. You have to work through the S-5 of the Ranger Training Brigade. They have the "green card" on every student since the day they opened the school.
7th SF Group has a 100% accurate spreadsheet on all SF that served in El Salvador (even for a day). I believe it is in the custody of the Group Command Sergeant Major, and he keeps it in his office safe. This was created because it became a common claim.
About 95-98% of SF men that served in Vietnam are documented in Steve Sherman's books and CDs, and on his work in progress website. Steve also has 75-100% of the citations for valor awards to Special Forces personnel in Southeast Asia (the lower medals, like the "ARCOM w/V", the lower percentages).
Special Forces guys had, over the years, a couple different paths to qualification (now it's like the SEALs -- everybody goes to one course for starters). For the earliest ones, there WAS no course. If a guy claims service behind the lines in clandestine stuff, check with the Special Operations Association. It is strictly for combat vets of real special ops, and it's very small (I don't think they've issued membership number 2500 yet). Their email list is usually just one or two degrees removed from any real vet of like operations. "Hey did you know Bill Blowfish?" will always get an answer, positive or negative.
The Special Forces Association near Ft Bragg has been entrusted with as near as the army can come to a list of qualified individuals, and they are sometimes willing to check whether someone is real or is a phony. It gets political with them. These two orgs are on the web. (I am a full member of both).
Other special units or skills, like Marine snipers, have tight knit alumni communities too. I don't know much about them but I know they're there.
HomeofHeroes.com and legionofvalor.com are trying to get comprehensive databases of the top awards (DSC, Navy Cross, AFC, and the Medal of Honor) but have some holes. Especially recently updated awards. (We're still working awards on guys from 2001 and 2002... and looking at trying to get one from 1966 upgraded).
What Phyllis Guilmette said about the Rangers is true. Many soldiers go to Ranger school but never serve a day in a Ranger battalion (like me for one!), and many soldiers serve in the Battalions, even in combat, and never go to the school. Both are legitimately Rangers, but I think of the guys who serve in the Ranger infantry battalions (or the Vietnam LRRPs) as REAL rangers and guys like me as "ticket-punch" Rangers. I gotta say they have made me very welcome at reunions and stuff, but I always feel like a phony. The movies Blackhawk Down and Saving Private Ryan (the part where Tom Hanks leads a break out of the bridgehead) are based on REAL ranger operations.
Still a bogus Ranger can be easily outed with the help of FOIA. (I can't believe we've all forgotten Micah Wright already -- another "war hero" turned lefty who turned out to be as phony as a $9 Rolex. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1168676/posts )
Yeah, I was involved in that one too. (heh heh).
Finally -- if I am wrong and Mr Majied's claims of five years in Vietnam as a SEAL are true -- I will travel to Albany, Georgia to apologize to him in person. Combat vet to combat vet, as it were.
Don't anybody call AAA and order me a Triptik to Albany just yet, though.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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