Violation of Stolen Valor Law Now Getting National Attention

For a couple of weeks now the guys over at This Ain't Hell have been pursuing the case of a Texas man they have dubbed General Ballduster McSoulpatch, whose real name is Michael Patrick McManus.

What McManus has done is go around impersonating a highranking member of the military, wearing every award and medal under the sun. He can lay claim to none of them. He is a fraud, and his actions smear all veterans who served honorably.

His lawyers are now trying to argue that all of his actions are covered by the first amendment and amount to nothing more then an exercise of free speech.


Really? What if instead I decided to portray myself as some sort of rocket scientist and managed to get close to some well connected folks to push some sort of hair-brained cosmic theory? Better yet, maybe I could pass myself off as some sort of climate change expert and smear the entire scientific community with false information.

Oh wait, that has been done already.

Violations of the Stolen Valor Law are serious, and the attitude that is present that seems to revolve around the simple theme that it is only military personnel who are being hurt is okay, is quite frankly insulting.

There are so many heroes walking among us. Silently. Unknown. The best example I have of this is my father-in-law. He is a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War. He made two beach landings, at Suwon and Inchon. He survived the bloody, freezing hell that is now known as the Frozen Chosin. He received two Purple Hearts, but turned down numbers three and four since it would have meant being sent home. Yet you would never know it if you met him on the street.

Anytime somebody like General Ballduster comes along and attempts to piggyback off of the legacy of real service members, it is an attack on all veterans, and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The ABC article gives credit to a guy named Doug Sterner, whom I have not heard of, but I have heard of the guys over at This Ain't Hell, and they have been on this since the beginning. They pushed the FBI to investigate. They did a lot of research and handed over the evidence to an FBI office that seemed reluctant to pursue the case.

ABC is also late to the party. They state that they received information on this fake and fraud but it wasn't until Jonn and the guys over at TAH got results that they do a report.

Credit for the Wanted Poster goes to Mrs. Greyhawk, who along with her husband, are one of the most influential, and pioneers, of the milblogs.