EXPOSED/APOLOGIZED
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04/2005 "....... the phony Air Force Cross
license plates and the story about being the top secret RB-47 pilot a
couple of years ago? He's back in both the American Legion and VFW in
Lynchburg. He did have an honorable discharge (as an E-4) and lying
afterward "isn't a big deal." He was "unearthed"
in a scathing article in the local paper, his daughter wrote a
tear-jerking letter to the editor and now he's the good guy and his
accusers are the bad ones."
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| Jan 12, 2002 - 11:47 PM
Local vet's stories don't match his records Two years ago, Don Garlock broke 40 years of silence to tell about his heroic efforts during the Cold War. He told The News & Advance that he had flown B-47 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union during his Air Force service between 1953 and 1957, taking photographs and coming under fire from Russian pilots. He claims he was promoted to colonel and finished his service with the Air Force Cross and Distinguished Service Medal. The problem is, his Air Force record, obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act, tells a different story. The FOIA document shows that Garlock was a Morse code radio intercept operator with the 6913th Radio Squadron Mobile, which was based in Bremerhaven, Germany. He was discharged from active duty on Aug. 5, 1957 as an airman 1st class, not a commissioned officer. He received the National Defense Service Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and an Army of Occupation Medal (Germany) - all standard issue for doing your job and avoiding trouble. There is no record that he won the Air Force Cross, which he displays on both his license plate and lapel, or the Distinguished Service Medal, which he also wears. His name does not appear on Air Force rosters for either decoration.
Garlock, who will soon be 68, refused to talk about the discrepancies between his story and official government documents. "I've said everything I'm going to say about my military record," he said last week. Usually, Garlock is not reticent. He's chaplain for the Lynchburg Hillcats and the American Legion. He performs funerals and attends veteran's ceremonies decked out in uniform with a chest full of medals. Garlock participated in a rally at Monument Terrace on Nov. 30 in support of the bombing effort in Afghanistan. He called members of the Peace Education Center "traitors" for protesting the bombing. But now several veterans say Garlock should not be tossing the word "traitor" at others. Al Carpenter, a Navy pilot who spent six years as a POW in Vietnam, says people who tell phony stories and wear medals they haven't earned make him angry. "It just takes away everything that we have done with such a feeling of dedication and importance," he said. "It just really galls me." Garlock's story got a wider audience when Jim Rogers, who headed the Lynchburg chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society, saw the Nov. 12, 1999 article about Garlock. Rogers invited Garlock to speak to the local chapter. Subsequently, Garlock was invited to speak at other organizations around the state. That's when his story started to unravel. On Sept. 19, 2001, he spoke to the Williamsburg chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society, which includes a number of former military pilots. H.O. Malone of Hampton, who flew F-86 Sabre fighters in 1955 and 1956 for the Air Force and was a Defense Department historian for 21 years, is one of them. "When he gave the presentation to us," Malone said, "it didn't ring true from the very beginning." Malone began an investigation of Garlock and became convinced his story was phony. A lot of things didn't add up. For starters, the Air Force Cross was not even established until 1960, three years after Garlock was discharged, and the first person to receive it was Rudolph Anderson, a pilot killed in action during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His cross was awarded posthumously for the 1962 action. The Distinguished Service Medal is awarded for extraordinary achievement for positions of high responsibility, Malone said. "It's almost unheard of for a colonel to receive it," he said. Others were equally skeptical. "My bologna flag went straight up as soon as he started talking about dog-fighting MiGs with a B-47," said Paul Galanti, who had heard Garlock tell his story at the Virginia Aviation Museum in Richmond on Jan. 18, 2001. "There's just no way it could be done." Galanti, a former Navy pilot who spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was not only outraged by Garlock's story, but by his wearing the Air Force Cross, the second highest honor bestowed by the Air Force. "It's like the Medal of Honor," he said. "You just don't falsify it." Al Carpenter saw a tape of the Williamsburg talk and was equally "frosted." "It only took a few minutes in my mind to determine he was a phony," Carpenter said. "He did not seem to be knowledgeable about the airplane. He couldn't remember when he took pilot training." Garlock claimed he once flew over the Soviet Union as a "command pilot" to "light up their radar" and was strafed by Soviet fighter planes. He said he outmaneuvered the MiGs and managed to get his RB-47 to Turkey with no hydraulics and almost no fuel. For that, he said, he received the Air Force Cross. When members of his audiences in Williamsburg and Richmond started questioning Garlock, he defended himself by saying his work was top secret, classified. He was a civilian pilot, like Francis Gary Powers, he said. Sometimes he said he was working for the Strategic Air Command (SAC). Sometimes he said it was the National Security Agency and the CIA or a combination of the two. But a videotape of the Williamsburg talk shows Garlock hesitated when asked what pilot class he trained with. He said he thought he trained with 56B, but could not remember where he had his basic or primary pilot training. Other veterans said there's no way he could forget what class he trained with and besides, his training would show up on his service record. You don't go from operating radios to piloting B-47s without training. "There's nothing in his background that would qualify him to do that," according to his official records, Malone said. Veterans were also disturbed by his claim that he was a "command pilot," spot-promoted from captain to colonel at age 22 and decorated by the legendary Gen. Curtis LeMay of the Strategic Air Command. "Command pilot" is the highest of three Air Force ratings for pilots, requiring 15 years service as a pilot and 3,000 hours of pilot time, Malone said. The pilot of a particular plane is an aircraft commander. Garlock's story just became more and more difficult to believe, Malone said. Other experts agree. Robert Keefe, co-author of "The Price of Vigilance: Attacks on American Surveillance Flights," said Garlock's story can't be true. "I can tell from New England that it's a crock," said Keefe, who teaches at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and served as an airborne Russian linguist for the Air Force during the Cold War. Keefe's book, which was just published last May, details the heroics of Cold War veterans. Garlock's work as a Morse radio intercept operator was important, he said, but radio operators in Bremerhaven didn't fly B-47s, he said. "That group didn't have any planes," he said. "They didn't get off the ground." Besides, he said B-47s weren't flown from Bremerhaven, but England. Members of the 6913 did Morse code and monitored radar station communications, Keefe said. "You can't do that, and then in your leisure time, hop into a B-47 or B-57 and over-fly the Soviet Union," he said. "I find it comical." But other veterans aren't laughing. As Malone dug further into Garlock's record, he learned that another group was questioning his credentials. The Sampson Air Force Base Veterans Association in New York also doubted Garlock's stories after a retired Air Force general questioned his decorations for valor. Garlock, who went through basic training at Sampson, was an early member of the Sampson association, which was established in 1994 for any veteran who trained at or was stationed at Sampson. Garlock became the veteran's association's chaplain and watched as the group grew from a small social club to a non-profit organization with 3,000 members. Garlock's credentials were called into question in May 2001. In August, the group's president wrote Garlock a letter asking him to step down as chaplain until the questions could be resolved. They haven't been. "He was asked to step down in August 2001 and a new chaplain has been appointed," said Bill Thomas, now president of the Sampson group. Malone acquired correspondence and records that Garlock sent to the Sampson association, which showed even more discrepancies. In a letter, Garlock told the Sampson group that he had been inducted into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame and that his Air Force Cross certificate was on display at the Virginia Aviation Museum. Mike Boehme, director of the Virginia Aviation Museum, said neither assertion is true. Garlock sent a copy of his DD-214 to Sampson to defend his story. The DD-214, a military document that can only be obtained with permission from the veteran, is a more detailed record of service. In the DD-214 Garlock sent to Sampson, it said he had received the Air Force Cross and Distinguished Service Commendation. The form also said he had more than 16 years of service with the Air Force, 13 of it overseas. It said he left the service on Oct. 22, 1966. The FOIA form shows Oct. 22, 1957. Same day, different year. The DD-214, which says Garlock was a colonel, has another problem - it carries an enlisted service number, not an officer number. Malone and others question its authenticity. Other records show that Garlock would have been hard pressed to fly B-47s between 1953 and 1957 as he initially claimed. The University of Maryland says that Garlock took overseas classes from January 1954 to July 1956. At the same time, a Web site for the RSM 6913 shows that Garlock said he was backfield coach at Bremerhaven in 1956. So he was doing ground radio intercept, taking classes and coaching football at the same time he claims he was flying over the Soviet Union. When he returned stateside, Garlock attended the University of Maryland from the fall of 1957 to the spring of 1958. He completed a bachelor's degree at Grace College on June 1, 1961. According to the DD-214 Garlock sent Sampson, he was still overseas through 1966, but academic records show he was earning degrees from colleges and universities in the United States. Garlock started working on a master's at Indiana University in the summer of 1962. He took classes each summer through 1965, as well as the spring semester in 1964. He received his master of arts in speech and theater on Sept. 7, 1965. The DD-214 Garlock sent to the Sampson group said he became a colonel on April 1, 1966, but left the service less than seven months later. The Air Force usually requires a two-year commitment once there has been an increase in grade. By February 1967, Garlock was enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he received an advanced master's of education on June 6, 1968 and a doctor of education in cinema on Feb. 1, 1973. Garlock came to Lynchburg in 1979 to teach at Liberty University, then Liberty Baptist College. He has since become well known in the community through his affiliation with the Hillcats and courses he teaches in theater at Averett University's Lynchburg campus. On the Hillcats' Web site, Garlock says he teaches English and Bible studies at Averett. In the 1999 interview with The News & Advance, he also said he taught those classes. But his permission to teach those classes was rescinded in 1997 when it was discovered he didn't have adequate course work in either area, said John Laughlin, chairman of the religion department at Averett. A spokeswoman at Averett says he's popular with the students and local veterans say he gives a wonderful funeral service. But for many veterans, his war tales have become too
tall. |
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| Jan 12, 2002 - 11:49 PM
Real veterans resent inflated tales of imposters Spinning exaggerated war stories is not an uncommon practice on barstools throughout the nation, but when imposters go public and wear unearned medals on their chests, real war heroes become outraged. Col. John McKone, who spent seven months in a Soviet prison during the Cold War after being shot down in his RB-47 over the Barents Sea, said he has never heard of an incident like the one Don Garlock describes. He doesn't know Garlock and hasn't heard him speak, but others have shared Garlock's story with him. "That would be somebody's wild imagination," he said. McKone, who lives in Deltaville, said claiming that a military record is classified is not a legitimate cover. Much of his record is secret, but it still shows that he had pilot training and was a POW. His separation form shows the medals he earned. That information is not classified. "It is frustrating for those of us who did go through something a little bit strenuous," he said, noting that four of his crewmates died when his plane was shot down on July 1, 1960. "I think it's kind of a slap in the face of those men who did die. … "We can't have people running all over the country announcing they're heroes when they're (not)." Mary Schantag and her husband Chuck have uncovered more war phonies than they ever imagined. "We've uncovered 700 POWs alone," Mary Schantag said. "This is an epidemic and it's gotten worse." The Schantags, who live in Missouri, started a POW network - on the Web at pownetwork.org - to preserve historical information about Vietnam prisoners of war. Instead, since they started the network in 1998, they have ended up proving that there are more fakes than real POWs. "I get them every day," Mary Schantag said. "It is absolutely infuriating." A former Marine, Chuck Schantag was wounded in Vietnam. He wanted to do biographies on the real heroes in the war, and so far the couple has compiled 3,600. But the phonies keep diverting their attention. "It is absolutely in the thousands," Mary Schantag said. Schantag speculates that a lot of men, particularly from the Vietnam War era, are now sorry they didn't serve. "I think as the Vietnam generation grows older, it is no longer taboo to serve in Vietnam," she said. While some merely exaggerate their service, others make up an entire phony record, Schantag said, sometimes bilking the government out of benefits they don't deserve from tax breaks to health care to something as simple as free license plate. "It's just insulting," Schantag said. "They're speaking to our students. They're telling us these bogus stories … Telling a bar story is one thing, but when they go in the schools or say, ‘I've never told anybody this' on the front page of the newspaper … it's a problem." Title 18 of the U.S. Code makes it illegal to wear unauthorized uniforms or military medals and decorations, with up to six months in jail. For wearing a fake Congressional Medal of Honor, you can get a year in prison. Other than the Medal of Honor, however, most medals are easy to obtain. An Air Force Cross only costs $89 on some Web sites. But prosecution is rare. The fact of the matter is, neither the FBI nor the investigative arms of the military have time to go chasing after phonies. "Humiliation is all we have," Schantag said. Mike McGrath, who is president of NAM-POWs and lives in Colorado, also exposes military imposters. "We have 700 phony POWs," he said. "We have 8,000 phony SEALs. Frauds are everywhere. … We're all frustrated. Nobody will press charges and nobody cares." But public humiliation has made a difference. McGrath recommends people read "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and History" by Glenna Whitley and B.G. Burkett. The book illustrates many high-profile cases of fake war heroes and one who literally got away with murder. The book and Web site, at stolenvalor.com, also tells people how to check on public records of veterans they suspect are phonies or have exaggerated their service. Most phonies never admit they are lying, Mary Schantag said, but sometimes they acknowledge the truth because the evidence is so incontrovertible. Such was the case for Joseph Ellis, who had won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award and brought history to life for his students at Mount Holyoke College by telling about his combat experience in Vietnam. The problem was, he spent his four years in the Army teaching at West Point. When confronted with the truth last summer, he called his lie a "mistake." Larry Tart, who co-authored "The Price of Vigilance: Attacks on American Surveillance Flights," spent nearly 22 years in the intelligence business, 10 flying on reconnaissance flights as a Russian linguist. Such mistakes don't impress him. "It diminishes the status of people like me," he said.
"It really makes me angry." All contents copyright ©2002 The News & Advance |
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| Jan 18, 2002 - 11:40
PM
Vet owns up to fabrications Don Garlock didn't earn an Air Force Cross or Distinguished Service Medal. He didn't fly over the Soviet Union during the Cold War doing aerial reconnaissance. He was never even a pilot. Garlock admitted those fabrications Friday in a brief letter to the editor of The News & Advance. "My sincere apologies go to our veterans who have served our country and I ask for forgiveness for any disgrace caused them," Garlock wrote. Garlock's letter came in response to a Sunday article in The News & Advance, which detailed the differences between Garlock's war stories and official Air Force records. Garlock would not talk about the discrepancies before the article ran. Two years ago, Garlock told The News & Advance that he had flown B-47 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union between 1953 and 1957, taking photographs and coming under fire from Russian pilots. He claimed he was promoted to colonel and earned a chest full of medals.
But that was not the case. Garlock was a Morse code radio intercept operator with the 6913th Radio Squadron Mobile, which was based in Bremerhaven, Germany. He was discharged from active duty on Aug. 5, 1957 as an airman first class. On Friday, he said it was difficult to explain why he lied about his service in the military. He said that in his role as an intercept operator, he had access to information about what pilots were doing and he knew many were shot down and never accounted for. "These guys never had a chance to voice what they did for their country," he said in a telephone interview. Garlock, 68, said he couldn't explain why he went from being a witness to their actions to claiming he had been a pilot himself. "Once you make one mistake," he said, "then you add to them." Garlock said it is a relief to have the truth out. "I'll be able to eat in a couple of days now," he said. In his letter, Garlock writes, "Please forgive my transgressions for advertising possession and awarding of the AFC and DSM Medals and ribbons and the AF Pilot Wings. "The Black Bird Model, the Wings and the decorations have been turned over to James Rogers with my apology. The license plates have been destroyed."
The model refers to a model of an RB-47 that Garlock displayed when talking to groups about his war exploits. The license plates were on his car and showed he was a holder of the Air Force Cross. Rogers, who heads the Lynchburg chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society, said Friday afternoon he had not yet received the medals, ribbons and model from Garlock, but expects to soon. Rogers said he would likely turn the items over to the Virginia Aviation Museum in Richmond. Garlock, who is chaplain for the Lynchburg Hillcats and the American Legion, may face additional reprimands. Calvin Falwell, president of the Hillcats, said his executive committee will meet to discuss whether to keep Garlock on as chaplain. The American Legion plans to meet with Garlock Monday night. After Garlock's war story appeared in The News & Advance Nov. 12, 1999, Rogers invited Garlock to speak to the local VAHS chapter. Subsequently, Garlock was invited to speak at other organizations around the state. That's when his story started to unravel. On Sept. 19, 2001, he spoke to the Williamsburg chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society, which includes a number of former military pilots. H.O. Malone of Hampton, who flew F-86 Sabre fighters in 1955 and 1956 for the Air Force and was a Defense Department historian for 21 years, is one of them. "When he gave the presentation to us," Malone said, "it didn't ring true from the very beginning." Malone began an investigation of Garlock and became convinced his story was phony. On Friday, Malone said he was glad Garlock had admitted he contrived the story. He said he would like Garlock's story to become part of a "Hall of Shame," which displays paraphernalia of men who have been caught lying about military service. Malone said while he is outraged over Garlock's fabrications, he is not as angry as some former prisoners of war, who want to pursue criminal charges. Malone said he has not decided whether to turn his evidence over to the Air Force. For now, he is glad Garlock admitted the truth. "The evidence is so incontrovertible," Malone said. "… I didn't know whether he could face up to it or not." All contents copyright ©2002 The News & Advance
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