Before ATRRS I wouldn't say it was common, but I'd say it happened more than people want to think about. I know of one or two "Jumpmasters" who were anything but.
20th Group one for sure. Dave Kellerman was serving in 3/20th SFG(A) as a team sergeant and was returning from Astan in 2006 when he was found to be carrying a crap load of weapons he shouldnt have. After that his houseboat was raided and authorities seized plenty more weapons, ammo, and demo. During the investigations it came out that there was no official records of Kellerman ever having attended the SFQC. He is serving a 27 year sentence right now...
Did the various schoolhouses keep paper records or some other sort of database of actual graduates? I realize it's not practical for a command to call and verify every claim by an each individual soldier, but for something like the SFQC, Ranger school, or Jumpmaster I would think things would have been checked out more thoroughly.
So was he in SF serving in other capacities under these falsified records, or did he just show up as a TS one day?
I dont have any other details on his service; this was just from what I was told by guys from 3rd BN.
If you showed up and your paperwork was in order I doubt a unit would call the schoolhouse. Even in this day and age, how many of us have DD-214's that are messed up or an LES with wrong information? Imagine records from 30 years ago... In the last 15 years I know of one SF CSM who wore a Ranger tab he didn't rate and one CW4 on the support side who had an 82nd FWTS-SSI and Sapper tab who no one gave any thought to until a routine records review or innocuous question that didn't have a good answer (I forget exactly how he was outed). The CSM quietly retired when he was discovered and JAG was looking into the CW4 the last I'd heard (this was several years ago). Posers abound, it is like playing Wack-a-Mole.
I don't get it...guys have so much to be proud of, but for some reason it's just not enough in their eyes.
What? "Here's some photos of some things we can't show you...so there are no photos to show anyway." What?
Missed this post B. FF is absolutely correct. He was an acting Team Sergeant (E7) for a while then finally got picked up for E8. He had been a FAM for a while to, on and off of course - and was always considered a "shady guy" according to other FAMs who worked with him from SOF units.
