FRAUD alert: Former SI writer apparently lied about his Marine exploits

Fernandez said he first learned of potential inconsistencies in Putnam’s service record earlier this week when he was called by Chuck and Mary Schantag and Doug Sterner, who run Web sites dedicated to preserving the stories of war heroes and exposing fakers.

There weren't bloggers around to expose lying sportwriters back when Putnam was spinning his bullshit.

 

This is solely addressing whether or not he served. The people who maintain those service and award sites usually have access to the military's archives in St. Louis (if I'm not mistaken). In fact, everyone does, as long as they have enough identifying information. It's very likely they would have searched those archives before making the claim that he'd never served.

From a military standpoint, if he's not listed in the archives, it's pretty much a lock he didn't serve.

 

And they couldn't be wrong? Or bear a grudge?

I'll wait for a second go 'round on this before passing judgment.

 

Had no comment.

 

If in fact the historians (and Marine officials, according to the Marine Corps Times) are wrong or bearing a grudge, then we all should find out toot sweet, since I am sure Putnam's relatives will be producing his Navy Cross and Purple Hearts, like today, to clear his good name.

 

Putnam's daughter must be in on the grudge.
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/20080502_Revelations_about_boxing_writer_Pat_Putnam.html
"I really didn't know anything about this," his daughter, Colleen Putnam, said yesterday. "From what I understand, this started out as a lark. Then it started to grow and grow until it got out of hand.

"He never talked about any of this, not to me, not to my kids. My father was Irish. He liked to tell stories. He was a funny man. This was a story he just should never have told."

 

There had to be somebody from the Marines who remembers fighting with him, especially since he was such a colorful character/storyteller, right?

 

When I was younger and would go through my dad's old SIs, always read Putnam's boxing stories, even though I'm not that big of a boxing fan. But loved reading about Sugar Ray Leonard, Ali-Holmes, etc. And if I remember McCambridge's book correctly, didn't he sort of get screwed in his exit from SI?

A story about the group from seven years ago. They don't seem like the types to just carry grudges.

http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies61.htm

A section from that:

Latest casualty: Distinguished historian Joseph J. Ellis, exposed as a phony Vietnam veteran, besmirching an otherwise brilliant career as an author and professor.

Other notables among the recently fallen: a Pennsylvania schools superintendent who claimed to have been a decorated Navy SEAL; a retired police chief in Ohio who told stories of Green Beret heroism and brutal captivity as a prisoner of the Viet Cong; a leader of Wal-Mart's executive security detail who claimed to have been not only a SEAL but also a master killer, supposedly dispatching one of his 16 victims with a rolled-up newspaper; a major league baseball manager who told his players hair-raising tales of Marine missions in Vietnam. Impostors, one and all.

 

Ask Fredo.
Garry Trudeau's 10K offer to anyone who saw him in Alabama is still unclaimed, I believe.

 

I don't believe the Marines bear a grudge. But I'm also unwilling to rely completely on their bureaucratic inerrancy across 55 years of paper record-keeping.

And I don't know anything about the bloggers, but it strikes me interesting that this breaks the week an award is to be given in Putnam's name.

If he has surviving family who can defend him, than as you say, they should do so.

 

jmac --
They might lose a service record.
They're not going to lose track of a service record, a POW, four Purple Hearts and a Navy Cross.
I hope to god Putnam wasn't collecting VA benefits of any kind, or his family's in a real jackpot.

 

Completely understood. And I'm not defending him. Just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt for an hour or two before we roll in a few corraborative stories.

I'm still curious, though, about how and to whom Putnam's claims were made, and how exactly they came to be challenged.