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

Fast Edward Schuyler, a Great American.

 

Here are four instances of disqualification from one story written yesterday:

 

The point of that post was that you were wondering where these stories come from. It's pretty obvious that Ed Schuyler Jr. had first hand knowledge of these stories, from the source himself.
Unless everybody involved in this lies on a scale of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

 

It was probably the Navy Cross thing that made the military historian take notice when he read the article by Fernandez, especially if they're just one step below the Medal of Honor. If he'd just said he'd won some Purple Hearts, which millions have earned, it probably wouldn't have raised his antennae. But someone like him, whose life now is exposing those who lie about their service, will likely be pretty curious when he hears anyone claiming an honor like the Navy Cross.

 

Poin, he's not disputing the fraud story.

Just asking about the circumstances of Putnam's original stories. Which, in this case, seems pretty fair to ask. Probably should have been asked years ago, as we know now.

 

No, the Marine Corps Times says the tape goes until 1970. Not back to 1970. So it would have covered Putnam's service time.

 

Well, the "lost" medals certainly aren't coming from the daughter. She says that his war scars came from a car accident.

Putnam said her father's war stories began when someone asked him about the scars on his back that were from a car accident. "He said he was in the war, and it grew and grew. Maybe my father didn't know how to stop it."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-putnam2-2008may02,0,5138153.story

Of course, this is coming from Lance Pugmire. He's been known to get stuff wrong, too.

 

I'll grant your point if you'll grant the idea that sentence can be read either way.

Putnam, who died in 2005, does not exist in Marine Corps Archival Tapes, a list of Marine veterans that covers Corps history until about 1970.

That aside, who's to say that those records are infallible? Or even reliable?

Or that Putnam hadn't enlisted under another name because he was underage?

Just because he doesn't appear on the roll for the Navy Cross or the Purple Heart doesn't mean he was never in the service.

And I'm still waiting for someone to show me where Putnam himself ever made those claims in a public forum.

Again, bad reporting doesn't forgive further bad reporting. Especially with so much at stake.

 

jmac --
FWIW, Putnam made the Korea POW claim to a number of us in Seoul.

 

Isn't the one who said to Ali, in his presser after the Berbick fight, "Champ, from all of us, thanks for a hell of a ride." Class move.

 

So Pugmire actually does some reporting - as opposed to the first piece you posted - and expands on the story.

Still waiting for a citation of Putnam making any of these claims in anything other than private conversation.

Add:

I understand, F_B.

But let me ask this: is it right to indict a man for exaggerating his service, when those exaggerations have only been made in private conversation?

 

Four or five people is not private conversation.
It's pretty plain from the Obit that he told practically everybody at SI.