johnb
08-16-2004, 01:51 PM
This is from the Navy Times, I think you need to be a subscriber to the hard copy version to be able to view the link. I've included the link anyway though.
This naval officer is now in prison for doing something very similar to what Kerry did, wearing medals he did not earn or claimed fraudulently.
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-NAVYPAPER-290345.php
Issue Date: August 16, 2004
The captain was a fraud
His chestful of medals was bogus, and the lies caught up with him. Now he sits in the Quantico brig.
By Bryant Jordan
Times staff writer
Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards? résumé was impressive by any standard: A 36-year military career included stints in the Army, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, since 1977, the Navy, where he rose to captain and served as executive assistant to Rear Adm. Robert D. Hufstader Jr., the Marine Corps? top medical officer.
He was a combat medic in Vietnam, commanded medical battalions, ran a hospital, and was a senior medical plans officer for U.S. Central Command.
His private life was no less impressive. Edwards is an ordained Episcopal priest, a husband, a father of two daughters and a licensed pharmacist.
But what immediately impressed most people about the 54-year-old, especially the Marines with whom he served, was the 13-tiered rack of medals he proudly wore upon his chest. This was not your typical end-of-tour fruit salad for a Medical Service Corps officer who would have spent a career behind the lines. On the contrary, this was a warrior?s résumé, including a Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, the Combat Action Ribbon and four Purple Hearts. A basic parachutist insignia capped off the massive stack, further attesting to Edwards? courage, valor and warrior status.
So impressive was he, that the Marine Corps commandant himself honored Edwards with the official title Honorary Marine.
Trouble was, it was all a lie. Edwards didn?t rate those medals. The captain was a liar and a phony.
And now he?s in the brig.
Edwards was found guilty July 30 of 11 counts of wearing unauthorized decorations. His fraud had been ferreted out and reported by an intrepid FBI agent, among others. He was sentenced to 115 days confinement and a total of $7,500 forfeiture in pay over three months, and slapped with an official letter of reprimand. He?s expected to retire once he?s released from jail, but at what rank remains unclear. Navy officials will have to determine the highest rank he attained in which he served honorably.
So today, Edwards, who pleaded guilty at his court-martial, wears prison orange and has the distinction of being the only officer in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.
Bogus medals on all fronts
Edwards? medals fraud was extensive. In addition to the Silver Star, the DFC, CAR and Purple Hearts, he illegally sported a Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster (representing his fourth award), the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Citation, the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal and the Basic Parachutist Badge.
And those did not include the dozen or more other awards he wore and could not back up in court. The Marine Corps decided not to prosecute the others under a pretrial agreement that secured his guilty plea.
?I apologize to the court ? offer my sincere, heartfelt and deepest apology for putting the Marine Corps in this position,? Edwards said in an emotional statement to the court July 30, hours before being sentenced, while his wife, Brenda, sat alone and fingering a set of rosary beads. ?I am deeply remorseful over the negative publicity this has caused ? It?s been my honor and privilege to serve 17 years with the Marine Corps.?
At one point, looking over his shoulder to his wife, Edwards noted the pain it has caused her and his daughters.
?My children cry and have suffered. I stand before you a broken man,? he told the judge, Navy Capt. Henry Lazzaro. ?My sorrow revolves around how I have let so many people down.?
For an officer who served so long with the Marines ? much of it quite notably ? what happened next was perhaps the ultimate humiliation. The Corps forced Edwards to surrender the eagle, globe and anchor pin given to him by the commandant of the Marine Corps when he was made an Honorary Marine.
Had Edwards fought the charges and lost, he could have been sentenced to six months? incarceration, forfeiture of six months? pay and allowances and dismissal from the Navy ? which not only would have ended his career, but stripped him of all retirement benefits.
But Charles Gittins, Edwards? civilian defense attorney, called the jail sentence ?bizarre,? and questioned the wisdom of putting a Navy captain ? an O-6 ? in the brig, to be overseen by junior enlisted troops. He?s since petitioned the court to have Edwards released to house arrest, based on his ?difficult psychiatric circumstances.?
?The goal was to preserve his retirement,? Gittins said after the trial, and in that the defense succeeded.
That Edwards had a long and notable career in the military was never in question. In fact, some of his laudable achievements were even brought up in court, including his work on a deployable surgical wing called a Forward Resuscitative Surgical Suite used in the war in Iraq.
?No wounded Marine who reached an FRSS died? during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Edwards told the court.
But his deceit overshadowed all other achievements.
?I thought that I rated them?
Edwards admitted he began wearing various bogus medals, award devices and badges beginning in July 2001 ? although the prosecution produced a witness who testified he wore them as early as 1997 ? and that he wore the disputed decorations even after realizing he didn?t have the authority to do so. His illegal medals, however, were the most brazen breeches of honor. Sometimes he wore all the illegal medals, sometimes just a few, depending on what uniform and blouse he was wearing. Amazingly, he wore his medals based on what he?d worn previously. ?If it had the holes, I?d wear them all,? he told the court.
When the judge asked him how he came to be wearing all these ribbons and medals, he said:
?I thought that I rated them.?
Edwards said he believed he rated the Silver Star because a battalion commander gave him a certificate saying so as he was processing out of Vietnam. But later, in 1998, he realized he had no supporting paperwork. He realized this while going through his records in anticipation of a rear admiral selection board, he said.
Edwards said he pinned on the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Citation because he read in Navy Times that his former unit was authorized the medal. He later realized he was not authorized to wear it, he said, but did not remove it from his rack.
In fact, he went on wearing others he also knew he didn?t merit.
Edwards admitted in court he never had any reason to believe he rated the DFC or the Purple Hearts, and said he was never wounded while serving in Vietnam. It was the same with the CAR: Edwards admitted he never saw combat while in the Navy or serving with the Marine Corps. And he certainly never rated the basic parachutist insignia.
He also knew he didn?t rate the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal, and said he knowingly wore the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal without authority.
?I chose to ignore all that. I know in my heart I was wrong,? he told the court. ?I had no justification. I was wrong.?
Ironically, it was his stellar service with the Corps that brought him to the attention of then-Commandant Gen. James Jones, who bestowed on him the Honorary Marine title on Oct. 31, 2002.
Start of the end
That ceremony was the beginning of Edwards? undoing. Alongside him that day was another man being awarded the title Honorary Marine, FBI Special Agent Tom Cottone. Cottone has made a specialty out of sniffing out phony medal wearers, including more than 100 bogus Medals of Honor.
Cottone and others, including the Navy inspector general, were soon on his trail.
According to Edwards? former commanding officer in Vietnam, who testified July 30 by telephone from Boise, Idaho, Edwards ?was a fine medic? whose duties typically involved screening soldiers coming into sick call at the Can Tho airfield dispensary. But Dr. Harry D. Silsby ? a retired Army colonel ? said Edwards, then a Specialist 5, did accompany him and several others on a mission to establish a forward aid station for treating and evacuating soldiers wounded during a firefight.
For his actions on that mission, which occurred Jan. 15-17, 1971, Edwards and two other soldiers with the 307th Aviation Battalion each were legitimately awarded the Army Commendation Medal with ?V? for heroism. The medal citation states that the men ?repeatedly exposed themselves to the deadly enemy fire as they administered the wounds of the friendly personnel throughout the combat area. Their unwavering devotion to duty in the face of extreme adversity, which resulted in the medical evacuation to hospitals of critically wounded personnel, serves as an inspiration to soldiers of the group.?
But while Silsby recalled their Can Tho base being hit by mortar fire about once a month, Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Derald Donovan, who conducted a psychological evaluation of Edwards for trial, said Edwards indicated to him that he was ?exposed to mortar attacks on a constant basis? in Vietnam.
He also claimed he was assigned to medic duties with infantry units, went on medevac missions that came under fire, helped rescue soldiers in a caved-in tunnel and was wounded by enemy fire.
The picture of Edwards painted by Donovan, who heads the behavioral sciences division for forensic psychiatry at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, portrays Edwards as a ?Walter Mitty? type ? the name stems from a 1947 movie and describes a man who tried to fill the emptiness inside him with experiences, real or not, that made him feel better about himself.
He said Edwards suffers chronic post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his combat experiences in Vietnam, and a narcissistic personality disorder stemming from a childhood of abuse and humiliation.
?Wearing medals was a way to get him to safe ground,? Donovan said, and met ?his need to feel superior.?
In response to a question by Edwards? Marine Corps defender, Lt. Col. Louis Puleo, Donovan agreed that Edwards used the ribbons and medals ?as props.?
Those same props brought Edwards special attention wherever he went. When he visited Auburn University for his eldest daughter?s commissioning ceremony, his medals caught the eye of Navy Capt. John McMurtrie Jr., a professor of naval science, who subsequently asked Edwards to lecture his students on leadership.
Suspicious collection
Marine Capt. Charles Miracle, the Corps? lead prosecutor, used that invitation to counter the defense?s argument that Edwards did not benefit from wearing unauthorized medals. The medals, Miracle said, gave Edwards a special status among military members.
McMurtrie, now an instructor with the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., said he counted 29 awards on Edwards and said he looked ?pretty impressive.?
The ribbons also made an impression on FBI Special Agent Cottone.
Standing with Edwards during the ceremony, Cottone?s practiced eye for medals fraud was immediately drawn to the impressive rack of ribbons, which didn?t seem to match the biography he?d seen in the ceremony?s program. The FBI agent privately decided to look into Edwards? case.
Cottone quickly found that the Navy officer was not authorized to wear most of the medals on his chest. But because Edwards was on active duty, Cottone lacked jurisdiction on the case. So he called the Navy IG?s office, and found they also were looking into Edwards based on an anonymous hot-line tip.
In court July 30, Cottone countered the defense argument that Edwards? fraud was a victimless crime. Being made an Honorary Marine is a rare honor, he said, and Edwards, by his actions, has forever dampened Cottone?s own memory of receiving that honor.
Afterwards, outside the courtroom during a brief recess, a visibly steamed Cottone was even more emphatic.
?If this is a victimless crime, why did Edwards, when he was reading his statement, start apologizing for everything he?s done?? Cottone said. ?You see his wife back there, crying? She?s a victim.? So, too, he added, is one of Edwards? daughters, who is a Navy officer.
?Every time he wore those [medals] and people saw what he was wearing, people who saw him gave him more respect and admiration. They were victims because they were deceived. Other victims are those who legitimately earned everything he fraudulently wore.?
Now the fraud is over. Edwards is in jail. And the victims are left to pick up the pieces and wonder: Why?
This naval officer is now in prison for doing something very similar to what Kerry did, wearing medals he did not earn or claimed fraudulently.
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-NAVYPAPER-290345.php
Issue Date: August 16, 2004
The captain was a fraud
His chestful of medals was bogus, and the lies caught up with him. Now he sits in the Quantico brig.
By Bryant Jordan
Times staff writer
Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards? résumé was impressive by any standard: A 36-year military career included stints in the Army, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, since 1977, the Navy, where he rose to captain and served as executive assistant to Rear Adm. Robert D. Hufstader Jr., the Marine Corps? top medical officer.
He was a combat medic in Vietnam, commanded medical battalions, ran a hospital, and was a senior medical plans officer for U.S. Central Command.
His private life was no less impressive. Edwards is an ordained Episcopal priest, a husband, a father of two daughters and a licensed pharmacist.
But what immediately impressed most people about the 54-year-old, especially the Marines with whom he served, was the 13-tiered rack of medals he proudly wore upon his chest. This was not your typical end-of-tour fruit salad for a Medical Service Corps officer who would have spent a career behind the lines. On the contrary, this was a warrior?s résumé, including a Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, the Combat Action Ribbon and four Purple Hearts. A basic parachutist insignia capped off the massive stack, further attesting to Edwards? courage, valor and warrior status.
So impressive was he, that the Marine Corps commandant himself honored Edwards with the official title Honorary Marine.
Trouble was, it was all a lie. Edwards didn?t rate those medals. The captain was a liar and a phony.
And now he?s in the brig.
Edwards was found guilty July 30 of 11 counts of wearing unauthorized decorations. His fraud had been ferreted out and reported by an intrepid FBI agent, among others. He was sentenced to 115 days confinement and a total of $7,500 forfeiture in pay over three months, and slapped with an official letter of reprimand. He?s expected to retire once he?s released from jail, but at what rank remains unclear. Navy officials will have to determine the highest rank he attained in which he served honorably.
So today, Edwards, who pleaded guilty at his court-martial, wears prison orange and has the distinction of being the only officer in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.
Bogus medals on all fronts
Edwards? medals fraud was extensive. In addition to the Silver Star, the DFC, CAR and Purple Hearts, he illegally sported a Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster (representing his fourth award), the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Citation, the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal and the Basic Parachutist Badge.
And those did not include the dozen or more other awards he wore and could not back up in court. The Marine Corps decided not to prosecute the others under a pretrial agreement that secured his guilty plea.
?I apologize to the court ? offer my sincere, heartfelt and deepest apology for putting the Marine Corps in this position,? Edwards said in an emotional statement to the court July 30, hours before being sentenced, while his wife, Brenda, sat alone and fingering a set of rosary beads. ?I am deeply remorseful over the negative publicity this has caused ? It?s been my honor and privilege to serve 17 years with the Marine Corps.?
At one point, looking over his shoulder to his wife, Edwards noted the pain it has caused her and his daughters.
?My children cry and have suffered. I stand before you a broken man,? he told the judge, Navy Capt. Henry Lazzaro. ?My sorrow revolves around how I have let so many people down.?
For an officer who served so long with the Marines ? much of it quite notably ? what happened next was perhaps the ultimate humiliation. The Corps forced Edwards to surrender the eagle, globe and anchor pin given to him by the commandant of the Marine Corps when he was made an Honorary Marine.
Had Edwards fought the charges and lost, he could have been sentenced to six months? incarceration, forfeiture of six months? pay and allowances and dismissal from the Navy ? which not only would have ended his career, but stripped him of all retirement benefits.
But Charles Gittins, Edwards? civilian defense attorney, called the jail sentence ?bizarre,? and questioned the wisdom of putting a Navy captain ? an O-6 ? in the brig, to be overseen by junior enlisted troops. He?s since petitioned the court to have Edwards released to house arrest, based on his ?difficult psychiatric circumstances.?
?The goal was to preserve his retirement,? Gittins said after the trial, and in that the defense succeeded.
That Edwards had a long and notable career in the military was never in question. In fact, some of his laudable achievements were even brought up in court, including his work on a deployable surgical wing called a Forward Resuscitative Surgical Suite used in the war in Iraq.
?No wounded Marine who reached an FRSS died? during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Edwards told the court.
But his deceit overshadowed all other achievements.
?I thought that I rated them?
Edwards admitted he began wearing various bogus medals, award devices and badges beginning in July 2001 ? although the prosecution produced a witness who testified he wore them as early as 1997 ? and that he wore the disputed decorations even after realizing he didn?t have the authority to do so. His illegal medals, however, were the most brazen breeches of honor. Sometimes he wore all the illegal medals, sometimes just a few, depending on what uniform and blouse he was wearing. Amazingly, he wore his medals based on what he?d worn previously. ?If it had the holes, I?d wear them all,? he told the court.
When the judge asked him how he came to be wearing all these ribbons and medals, he said:
?I thought that I rated them.?
Edwards said he believed he rated the Silver Star because a battalion commander gave him a certificate saying so as he was processing out of Vietnam. But later, in 1998, he realized he had no supporting paperwork. He realized this while going through his records in anticipation of a rear admiral selection board, he said.
Edwards said he pinned on the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Citation because he read in Navy Times that his former unit was authorized the medal. He later realized he was not authorized to wear it, he said, but did not remove it from his rack.
In fact, he went on wearing others he also knew he didn?t merit.
Edwards admitted in court he never had any reason to believe he rated the DFC or the Purple Hearts, and said he was never wounded while serving in Vietnam. It was the same with the CAR: Edwards admitted he never saw combat while in the Navy or serving with the Marine Corps. And he certainly never rated the basic parachutist insignia.
He also knew he didn?t rate the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal, and said he knowingly wore the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal without authority.
?I chose to ignore all that. I know in my heart I was wrong,? he told the court. ?I had no justification. I was wrong.?
Ironically, it was his stellar service with the Corps that brought him to the attention of then-Commandant Gen. James Jones, who bestowed on him the Honorary Marine title on Oct. 31, 2002.
Start of the end
That ceremony was the beginning of Edwards? undoing. Alongside him that day was another man being awarded the title Honorary Marine, FBI Special Agent Tom Cottone. Cottone has made a specialty out of sniffing out phony medal wearers, including more than 100 bogus Medals of Honor.
Cottone and others, including the Navy inspector general, were soon on his trail.
According to Edwards? former commanding officer in Vietnam, who testified July 30 by telephone from Boise, Idaho, Edwards ?was a fine medic? whose duties typically involved screening soldiers coming into sick call at the Can Tho airfield dispensary. But Dr. Harry D. Silsby ? a retired Army colonel ? said Edwards, then a Specialist 5, did accompany him and several others on a mission to establish a forward aid station for treating and evacuating soldiers wounded during a firefight.
For his actions on that mission, which occurred Jan. 15-17, 1971, Edwards and two other soldiers with the 307th Aviation Battalion each were legitimately awarded the Army Commendation Medal with ?V? for heroism. The medal citation states that the men ?repeatedly exposed themselves to the deadly enemy fire as they administered the wounds of the friendly personnel throughout the combat area. Their unwavering devotion to duty in the face of extreme adversity, which resulted in the medical evacuation to hospitals of critically wounded personnel, serves as an inspiration to soldiers of the group.?
But while Silsby recalled their Can Tho base being hit by mortar fire about once a month, Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Derald Donovan, who conducted a psychological evaluation of Edwards for trial, said Edwards indicated to him that he was ?exposed to mortar attacks on a constant basis? in Vietnam.
He also claimed he was assigned to medic duties with infantry units, went on medevac missions that came under fire, helped rescue soldiers in a caved-in tunnel and was wounded by enemy fire.
The picture of Edwards painted by Donovan, who heads the behavioral sciences division for forensic psychiatry at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, portrays Edwards as a ?Walter Mitty? type ? the name stems from a 1947 movie and describes a man who tried to fill the emptiness inside him with experiences, real or not, that made him feel better about himself.
He said Edwards suffers chronic post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his combat experiences in Vietnam, and a narcissistic personality disorder stemming from a childhood of abuse and humiliation.
?Wearing medals was a way to get him to safe ground,? Donovan said, and met ?his need to feel superior.?
In response to a question by Edwards? Marine Corps defender, Lt. Col. Louis Puleo, Donovan agreed that Edwards used the ribbons and medals ?as props.?
Those same props brought Edwards special attention wherever he went. When he visited Auburn University for his eldest daughter?s commissioning ceremony, his medals caught the eye of Navy Capt. John McMurtrie Jr., a professor of naval science, who subsequently asked Edwards to lecture his students on leadership.
Suspicious collection
Marine Capt. Charles Miracle, the Corps? lead prosecutor, used that invitation to counter the defense?s argument that Edwards did not benefit from wearing unauthorized medals. The medals, Miracle said, gave Edwards a special status among military members.
McMurtrie, now an instructor with the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., said he counted 29 awards on Edwards and said he looked ?pretty impressive.?
The ribbons also made an impression on FBI Special Agent Cottone.
Standing with Edwards during the ceremony, Cottone?s practiced eye for medals fraud was immediately drawn to the impressive rack of ribbons, which didn?t seem to match the biography he?d seen in the ceremony?s program. The FBI agent privately decided to look into Edwards? case.
Cottone quickly found that the Navy officer was not authorized to wear most of the medals on his chest. But because Edwards was on active duty, Cottone lacked jurisdiction on the case. So he called the Navy IG?s office, and found they also were looking into Edwards based on an anonymous hot-line tip.
In court July 30, Cottone countered the defense argument that Edwards? fraud was a victimless crime. Being made an Honorary Marine is a rare honor, he said, and Edwards, by his actions, has forever dampened Cottone?s own memory of receiving that honor.
Afterwards, outside the courtroom during a brief recess, a visibly steamed Cottone was even more emphatic.
?If this is a victimless crime, why did Edwards, when he was reading his statement, start apologizing for everything he?s done?? Cottone said. ?You see his wife back there, crying? She?s a victim.? So, too, he added, is one of Edwards? daughters, who is a Navy officer.
?Every time he wore those [medals] and people saw what he was wearing, people who saw him gave him more respect and admiration. They were victims because they were deceived. Other victims are those who legitimately earned everything he fraudulently wore.?
Now the fraud is over. Edwards is in jail. And the victims are left to pick up the pieces and wonder: Why?