Exposing a poseur

[LINK] AJC (he knew the guy)

The Sunday Atlanta paper contained an article on a Marine poseur (claiming to have won the Navy Cross) who had been exposed.

A color photo showed Richard Thibodeau in his dress uniform, wearing a chest full of medals.

In fact, he was never even in the Marines.

Original story (with link) in the continuation

For another apparent poseur, see this article at hotair.com and Op For. (Murdoc wishes he'd thought up the phrase "battle buddy.")

[LINK] AJC

By STEVE VISSER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/20/06

Marine Corps veteran Stephen Walker was honored to meet Richard Thibodeau, especially when he read about the heroism that earned his fellow Gwinnett Marine the Navy Cross in Vietnam.

"When I got his biography, I took it over to my dad's house, I was that impressed," said Walker, a Gulf War veteran. "I thought 'How can I be in the same room with this guy?' It made me feel small."

The Navy Cross brought Thibodeau, 64, a seat of honor at the Marine Corps League's Georgia banquet May 13 at the American Legion Post 251 in Duluth. The Navy Cross citation, outlining acts of uncommon valor, hung in the Gwinnett County Veterans Memorial Museum in Lawrenceville. Thibodeau claimed in the paperwork he supplied the museum to have retired as a sergeant major, the highest enlisted rank in the Marines.

But the citation, the medal and the rank all were lies.

Thibodeau now admits he never served in Vietnam, never earned the Navy Cross, never saw combat. He never was a Marine.

The Lawrenceville resident, a medical technologist, is one of the latest of a growing number of military frauds.

Doug Sterner, who runs homeofheroes.com, a Web site that honors genuine heroes, said he has referred the case to FBI Special Agent Thomas Cottone, who investigates medal fraud.

Cottone wouldn't confirm there is an active investigation, but medal fraud is becoming more prevalent nationwide as military service has risen in prestige among Americans, especially in time of war.

Walker, the 35-year-old commandant of the Gwinnett chapter of the Marine Corps League, said Thibodeau had been well liked by metro Atlanta Marines. Now he hopes Thibodeau will be prosecuted.

"Everybody is completely in shock. This thing completely blindsided us," Walker said. "I hope he gets what he deserves."

Cottone, based in New Jersey, said he has come across about 50 referrals of fraud involving medals like the Navy Cross in the last year.

"I guarantee you that this Memorial Day and this Veterans Day, there will be many people out there wearing unearned military awards," he said.

The imposters' motives range from pure ego to profit, Cottone said. Wearing medals for valor is a federal offense that carries prison time, he said, but the real punishment is public exposure.

Thibodeau admitted to the Journal-Constitution that he illegally wore the Navy Cross. He later admitted he was never a Marine, despite claiming in an e-mailed apology to real Marines that he had been wounded while in the service.

Hal Gosnell, a retired Marine Reserve colonel in Rome, outed Thibodeau after the banquet when he couldn't find Thibodeau's citation listed on homeofheroes.com.

He sent a copy of the Navy Cross citation to Sterner, who found it had been plagiarized almost word for word from the legitimate citation of another Marine who earned the Navy Cross in 1966.

"I had several friends in the Marine Corps League who vouched for him," said Gosnell, 66. "The whole thing unraveled."

Years of duping others

In an interview with the Journal-Constitution, Thibodeau blamed the lie on a prank that had gone awry. He claimed his actions were mitigated because he only deceived his fellow Marines.

"I never went to a parade or a school touting it, it was only the Marine Corps League," he said Thursday night. "At least I had enough integrity for that ... In my mind I wasn't harming anyone because I wasn't capitalizing on it."

Thibodeau explained that the deception began about 13 years ago. He and two friends he described as Marine vets had a mocked-up photograph that showed Thibodeau wearing the Navy Cross. At Marine get-togethers, one of the friends would pull out the photograph as evidence he was a war hero, Thibodeau said.

"He just got a real kick out of how many people were that stupid," said Thibodeau. "Then I couldn't say anything because if I did it would hurt them and make the believers look stupid."

Norm Worthington, a medically retired Marine staff sergeant in Buford, said Thibodeau wasn't a reluctant party to a bad joke. He said he even once heard Thibodeau complain that his achievement was overlooked at a Marine League gathering in Birmingham, Ala.

Thibodeau helped organize the Gwinnett veterans museum, and donated the fraudulent citation to it, Worthington said.

"He put himself there," said Worthington, who was the chairman of the Marine banquet in Duluth. "My wife and I — my wife was a Marine too — are just totally devastated."

Thibodeau claimed a friend put his citation in the museum.

A tangle of lies

He has changed the story about his Marine service repeatedly since the Journal-Constitution first interviewed him. On Thursday night, he claimed he had been part of the elite Marine Recon in Vietnam. But after learning that Sterner, who runs the hero Web site, was pulling his military records, he admitted he had never served in Vietnam.

On Friday morning, he e-mailed the following message: "I have never been in the military. I have never been to Vietnam. I have never had any dealings with the military."

Sterner noted that Thibodeau's paperwork at the museum said he had retired as a sergeant major. Other Marines said Thibodeau claimed to have retired as a master sergeant.

"I guess he couldn't keep his lies straight," Sterner said.

"This was just a stupid, immature thing that took on a life of its own," Thibodeau said. "Then it becomes a question of ego and you don't want to admit you screwed everyone, so you keep the lie going."