Need help seeking info on an individual that claims SF 12th group, MI, 82nd Airborne, Recondo, Jump Master and Forward observer. I think he's full of s@*! But want to verify. Any help is appreciated
. I have his full name and age.

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quote:

Redondo

Im assuming you mean Recondo?

That’s a hell of a resume, and any one of those accomplishments would be amazing, but all of them? LOL

On another board I help with the vetting of military members before they can claim titles on the forum.

Send me his name, if he did all that, I know who to ask.

To add, I’m assuming he’s from the Vietnam era? 12th of disbanded in 1990, and Retonda was definitely only Vietnam.

Send me any dates you might have as well.

If he actually attended/passed Recondo school, it might be fairly easy to verify, because there weren't all that many who did.

Partial lists:
http://www.lrrprangers.com/recondos.htm
http://www.specialforcesbooks.com/RCNDO.htm

Is his name Daniel M. LeClaire of Wheaton, Wisconsin by chance?

Yo Joe!!!

Thanks Ronin yes Recondo. And email sent

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:

quote:

Redondo

Im assuming you mean Recondo?

That’s a hell of a resume, and any one of those accomplishments would be amazing, but all of them? LOL

On another board I help with the vetting of military members before they can claim titles on the forum.

Send me his name, if he did all that, I know who to ask.

To add, I’m assuming he’s from the Vietnam era? 12th of disbanded in 1990, and Retonda was definitely only Vietnam.

Send me any dates you might have as well.

He’d have to be in his 70’s to have gone thru MAC-V school…which according to what you sent me, he’s not.

His name is also not listed on the MAC-V rosters (thanks cas for those links).

Just to tie a bow I’ll validate his G.Beret claim, but don’t be surprised if he was a Supply Clerk in Oklahoma for his whole tour.

Side rant - which is fine, the pipe-hitters and door kickers don’t get their cool-guy shit without supply people.

More to follow..

Didn't Recondo change to LRR in mid 70's? Would someone who went thru that in the early days maybe still call it Recondo? And did the tab change or stay the same? I tried digging up all the info I could. Thank you again for your help Ronin.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
He’d have to be in his 70’s to have gone thru MAC-V school…which according to what you sent me, he’s not.

His name is also not listed on the MAC-V rosters (thanks cas for those links).

Just to tie a bow I’ll validate his G.Beret claim, but don’t be surprised if he was a Supply Clerk in Oklahoma for his whole tour.

Side rant - which is fine, the pipe-hitters and door kickers don’t get their cool-guy shit without supply people.

More to follow..

Thanks CAS he's not on those lists. 48Mul I tried that don't have "enough" info for it to process. And last but not least Steve

That's so sad. Why pretend to be someone you are not?

From my recently retired Green Beret contact:

Honestly best bet is a FOIA request, or to contact the schoolhouse.

SF was weird in the 70’s and 80’s particularly with the reserve groups(12th). Guys could become SF through distance learning and shit.

The last Vietnam Recondo class graduated in 1970. So this dude is too young for that. He would have been 13 years old. Quick googling tells me they ran recondo courses stateside until the 80’s though.

The MI thing is also funny to me. People think Mi is cool and it certainly isn’t.

On the surface dude is full of shit.

If anyone ever tells you that their info was too top-secret to be in their military records, they are full of shit

As a general rule, CIA, Special Forces, Seals, etc do not talk about their service except, maybe, with other veterans. There's just no need. Pretty much, when I hear a blowhard spouting like that, I discount it as BS. Unless there's a good reason, like and employment background check, I don't even care. The liars have to live with themselves, and the combat veterans have enough baggage to deal with. I just let it go-but I don't trust them.

The easiest way to go about that is to ask him:

“What was the color of the boathouse at Hereford?”

Slight side shift: There's an interesting article in the recent SA The Armory Life about Maj John Plaster who did most of those quals from Vietnam but also served in the national guard. Interesting read and has me looking for his books.

Maybe, if he had an email account, he could tell you off the top of his head.

MAJ Plaster's books about everything from military sniping to the Studies and Observations Group in Vietnam are great and well worth the read.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The easiest way to go about that is to ask him:

“What was the color of the boathouse at Hereford?”

Good movie by the way.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
If anyone ever tells you that their info was too top-secret to be in their military records, they are full of shit[/i]

This is true but let me provide amplifying context. Some units will show up on unclassified official records under the bland nomenclature of “data masked” and you won’t be able to verify anything specific. However, I think it unlikely anyone with that pedigree would also be the type of mental weakling to lie about it.

Separate but related topic: although I despise stolen valor assholes as much as anyone, a word of caution about being too quick to jump to conclusions or doubting the veracity of somebody’s service. The past 20 years of GWOT has produced people with crazy experiences (triple digit kills not uncommon in some circles), who have no one to talk with, a culture that doesn’t understand what they did, and are now struggling to process it all.

I recently retired and I am blessed to have a great family who have helped me through some stranger aspects of integrating into civilian society. It has been weirder than I expected. One thing that has surprised me has been running into people from years ago and how much they need to talk. No one else has listened I guess. These people are hurting and talking helps. One commonality is they have been completely dismissed by older veterans of other wars who either don’t believe what they’re talking about or think talking about it is unseemly. War is a drug to some degree, and there are 30 year olds with 15+ deployments hunting and killing. Now they are out and will never do anything that exciting ever again, and that kind of cold turkey detox produces a wide range of reactions.

There are fakes out there, and I am disgusted by them. But there are also real people suffering who need someone to listen and do not understand how to process what they’ve lived.

My thought reading the op is that the guy claiming to be Special Forces is a full-of-shit wannabe.


The real guys rarely talk about any of this, they are called “quiet professionals” for a reason.

My one sister‘s husband just retired from the Air Force like 3 years ago, and was a USAF PJ (Pararescue Jumper) which are the AF’s elite type SF units. From what I can gather talking to my sister, it sounds like he was there at the Bin Laden raid where we wacked that POS but you can’t get this guy to talk directly about that or anything he was involved in.

The age of the person is often a tip as to whether they served in Nam. I usually ask a few specific about places that put them on the spot. Even simple questions like "how long was jump school? From what height did you jump from during jump school? Was that a free fall jump? You get an evasive answer you know they are bogus.

I was at Ft Bragg most of 1968 & 1969 assigned to XVIII Airborne Corp headquarters. If he was in during Vietnam He would have been at Ft Bragg for Special Forces training & if he was a jump master he would have been at Ft Bragg with the 82nd. Ask him what did XVIII Airborne do in Vietnam? (XVIII Corp never was in Vietnam) Ask him where did he go to jump school? (the only jump school was at Ft Benning) Ask him what unit of 82nd jumped in Viet Nam (no 82nd unit did a combat jump) Ask him how many Brigades of the 82nd were in Vietnam (only the 3rd brigade was sent to Vietnam)

Also jump school was 2 weeks for officers and I think 3 weeks for enlisted during that time.

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