If they did, I missed that point. And if I missed that point, my criticism and questions may be invalid. You will kindly note that I have been wrong before!!

It does my heart good to see the friendship and fellowship expressed by these new and old members. It is also quite satisfying to see a positive outcome from all of the mess and waste of time that the ousted wannabe Ron caused here and unfortunately, continues to promote on other sites.

I want to also express my gratitude to David for doing the right thing and hope we have all learned a lesson about self-restraint. I said before that the credibility of this site rests not only in the hands of the owner and administrator but also in the membership that must always put the good of the whole above the good of the individual.

I agree that each of us has our own level of patience and some are more quick to anger than others but most of us I think will agree that no one here deserves to be insulted to the point of retaliation and no one here needs to justify the exposure of a wannabe.

This site is about the preservation of military history and nothing is more precious or important to military history then the actual participants, both the living and the dead.
To me, a wannabe takes from both and ultimately brings dishonor on us all.

This is indeed an ending worth noting and I feel like much good has come out of a very ugly beginning.

Thank you gentlemen.
Semper Fi

Guys,

Once again Scott is spot on! With this being an open forum with no foolproof vetting process, wannabees are going to pop up on the radar every now and again. Some will be only suspected wannabees that later prove to be real-deal guys such as farmboy, some will be genuine wannabees as was Ron. Not that I know about this Ron character as I was not a member of this forum when things happened with him, nor have I gone back and read any of the original posts about his exposure. All I know is what I have read here over the past couple of weeks is that two types of problems have reared their ugly heads.

One evidently was some sort of fall-outs over who knew what when about Ron being a wannabee. Clearly Ron must have befriended some here and abused that friendship and trust to perpetuate his wannabee tales. In that case you were all victims. As I was not part of that debacle, let me say that y’all need to forget Ron, chalk it up as a bad experience, and move on. I like the guys that I have met here on this forum and PF-2, and hate to see what happened over Ron come between real deal guys like you.

The other thing was the farmboy problem. I see that problem was caused simply by guys discussing things, good or bad, true of false, without having all the facts. In the future, I highly recommend that y’all go get the facts first via a Freedom Of Information Act request through Mary Schantag of the POW Network and act accordingly. Perhaps even temorarily suspend a suspected wannabee from posting while the FOIA request is being processed. Leave it up to the administrators to decide what to do with the wannabee, rather than letting a forum fall apart over that which has not been substantiated. I suspect that leaving a known wannabee on any forum would be quite detrimental though, and the administrators did the absolute right thing getting rid of Ron. Maybe the History Channel (?) needs to take action now, if that is where Ron is now wolfing his stories. That’s just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
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I think a FOIA request over both farmboy and Ron would have saved a lot of hard feelings and hurtful things that I saw posted both here and on PF-2.
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Robert

Robert,
I'm afraid that The History Channel has a long record of ignoring the obvious and allowing what I see as constant ridicule of VietNam veterans on the VietNam War forums by whoever or whatever entity wishes. They then usually delete the responses from those that convey a message of vigorous denial or find fault with the accusations made about VietNam veterans. Also there seems to be a fail safe built into their system whereas all someone has to do is lodge a complaint against some post or thread as violating the community standards and usually it mysteriously disappears and no one knows who filed the complaint. There is an option of placing someone who you find fault with on ignore and you will no longer see this persons posts but let's face it, most of us are not easily deterred from defending what we perceive as attacks on our integrity and honor and as far as I'm concerned, to ignore these lies is to condone them and give them credibility. So you see, short of the administrators or moderators of THC being more objective or at least fair about what I see as attacks on the legacy of we VietNam veterans, nothing I imagine will change. It's like watching history being rewritten and being unable to do anything about it. I imagine that it is one of the few places where a wannabe can feel safe and untouchable and at the same time get national attention. I seem to be alone over there but as General Peter Pace said: "You're making the wrong assumption that a Marine by himself is outnumbered."
Semper Fi

o3fox

You are not alone over there. I went over there and replied to 39M when he said he would forward all his posts so anyone can see he aint a wannabe. So far, nothing.. I also pm'd you for a little more info over on PF2..Keep the faith Bro'

Ron P.

Ron P.,
I had noticed you at both places and I assumed as much but I didn't want to appear invasive. If you do or don't receive any material from him is probably irrelevant as I'm sure since he is forewarned and already reeling from being exposed and banned from PF's he is not about to furnish anything that is incriminating. You know, what I find really intriguing is that I had absolutely nothing to do with his exposure on any site. It was his friends that he had deceived for a lengthy time on this site and it was they that caught him in irrefutable lies. They were the ones most taken advantage of and they, not me, are the source of his own downfall and misguided arrogance that he continues to display on other sites. There are games people play that should never be played and there are people that should never be threatened, both of these mistakes have been made by this individual and for that, he is indeed foolish.
Semper Fi

03fox

I understand that perhaps he was just spouting off, but as a FNG, I offered him an opportunity to do what he said would do in his post. All I could tell was that he was a grunt in a Recon Platoon in the 4th ID..Doesn't really matter to me. I think that it is most unfortunate when a friend or aquantaince of a lenthgy time turns out to be something other than he/she claims and that appears to happen all to often. Not just in Veteran circles, but in all walks of life. It has been proven that sometimes people do it to have a circle of folks that admire them, some because they lack self confidence and some for monetary gain.. No matter the reason, it is still disruptive to those effected by the fraud...Later Marine

Ron P.

Guys,

I sent Ron a message letting him know I'd be interested in reading his 20 page response, too - to date - nada. :r:

And so it goes...;)

Purple

Packo's account has been reactivated.

My service and identity were questioned, then I became a subject of ridicule. My hide is thick and my memory is long.