STOLEN VALOR: Ron Dickey, Democrat for U.S. Congress, Mississippi's 1st District

STOLEN VALOR: Ron Dickey fraudulently claims service in US Army Special Forces . . . S.L.

A colleague talked to him on the phone for 27 minutes. Ron Dickey admitted he was a cook in 3rd Special Forces Group but the fact that the Army issued him a GB and that he was assigned to the 3rd makes him in his mind “GB” qualified.

An explanation: there was a time period – late 70′s thru to early 90′s – when every person assigned to a Special Forces unit wore the units distinctive headgear: i.e. beret, rifle green. Those that were Special Forces qualified wore a full flash behind the Special Forces regimental crest. Support personnel wore a horizontal bar indicating Group colors (the “Candy Stripe”) with the regimental crest above. When Special Forces became it’s own branch in 1984 and the “long tab” was authorized, all personnel assigned to a Special Forces unit wore the green beret with full flash.

At some point between 1988-92 (when I was overseas) sanity somehow prevailed and support personnel were no longer authorized to wear the green beret. Nowadays support personnel in Special Forces units wear the maroon beret of Airborne forces, with full flash behind the regimental crest.

Dickey has admitted that he never went through the Q-course yet that is a non-issue to him. In his thinking, the Army wouldn’t have given him a green beret if he wasn’t qualified.

Mr. Dickey states in his bio that he is a “Green Beret veteran” – this is unusual as most Special Forces qualified soldiers (who earn the Green Beret through training and award of the 18-series MOS) usually describe ourselves as “Special Forces” – the title “Green Beret” is an unofficial nickname glamorized by Hollywood. We do use this phrase to describe ourselves to civilians in order to distinguish ourselves from other Special Operations Forces – civilians usually do not understand the difference between “Special Forces” and Navy SEALs, US Army Rangers, Delta, Marine Force Recon (MARSOF), or Air Force ST units.

Ron Dickey has been deleting most of our comments off his Facebook page and then blocking us. Funny, first he thanks us for the post exposing him as a fraud and then he deletes the comment and blocks.

Ron Dickey never went through the US Army Special Forces Q-course. Ron Dickey falsely claims to be a “Green Beret veteran”.

The Stolen Valor Act of 2013 makes it a Federal crime for people to falsely claim military service with the intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefits, or to pass themselves off as war heroes by wearing medals they didn’t rightfully earn.

An earlier version of the Stolen Valor Act, passed in 2005, was struck down in June 2012 when the Supreme Court ruled that lying about military heroics was constitutionally protected speech unless there was intent to gain some benefit or something of value by fraud.

Email for the main paper in Ron Dickey’s district: http://djournal.com/contact-us/ and the main news channel is http://www.wtva.com/default.aspx

Ron Dickey also claims membership in the Military Order of the Purple Heart. I’m pretty sure a cook who got wounded in Desert Storm would stand out, but oddly nobody in the Special Forces brotherhood can recall this. At this time we have initiated a Freedom of Information request for release of records. The MOPH website says membership is open to those “. . . who were awarded the Purple Heart or who work for the organization.” This explains his membership since he was employed by the MOPH at one point.

We do not suffer fools lightly, and we have zero tolerance policy towards phony wannabees who fraudulently claim Special Forces status. At this time an investigation is underway to determine if this is a valid case of Stolen Valor.

STORMBRINGER SENDS