Thread by @_NoMan2000

Time for a full thread on Nathan Phillips. I do not know whether or not he was a Marine. Without a FOIA, this will not be possible. I do know that his claim that he is a Marine combat vet during Vietnam is false though.

Phillips made very specific claims, although tracking each individual source down is difficult. I will try to collect them here.

1: Did Phillips claim to be a Vietnam veteran?

newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…

"I was in Vietnam times and when I was in the Marine Corps times, that's what I was. I was expendable. "

I was in Vietnam. Seems straight forward.

bbc.com/news/world-us-…

BBC also calls him a "Vietnam Vet", and this has been touted around in several news reports.

2: What did he claim to do?

"I'm a veteran," says Phillips, "a Marine Corps infantryman in the '70s"

So he's claiming to specifically be in combat arms during Vietnam.

3:How old is he?

Both the 2000 articles on him and the 2019 articles on him give him the same birth year.

sandhillsexpress.com/featured-news/… …

Nov. 26, 2000, age 45. 2000 - 45 = 1955.

abc13.com/politics/nativ… …

64 years old, January of 2019. 64 - 2019 = 1955

So we have the following information: He was born some time in 1955, he claims to have been to Vietnam, and he claims that he was an Infantryman in Vietnam. Here's where the problems begin.

washingtonpost.com/archive/lifest…

He claims to have joined when he was 17. This would put him at 1972. (1955 + 17 = 1972).

The problem? The last Marine combat unit left Vietnam on June 25, 1971.

historyplace.com/unitedstates/v…

Throughout 1970 and early 1971, other Marine units left Vietnam in succeeding increments . On 14 April 1971, III MAF Headquarters departed for Okinawa, leaving behind the 3d Marine Amphibious Brigade . Two months later, the brigade was deactivated . Residual Marine forces

in Vietnam consisted of approximately 500 Marines, most of whom were performing essentially liaison, advisory, staff, and guard functions . Approximately 60 officers and men were advisors with the

Vietnamese Marine Division which played a large role in the defensive actions incidental to the North Vietnamese 1972 Easter offensive and in the later South Vietnamese counteroffensive." (page vi)

marines.mil/Portals/59/Pub…

The time to complete Marine infantry training at that time was 13 week boot camp, followed by 8 weeks of ITR training, followed by 52 days of ITB training, (we'll say 7 weeks of training).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St…

Grand total, that's 28 weeks of training.

Let's go back to his age. If the reporting is accurate (insert lol here), then he is 64. His birth date between those two known points (Nov. 26, 2000, age 45. 64 years old, January 20 of 2019)

If we're really generous on this calculation, we can put him born in 1954

Knowing that it must be after Jan 20 and before Nov. 26. The most generous date we can give is tomorrow, Jan 21. Assuming he turned 17 on Jan 21 of 1971 and immediately joined the Marine Corps, he would have then needed to complete 28 weeks of training.

That would take us to August 5, 1971, which is past the June 25, 1971 date that all combat Marines were out of Vietnam.

That is also ignoring all the other wild coincidences that would need to be true.

Statistics show that five men killed in Vietnam were at the age of 16. 12 were seventeen.

argunners.com/young-american… …
archives.gov/research/milit… …

Out of 58,220 dead soldiers. That means that the total populace of soldiers under the age of 18 is .03% of the total fighting populace.

Multiplying .0003 * 2,700,000 total we come up with roughly 810 people who were under the age of 18 in Vietnam.

So as a remarkable set of coincidences, At the tail end of the war in Vietnam, he either forges his birth certificate or gets his parents permission to fight in an incredibly unpopular war.

Then he manages to arrive on deployment after all of this right as all the other Marine combat units were leaving.

Here's a timeline:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a…

You can see after 1969, what became known as "Vietnamization" was a process of "redeployment from South Vietnam to the United States", a total of 16 operations that move troops from Vietnam to America.

There's a whole host of wild coincidences that would have to be true for this guy to be a Marine combat vet. Any decent reporters like @robbysoave or @Timcast figure out if this guy served in the Marines, served as combat arms, and served during Vietnam?

And assuming that the media reporting on his age has been accurate and that my timeline estimations are correct.

The main thing that makes me distrustful is that Nathan Phillips, at best, completely misconstrued what happened. At worst, he deliberately and willfully lied. Such a person's claims should be scrutinized very carefully.

And h/t for this:

vogue.com/projects/13542…

"You know, I’m from Vietnam times. I’m what they call a recon ranger"

I'm not a Marine, so I can't tell. But Force Recon is what the Marines call their elite infantry, Ranger is what the Army calls theirs.

Anyone from the Marines verify this? It sounds like something someone would make up if they heard about Rangers and Force Recon and got them confused in their head.

fox5sandiego.com/2019/01/19/vid…

He claims to have served 1972 to 1976 and to have been in Vietnam. Since the Marine combat units were out of the area completely in those time periods, I don't see this claim being true.

Any Marine vets that can clarify the length of time for infantry training in 1972 for a Force Recon position would be greatly appreciated.

Note that he might have been a Marine vet from '72 to '76 and he might even have been elite Force Recon, but I'm specifically disputing the Vietnam vet. He has made that claim directly numerous times and has insinuated it even more. **

** It is my general observation that when most people fake military service, they go for elite units. I haven't met too many stolen valors claiming to be cooks aboard a naval craft. **

He also keeps using the weasel word "Vietnam Times". I don't like this weasel wording at all. It seems like he's trying to insinuate that he was in Vietnam, and if he gets called out on it, will say, "No, I said Vietnam times, not Vietnam."

At the least, he's allowed multiple outlets over several years (back to 2000) make the claim that he's a Vietnam vet.

I have been informed by someone with more inside knowledge than I that there were in fact, a very few small number of combat arms people active at the time, but that this is an incredibly small group of people.

The source says that Nathan's story doesn't match his/her's experience, but that there's enough doubt to require positive proof (a DD214) before making an official accusation.

And one other thing, this is no way meant to encourage a dog pile on him. Thanks to the attention all of you have brought to this thread, the wheels are in motion and the right people have been made aware.

He will be either outed or exonerated.

Update, someone sent me this:

newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…

'Phillips also described coming back to the U.S. as a veteran of the Vietnam era. “People called me a baby killer and a hippie girl spit on me.”'

As with other things, it's unclear what Phillips actually told the

journalist, but "coming back to the US" indicates he was not stateside.

thisainthell.us/blog/?p=84414&…

This ain't hell has done a good job of pointing out that he hasn't actually called himself a Vietnam vet, but he certainly insinuates it a lot and allows media coverage to say so.

The thing I find weird is people are asking him about this and the dude *loves* attention. He gets in front of the cameras every chance he can get. But now he's radio silent.

If he released a statement that said, "Many news reports classified me as a Vietnam veteran, this is not accurate and I'm sorry for that" or "I was a Vietnam vet serving in (unit) at (time period), here's the proof. (DD214)" that'd be the end of it.

washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/01…

Thanks for everyone sharing this. @washingtonpost changes statement, he was not a Vietnam vet, but they say he served during '72 - '76.

Still waiting on more information about exactly what he did/where in the Corps.

Someone else pointed this one out to me: kickstarter.com/projects/37503…

In 2012 on Kickstarter, Shoshana claims that Nathan served in Vietnam (1:05 in video). Again, with his vague language, it is hard to know exactly what he told her, but he seems to be willing to let people

assume he was a Vietnam vet.

cnn.com/2019/01/21/us/…

This one got pointed out again, but while the transcript reads "I'm a Vietnam veteran" he does not actually say that, he says "I'm a Vietnam times veteran."

Finally, Uncle Jimbo has the full story:



DD214 by retired US Navy SEAL Don Shipley.

There's a lot of whopper lies on this one.

1.) He did not enlist under the name "Nathan Phillips". He enlisted under the name "Nathaniel Richard Stanard".

2.) He was not a full-time Marine, he was a reservist. Nothing wrong with that, but again, note the embellishment.
3.) He was not "infantry" or "Recon Ranger". He was a refrigerator mechanic.
4.) He was discharged as an E1 private. You have to suck hard to do that.

5.) He went AWOL multiple times.
6.) No record that he ever went overseas. So how he was spit on by a hippie girl?

Putting it all together, this makes sense of everything we know about him. He was a shit bird soldier. He was a POGUE stateside reservist.

That's why all of us vets were wondering why no other vets were stepping up to vouch for him.

And it explains all of his negative comments about the Marines and "mob mentality" and "expendable".

There are still other people confirming the accuracy of this report, but it seems to fit.

This ain't hell also confirms that his parents were by all accounts, kind and loving people.

thisainthell.us/blog/?p=84457

They don't deserve to have their names trashed by this scum bag.

Here's a clearer picture.

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1087881473225572352

…

His military education just says "Basic Electrician". In an updated Washington Post story, they say washingtonpost.com/national-secur… …

"From October 1972 to February 1973, he was classified as an antitank missileman,"

" a kind of infantryman". BUT once again, he never completed training and as far as I can tell, that form only shows TWO DAYS as an "infantryman", of which, he spent one AWOL. It looks like they shipped his ass right back off as soon as he arrived.

Claiming two days, one day AWOL and one day out-processing, as an "infantryman", is uh, let's say blowing on a very slender reed.

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1088285433673515009

Gathered by @phillyrich1. Nathan directly claims: 'I got honorable discharge and one of the boxes shows peacetime or, what my box says is that I was **in theater**.'

The only time he was 'in theater' is when he passed out in one.

Also, as Phil Kerpen says, him claiming not to talk a lot about his military time is extremely dead wrong, this gigantic thread wouldn't exist if he didn't talk about it so much. h/t @stevetallent for pointing this out.