Thread by @dyllyp

Lmao I’ve had a dozen people DM me this tweet. And yes, this is the same show I worked on. You couldn’t write this story, that’s how crazy it is.

https://twitter.com/caitiedelaney/status/1443708742797717532

And since it’s been so long I think I can tell it in its entirety. Unedited and unfiltered. I might even tag the person because I’m feeling spicy.

Well now I’m gonna take a shower and eat dinner before I tell the story since y’all got attitude tonight

https://twitter.com/generalmcmaul/status/1443733066405621763

A couple years ago my agent sent me the script for a show that was looking to hire another veteran to fill out their room. Then a couple days later, @caitiedelaney messaged me saying she’s the story editor for that same show. So we set up an interview with the showrunner.

I meet with Roberto Benabib and Dave Holstein. And the first thing they say is that all the veterans they’d interviewed are all way too intense and don’t quite have the comedy chops they’re looking for.

We shoot the shit, I tell em about myself, tell em some war stories, and then they ask me to sum up war in one sentence. I think they’re expecting me to say something deep, but I say, “War is 90% boredom and 10% masturbation.”

They laughed, and I knew I had the gig.

They tell me about the other veteran they hired—and her resume is, in a word, unparalleled. She’s this Cuban Jewish gay Princeton graduate. She checks all of the boxes. On top of that she’s a former Marine captain with 4 tours under her belt, a bronze star, and a Purple Heart. K.

So the first day of work rolls around and I walk in the room eager to meet this Marine. The thing is, she gets there 15 minutes late. On the first day of work. A marine. In the military, there’s a saying—“If you’re not 15 minutes early, you’re late.”

But it’s LA, and traffic happens so whatever. Anyway, Roberto asks if we noticed anything in the script that needs to be changed. She says no. I say yes, a whole shit ton. But again, I’m trying to tread lightly because it’s my first day. In the industry I’m known as a “baby.”

First off, these medics are driving around in ambulances and flying around in helicopters. I say “it’s either one or the other.” So they looked at the budget and decided that they could make helicopters work. And that makes the show way more exciting anyway.

So Roberto asks us, “What kinda equipment would we need to make this work? Like what kinda helicopters?” And Marine Captain says, “Hueys.”

I look at her like, um what? Wait, is this show about Vietnam? Did I miss something?

I say that my pararescue unit flew Pave Hawks—the Army equivalent of a Black Hawk. And I’ve literally never seen a Huey in service outside of air shows or VIP transport. But again, she’s the Marine Captain, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Oh I forgot a HUGE detail. Marine Captain is fluent in SIX languages, including Pashto. So during our first week she’s telling us all these crazy stories about Afghanistan, and she’s using lingo that I’ve only heard in the AO. And she knows EVERYTHING about Afghanistan.

One of these stories she tells us is about a young Afghan girl who has to pretend to be a boy. It’s especially heartbreaking. And it was actually kinda familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

She tells us if we need anything translated to Pashto just to email her the dialogue. Cool.

Anyway, the weeks roll by. And she’s super weird. And in the middle of breaking stories she goes off on these crazy tangents about her time in Afghanistan. And the room is getting slightly annoyed because we don’t have a ton of time.

(I like leaving in the middle of a story to keep y’all hanging, anyway I’m back.)

So all these little red flags started popping up and whenever I questioned MC on her stories she’d straight up pull rank. “I was a Captain I think I know what I’m talking about.” Fair enough. So I’d back off because I didn’t want drama in the room.

But there were some red flags that were undeniable. The first and most alarming being me asking her what her MOS was and her not knowing. She said something like “Oh, I have a bunch.” Um, what. So I think she went back to her office and googled it.

A lot of the storylines in the 1st season of 68 Whiskey are actually based on my life. And part of that is because Roberto would ask me and Marine Captain about our own experiences. But every time I told a story, we noticed that MC would try to one up me. It was bizarre.

One time I’m telling a story about someone getting shot by a sniper. Literally the first time I ever saw someone die in front of me. I’d seen dead bodies, but before that I’d never seen the making of a dead body. Super traumatic shit. Like, I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

Everyone in the room is sick to their stomachs listening to me tell this harrowing story. Then MC interrupts and says “WELL ONE TIME MY ENTIRE SQUAD WAS PINNED DOWN BY SNIPERS. TWO OF MY MEN WERE HIT AND I HAD TO RENDER FIRST AID TO KEEP THEM ALIVE.” It was so bizarre.

So immediately I have questions. The first being “I thought you said you were a linguist, why are you leading infantrymen in the field? Two, where was your Corpsman and why was he not rendering first aid?”

Her response: “My corpsman was the one that was shot.”

How convenient.

Roberto or Mark says “How did you provide first aid? Like what do you have to do in that situation?” Part genuine curiosity because this is a show about medics after all, but partly because they were starting to question her.

She couldn’t give us an answer. “It’s complicated.”

Another time I’m telling them a story about my encounter with a suicide bomber. (I even had pictures of the aftermath. Morbid, I know.) But here comes MC not wanting to be one-upped and she tells a story about a combat patrol she was on.

She says they’re loading up in an MRAP and some Corporal asked to switch seats because he gets car sick riding in the rear-facing jump seat so she agreed to swap out with him. Well, miles down the road the run over an IED and the Marine she switched seats with died.

Sure…

So now not only am I suspicious, but I’m really fucking annoyed. But again, not trying to make waves and get fired.

One day we’re breaking a story, but I need a translation. Before my deployments Uncle Sam taught me like 5 lines of The local language. 4 of those lines are some form of “Stop, or I’ll kill you.” The 5th was “Hello.” Lol not exactly the best way to win people over, but I digress.

So I ask MC how to say “Open the door” in Pashto at the table in front of everyone. Simple/honest question. “Open the door.” Three words.

She’s like:

I’m like what is your deal. Just gimme the translation. And she says—I shit you not—“Theres no word for door in Pashto.”

“What. A culture that’s been around for centuries doesn’t have a word for door?”

“Well, there’s a ton of different ways to say it.”

“GIMME ONE WAY THEN”

She panics says she has a phone call and leaves the room. I shit you not.

Not only am I suspicious, but now I’m pissed. And I want answers.

So I call my good friend @JimLaPorta to ask him to look into this chick. And boy oh boy…

So Jim reaches out to his friend at the PENTAGON. Specifically a Marine Colonel who works in personnel. So if anyone can dig up her record it’s this guy.

And man, listen. LISTEN.

I get a call a day later, and Jim says “Dee, you sitting down? You’re not gonna believe this.” I say hit me.

“Not only was she not a captain in the Marines, she was NEVER IN THE MARINES. She’s never even lived within 250 miles of a Marine Corps base…”

“All the dates she said she was deployed, we’ve found pictures of here in other locations. She didn’t even go to Princeton. She majored in music at Memphis and dropped out after a couple semesters.”

So I say “That totally makes sense. But how does she know all of this shit about Afghanistan and the Pashtuns. Like, really specific cultural references?” And we were both a little stumped. But then it came to me… the story she told was a fucking movie id seen at a film fest!

This whole time @caitiedelaney is like “Dylan, please don’t do anything stupid. Like, you’re 100% sure? Because if you’re not you’re gonna get fired.”

I was so fucking sure. And I went and told the showrunner. He was heartbroken.

He’s really the sweetest person ever. In fact, he’s become somewhat of a father figure to me. I still talk to him every week.

Anyway, he had to send the news to the network. But they couldn’t fire her until they investigated. SO WE HAD TO WORK WITH THIS SOCIOPATH FOR WEEKS.

So imagine a roomful of people working with someone they know is a liar. It was sooooo fucking awkward. And if you know me, you know I was an asshole every chance I got.

“Oh is that right?” “Oh, I bet.” “Wow. Tell us more, el capitano.”

She began to figure out that we were on to her and she literally started bringing us presents everyday. Cakes, treats, flowers, you name it.

But even though I knew she was a bull face liar, I was trying to figure out how she’d gotten away with so much. I was like Tom Hanks trying to catch DiCaprio in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.

No but seriously, how did she make it that far? She was a musician at some big Hollywood producer’s wedding and she was telling some people this bullshit story. It went around and they walked her into an agency. But because dude was so powerful they didn’t question him or her.

So before she gets fired, people in the room are still nervous. Because what if she’s not bullshitting and we’re all just piling on? I made it a point to catch her in every lie possible.

So at the beginning of this story I mentioned that she was late on the first day of work. Well, she was late like every fucking day. And as a military officer, that’s a huge NO NO. So I asked her what was up with that.

“My father is dying of cancer so I visit him before work.”

Fuck. Well now I feel like an asshole. She’s got issues but no one should have to go through that. And what if her fathers death is causing her to behave this way? I just lost my father to COVID and I was fucked up. We all grieve in our own ways. I felt bad. Genuinely.

Well people down at the network felt terrible too. They called her father to offer their support.

Her dad was like “Uh, what? I’m doing just fine.”

THIS LYIN ASS HOE

STILL NOT FINISHED THO

I was genuinely intrigued so I did some more digging. It turns out that she also scammed the music industry and pretended to be an up and coming producer. She got TREY SONGZ to come to her studio to record a song for charity. I KID YOU FUCKING NOT.

A real life Frank Abagnale Junior.

Anyway, every year I wish her a Happy Veterans Day.

She’s on Twitter, and I very much want to call her out. (That’s kinda my thing.) But I also don’t want her to get bullied because she obviously has some serious issues. And then she’d fake her death or some weird shit.

The funny thing is, we seriously talked about making this it’s own TV show lmao.

What if I ended this thread like “Yeah, so I just made this whole story up”

WAIT! @bnacker just reminded me that I forgot a part!

So this is an accidental epilogue!

So like I mentioned previously, before we confirmed she was full of shit I ran a series of little tests to catch her in a lie. Most of them were kinda inconclusive, but one time I nailed her…

*nailed her in a lie

So the showrunner was nervous that there was a chance I was totally wrong. And I was like “Nah. I got this. Watch. I’m going to ask her a question that is indisputably false. I’m gonna catch her ass red-handed.”

I asked her about her experience at the VA. I told her that the VA campus in West LA was pretty nice as far as VA campuses go. I knew what neighborhood she I asked if she went to the East Silver Lake campus. She said yeah and that it was mediocre Long wait times, blah blah blah.

The only problem with that is that the “East Silver Lake campus” doesn’t exist.

GOTCHO ASS.

But the biggest tell—and anyone in the military can vouch for this—was that when I said I was in the Air Force she didn’t talk shit. At all. Any real Marine would’ve said some shit about the “Chair Force” or the “Air Conditioned Force.”

Nothing.

Okay but all jokes aside: What this chick did was really fucked up. The seat she took could’ve gone to another veteran—a real veteran— that was deserving of that gig.

The kicker: Even though she got fired, she was paid 100% of her contract.

For those asking “WHY DIDNT YOU JUST GOOGLE HER.” Do you google all of your co-workers? If yes, stop doing that weirdo.

(But also, I did, and she was literally using a fake name.)

THIS WAS HER

https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1145821572357185537

Oh fuck. I made her angry.