Faking Awards
I’ve been in for almost four years now, and I’ve come across a few people who claim they’ve faked easier awards or certificates. One guy told me he forged things like a Spur Ride and the German Marksmanship Award—he said being stationed in Germany made it more believable.
Is S1 really this easy to get past? Like, is it common for someone to just submit a fake certificate and have it end up in their IPPSA record?
Should probably also note that I’m in no way going to attempt this, just curious how often people know of this happening and if anyone’s got funny stories of people getting caught.
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Q&A
They don't want you to know this, but you can buy whatever you want at clothing sales, they don't check your ERB.
I have 407 ranger tabs in my house.
When people ask where I got my CAB I say "the PX, they have a whole rack of them."
I think you mean, "they have a whole rack of them, sir."
I didn't buy this 3-star rank at the PX just to be treated like some Joe.
😂 if you want one, go buy one!
Yes it is. Had a former buddy fake a arcom w/V, CIB, air assault, and airborne. And who knows what else. Anyway that lasted for over 10 years that I know of, even became a warrant during that time. He got caught for being greedy tried to fake a pathfinder badge and didn't realize badge protectors will get you. Also, former 15Q branch manager, got caught faking a ranger tab. That dude made it to e8. Sooooooooooooo yes unfortunately.
attempting to fake a CIB? faking a ranger tab? that’s insane. i can see how people could think they could get away with smaller things like the german marksmanship cord because when i completed it all the Germans gave us was a certificate and told us to turn it in to S1 lol
Anything tied to ATRRS is going to be difficult, as it is easy for a command to check. CIB, CAB, Expert Badges would have been pretty easy since they are local permanent orders.
We had an E7 CI guy in our unit who got caught with a whole host of stuff many years ago. He had investigated a case of stolen valor and thought he figured out all of the guys mistakes.
What he didn't expect was running into a warrant who had served with him a number of years earlier who was just suspicious. Unfortunately the warrant also got in a bit of trouble because he did some shady things while digging.
It happens. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2014/10/30/update-ex-warrior-training-center-boss-wore-unearned-ranger-sapper-tabs/
The CIB could be believable depending on the timeline. If you were 11 series who deployed from 2001-2010 its unlikely that anyone who wasnt there at the same time would question it
I give you LTC Gerald H Greene, former commandant to the NG'S warrior training center
He forged his.....
Sapper tab
Ranger tab
Air assault wings
Combat action badge
his man card.
And yes....he very much looks like a goober.
Dude looks like if a Salamander was trying to blend in with humans to steal our technology
The poorly tailored ASU gets me.
It can be, if S1 isn't tight, or the person just has people skills and can use words good and stuff.
It's caught pretty often though, and I've known most leaders to be merciless in separating for it.
This is stolen valor. The most appropriate response is filming them on a vertical cell phone video. If staff sergeant is calling staff sergeant, staff sergeant you know they're the real deal though.
Back when a 201 file was still paper, printed out and hand-carried from desk to desk, this kind of thing happened more often than people like to admit.
I knew of one guy, came off active duty and built himself a whole stolen legend. Claimed he was a sergeant. Claimed Airborne. Claimed a stack of awards. Claimed deployments with 3rd Ranger Battalion.
Turned out he had been a corporal with 10th Mountain, then as he slid into the Reserves he printed a stack of lies that passed muster and fed them to the S1.
He got exposed downrange while wearing 1SG rank, despite only being an SSG, when he crossed paths with actual 3rd Batt Boys who had been on the very deployment he claimed as his own.
hilarious way to get caught. wearing a 1SG rank too? damn, guess people don’t know how to stop faking shit once they get away with it once
He tried to sell the 1SG rank as a misunderstanding.
Said he was just the "acting" 1SG while the real one was back home on leave. Said he only wore it because he needed the authority to take care of his guys.
He should never have been an SSG in the first place, because he had never even been an SGT. And if half the rumors were true about his prior service, he should never have been let into the Reserves at all.
He pled out, took a bad-conduct discharge, and walked away with an RE-4 as an E1.
No idea how it turned out but I heard through the grapevine a few years back that he was trying to appeal it, to get the discharge upgraded and his benefits restored.
A guy at my first duty station, many many moons ago, had a pretty impressive rack of ribbons, all kinds of schools and a XVIII Airborne Corps combat patch from Desert Storm and would say things like "you know it's real when you hear the small arms hitting the turret armor", so on paper he looked pretty high speed despite the fact that he looked like a hunchbacked goblin and couldn't pass a PT test to save his life.
Someone in S1 heard him talking about "Attending door gunner school" despite being a 19K and a Corporal and began poking at his 201 which, shockingly enough, turned out to be entirely a work of fiction.
I mean, I accidentally got my airborne cert despite never having jumped. It was there for years, it was on my SQI and I had “qualified parachutist” on my IPPSA so… if that can slip by without any action from me or s1 I’d imagine it’s not to hard to fake an award
Me too! I was at airborne school and failed out at week 1 (dumb private just out of OSUT, failing to follow instructions etc…). Ended up spending 5 total weeks at school doing various details. Got to my unit (10th mtn, needs of the army) and a few months later was looking through iperms. Full on signed orders awarding parachutists badge. I have never worn them, nor claimed to be airborne qualified. I even had to argue they were erroneous when I got off active duty to remove them from my 214. However 25 years later, I’m still in the national guard, and the orders are still in iperms. No revocation, or anything.
I forged my spur ride certificate once. Only because I lost my original when I PCSed at as SPC lol.
I had a PSG lie about when he got his Tab. He did actually have it but always said he got it as a private. Unfortunately an NCO in the company was in his ranger class and showed people the class photo.
What a weird thing to lie about
That speaks to someone who lies a lot when they start doing it casually and meaninglessly.
It is indeed very easy to “steal” an award, it’s crazy the amount of things what were created on adobe acrobat. Also when it comes to foreign awards since they don’t go on IPPSA those are the easiest to “steal” for sure
Faking a spur ride is hilarious.
One of our battalions got pulled off a deployment because there was a mass scandal where S1 was faking people’s awards and diplomas.
Once upon a time a guy faked his long tab. Was on an ODA for years and everything. It wasn’t until some math wasn’t mathing and their HHC called up SWCS to ask for his student-red jacket.
Source:I was one of the students looking for it.
You gotta be a real fucking dirt bag to be doing this shit.
I never understood this. I told many young Soldiers (yes I am old, retired after over 33 years) that if you are an Army cook you still have served more than most people.
I've been waiting to contribute to this forum. I'm a retired SGM and gee do I have a story for you! A SFC shows up for his retirement ceremony in front of close to 100 guests and family members and decides to wear a Special Forces Tab and a Divers badge. The real weirder thing about this is the unit SGM who was presenting the retirement awards was a former Special Forces qualified Soldier. Of course they had the ceremony and then afterwards the SGM did some quick research and discovered the bogus awards.
Even though the SFC was retiring he had a contractor job lined up with the same organization so when they heard of this they decided not to hire him.
Wow, the balls (or stupidity) of this Soldier to show up to his retirement ceremony wearing these badges...unbelievable and it absolutely happened.
As someone uploading the documents, it’s really dependent on the day and the Soldier.
If I’m feeling busy or overwhelmed and just trying to knock stuff out, I don’t look into it too hard. I just verify that it has a signature, dates like up, they haven’t received the award already, and then I upload it.
If the Spidey-sense is tingling, I may request more information, but ultimately my job is to assist the Soldier. If I went through every document with a fine-tooth comb, it’d lead to month-long backlogs real quick.
Hell one dude faked Airborne School and Jump Wings. Never went to the actual school, but did jump with the 82nd lol. I mean he was a piece of shit faked a purple heart and sniper School too.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/01/18/this-nco-faked-his-way-into-the-82nd-airborne-and-he-almost-got-away-with-it/
Badge producing schools provide an order that authorizes the award. You will get caught if you try to cheat something like this.
You will probably get away with it if you want to cheat a foreign award. Such as foreign jump wings or the German proficiency badge.
This is a very dumb thing to do because there's no benefit to you by faking this. If you are not qualified to repel out of a helicopter or inspect equipment that is being sling loaded do not say that you are.
For normal awards, these do not help you professionally in any way so there's no reason to fake this.
My records used to show me as having been to Ranger school, it was surprisingly difficult to get that removed, I had to really fight. People kept telling me to just be quite, don't wear the tab, but let the boards see it in the file. I can't imagine I'm the only one who got that advice.
Given how often people pencil whip pt cards, ht/wt, and weapons qual, it probably shouldn't be that surprising that people push that envelope forward.