Continue reading "RE: LEDE, Winter Soldier Stories "

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love. "I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.

"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.

The Case of Chiroux

Interesting that this “filet mignon” who did so poorly in school managed to have the wits and wherewithal to earn selection as a Public Affairs Specialist, military occupational specialty (MOS) 46Q, and spent between five and six years in various Public Affairs Offices (PAO) in Japan and Germany. As a staff writer and photographer, and a pretty good one at that.

Here’s another possibly discrediting feature of his story:

He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.

Now according to the many stories he’s allowed to be written about him, SGT Chiroux claims to have joined right out of high school, shortly after June 2002. Maybe he went in right that summer, maybe into the fall, but accounting for basic training and advanced individual training, that brings him into sometime in 2003, no doubt as a Private or PV2.

A Private (PVT) Matthis Chiroux was already in Japan, working for a PAO there, likely sometime in 2003, given the background information contained in this news report with which his name was associated.

There’s one aspect of a military journalist’s career that makes his career a little easier to piece together – if he’s the kind of Winter Soldier, like John Kerry, who doesn’t want to make primary documents like a DD 214 available for public inspection.

Do a google on Matthis Chiroux, and you’ll get dozens of PAO and other Army publication articles and photos with his byline. These became a helpful means of tracking his career. He can be traced as first a PVT, then PFC and then SPC while posted in Japan, and then USAREUR in Germany.

Now it’s entirely possible that PVT Chiroux started his PAO career in Japan in 2003, then spent some of late 2003, early 2004 in Afghanistan. But it does seem odd, since PFC Chiroux was next in evidence writing for the same PAO in Japan in November 2004. If PVT then PFC Chiroux and done a combat tour in Afghanistan, you’d think the associated medals and awards would have gotten him the Specialist in that time frame. That, and I am thinking that lower ranking PAO soldiers would be less likely to be returned to the same duty station for subsequent assignments, at least that soon.

A remarkable photograph Chiroux, of a helicopter carrier landing seen through an aviator’s goggles, showed up in early 2005. There are evidences of him in Japan in February and April 2005, but by July 2005, he shows up at USAREUR in Germany.

He contributed numerous articles and photographs during the rest of 2005, 2006 and 2007, with pieces appearing in September and November 2005, throughout the Spring and Summer of 2006. He appears on a promotion list to Sergeant in January 2007.

Funny thing is, if he was reassigned or deployed to either Afghanistan or the Philippines, he oddly has no bylines or photographs credited from those locations.

Throughout his time in Europe, he contributed numerous articles and photographs for various stories in Europe, about training events, NATO military exchanges, and increasingly, stories about units and soldiers training for or returning from Afghanistan or Iraq, and even a story about preparations for a unit to go to the Philippines. These stories may have come in handy for burnishing an otherwise combat free military record.

It may be a telling detail that in news stories for which Chiroux has been interviewed, he is always identified as a soldier who “served” in Afghanistan and the Philippines, and while one might logically assume he was stationed or did a combat tour for OEF, I haven’t seen a single article or statement making that claim. But I’d bet 95% of readers of articles on the now conscientious objector would assume that’s his background.

Funny thing about a lot of these IVAW members and associates: many of them have never served in Iraq, or have never had any real exposure to combat, or have greatly distorted and manipulated what little experience they have. In many cases, they are careful not to make any direct, specific claims as to names, places and dates, but rather fuzzy, indistinct assertions. This allows them, for example, to create an impression of knowledge, experience, or exposure they don’t in fact have, but do not leave themselves open to falsification.

(More detailed assessment of other IVAW falsehoods over at Dadmanly)

All done!