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Another Phony IVAW ‘Vet’ Gets Outed

From the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Vets expose advocate as impostor

May 13, 2009
LANCE BENZEL and TOM ROEDER

The leader of a statewide veterans group who fought for homeless veterans in Colorado Springs was in the Denver County jail on Wednesday, unmasked as a former psychiatric patient who posed as a wounded Marine officer and 9/11 survivor.

Federal authorities are looking into whether Rick Duncan, whose real name is Richard Glen Strandlof, could have pilfered money he raised in the name of Colorado veterans, said Daniel Warvi of the Colorado Veterans Alliance (CVA), the group that Duncan founded…

Strandlof, 31, who invented the name Duncan and claimed he was a former Marine captain and 1997 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, never served in the military and falsely claimed that he was in the Pentagon during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the group said.

Two members of CVA said the group became suspicious of the man they knew as Duncan after discovering inconsistencies in his personal story.

In a search of the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office records, for example, they found that the name Colorado Veterans Alliance had been reserved by "Rick Strandlof," whom they had never met, the group said.

The group said it found that Strandlof had been a patient in a mental hospital in Washoe County, Nev., at the time of the roadside bombing in Fallujah, Iraq, that he claimed left him severely wounded.

CVA members contacted the FBI field office in Denver, which opened an investigation in early May and arrested him Tuesday night in downtown Denver on a traffic warrant originating in El Paso County.

According to Warvi, when an FBI agent asked whether he was Strandlof or Duncan, he responded "both," then requested an attorney…

Strandlof was in custody at the Denver County jail in lieu of a $1,000 bond Wednesday.

He is wanted in El Paso County for failing to appear in court on a charge of driving with a suspended license. El Paso County sheriff’s spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene said Strandlof will be sent to Colorado Springs to appear before a judge unless he posts bond in Denver…

According to sources, federal authorities are trying to find out what happened to $25,000 Strandlof raised during a New Year’s Eve event in 2006 in Reno, Nev…

Strandlof also told his story in televised advertisements for Hal Bidlack, a retired Air Force officer and Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year in the district representing Colorado Springs.

Bidlack told The Gazette on Wednesday that he never had a reason to doubt the veteran he knew as Duncan, who was a volunteer in his campaign…

The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., said the school has no record of a 1997 graduate named Rick Duncan.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Amy Malugani found no record of Strandlof or his alias Duncan serving in the Corps, and that the unit Strandlof claimed to have served with in Iraq doesn’t exist.

Under his invented identity, Strandlof proved to be a popular spokesman on veterans’ issues. He is quoted in stories as recently as March, when he was interviewed by The Denver Post about a measure before the state General Assembly to cut tuition for veterans.

He often spoke vividly of being in the Pentagon on Sept. 11 when a hijacked airliner was crashed into the building.

"The duality of that day, the good and the bad that I saw that day, are forever etched in my mind and in my memory," he told KOAA television in an interview last year marking the anniversary of the attacks.

The Gazette quoted Strandlof on issues concerning homeless veterans. The Colorado Springs Independent wrote about him in articles about veterans struggling to deal with their experiences in war and PTSD.

On YouTube, Strandlof appears in desert camouflage talking about his "wounds."

"I was involved in an IED explosion that killed four Marines," he said. "I have a plate roughly the size of a, like, cup and saucer on this portion of my skull."

In the video, Strandlof also claims to have had a hip replacement and to have "had a finger blown off."

Strandlof often spoke of his mistreatment by Defense Department officials, saying they dragged their feet on giving him a disability retirement…

Garett Reppenhagen, a past chairman of the local chapter of Iraq Veterans against the War, said he saw Strandlof collecting money for CVA during an antiwar poetry reading at Poor Richard’s Bookstore in downtown Colorado Springs, telling donors it would be used for shipping care packages to men and women serving abroad.

It’s unclear if that money ever made it out of Strandlof’s pocket.

"I think that everybody kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt," Reppenhagen said.

"Every veteran should feel betrayed."

Naturally, ‘Mr. Duncan’ would turn out to be a member of the notorious Iraq Veterans Against War. Just like so many other bogus veterans before him.

And just like the others, he has been quietly flushed from their rolls. But you can still find the Google cache of the page here.

And here are some screen shots:

(Click images to enlarge)

And just as naturally, ‘Mr. Duncan’ was a longtime favorite of the America-hating left he shows up all over YouTube.

Indeed, our hero is so popular he even appeared in a campaign video for the IVAW’s favorite Congressional candidate, Democrat Hal Bidlack:

Alas, now we learn that ‘Mr. Duncan’ is a pathological liar and an escaped lunatic.

What a shock, huh?

(Thanks to BillK for the heads up.)

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This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 2:45 am. You can leave a response.

19 Responses to “Another Phony IVAW ‘Vet’ Gets Outed”

  1. BillK
    May 15, 2009 at 12:23 am

    Here we go again.

    From Denver’s KUSA Television:

    Man accused of posing as war vet

    By Chris Vanderveen

    DENVER – Sure, he stuttered on occasion. He said strange things from time to time. But Rick Duncan was passionate about veterans in the state of Colorado. He told anyone who wanted to listen that he had served in Iraq on three occasions. That gave him an unofficial license to talk to journalists, politicians, and civilians about the war.

    So, many people simply ate it all up.

    The only problem was that Duncan wasn’t actually a Marine, a Naval Academy graduate, or a wounded Iraq War Veteran, according to those who have looked into his background.

    His name, according to the Denver Sheriff’s Department, isn’t even Rick Duncan. It’s Rick Strandlof, and as of Thursday afternoon, Strandlof remained inside a Denver County Jail cell.

    He was arrested earlier in the week on an El Paso County traffic warrant. His bond has been set at $1,000.

    Strandlof declined 9NEWS’ request for an interview.

    As Duncan, Strandlof actively pursued the limelight in many veterans’ issues. As the founder of the Colorado Veteran’s Alliance, he campaigned for the homeless in Colorado Springs. He made appearances at anti-war rallies and was interviewed by a number of media outlets during those rallies.

    “We took him at face value,” CVA spokesman Dan Warvi said on Thursday. “We thought he was a wounded warrior who almost sacrificed his life.”

    His anti-war stance apparently appealed to a number of campaigns as well. Last summer, Duncan/Strandlof appeared on an anti-Bob Schaffer television ad.

    “Too many veterans can’t get the help they need,” said Duncan/Strandlof in the ad.

    When Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado) was running for Congress last year, he appeared with Duncan at a rally at the Colorado Veteran’s Monument. When Democrat Hal Bidlack was trying to unseat Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) down in Colorado Springs last year, his campaign opted to put Duncan in one of its television ads. …

    http://www.9news.com/news/arti.....;catid=339

    Yep, another lefty poses as an Iraq “vet” and helps get Democrats elected by speaking out against the war.

    Notice a pattern here?

    • catie
      May 15, 2009 at 11:46 am

      Thanks Bill. What a disgusting pig but then again these tend to be the ones the Dims prop up as the “true heroes”.

  2. proreason
    May 15, 2009 at 11:31 am

    More rapid research you can’t find anywhere else. Thanks Steve.

    If the number of stories like this begins to exceed the current 5 figures total, I may have to conclude the lunatic left makes stuff up a lot just to suit their manias.

    • Steve
      May 15, 2009 at 11:40 am

      “More rapid research you can’t find anywhere else. Thanks Steve.”

      And we should also thank the ever-watchful BillK.

      In fact, this is a textbook example of how the site works.

  3. Barbie
    May 15, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Wouldn’t you think you’d run a background check on someone like this before you appeared in a campaign commercial with that person? Wouldn’t that just be using (a LITTLE) common sense? This punk is a despicable liar, but the politicians who appeared with him are out and out fools.

    • jobeth
      May 15, 2009 at 12:17 pm

      , come on….the libs don’t even vet cabinet members! LOL

      So long as you say what they want you to say…your in! :-D

    • Barbie
      May 15, 2009 at 12:42 pm

      True. What was I thinking?

    • pdsand
      May 15, 2009 at 1:10 pm

      We’ve all been treated to the fascinating details of exactly what’s medically wrong with Mr. Limbaugh, and what draft ineligibility he had 40 years ago, but they didn’t even determine whether this guy attended the Naval Academy? I think something like that is certainly easily attainable public information. Forget trying to check a 214.
      What’s really funny is he almost has a worthwhile cause if he were honest with his organization and wouldn’t open his fat mouth.

    • wardmama4
      May 15, 2009 at 1:11 pm

      The IVAW has almost no criteria (even failing out of Basic is ’serving’ in the military to them), only having ’served’ since Sept 11, 2001, and ask for no DD214. Which of course belies their own name (and one would think mission).

      http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=10593#more-10593
      Read this, Kris Goldsmith leaves the IVAW – it is a long letter but well worth the read. He points out very well – exactly how IVAW is a sham and failing the very people they ‘claim’ that they are representing and wanting to help.

      For a bunch of wackos who hate despise the military with a passion akin to pro-lifers, Christians, George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh – they are awfully damn eager to pretend to be one.

    • MinnesotaRush
      May 15, 2009 at 1:12 pm

      And what the heck .. we got a lunatic imposter posing as commander-in-chief!

  4. curvyred
    May 15, 2009 at 12:06 pm

    http://rgj.p2ionline.com/magaz.....mp;menu=63

    http://www.csindy.com/colorado.....id=1358613

  5. Confucius
    May 15, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Another under-medicated liberal on the loose.

  6. Gila Monster
    May 15, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Holy mackerel, shades of Jesse McBeth and Gordon Soderberg..!!

    Truthfully, this should surprise no one. The liberal Left anti-war crowd is permeated with con-artists, grifters, mountebanks, shysters, poseurs, thugs, mugs, pugs and lawyers.
    Hell, just look at the current House and Senate leadership and invoke the trickle down theory and voila’, we should expect this further down the socialistic food chain.

    In all seriousness, I respect the right of any and all Veterans groups to put forth their political views in the public arena, they have certainly earned that right. Unfortunately, for groups like the IVAW, the VFP and others of their ilk, the existence of a**hats like Strandlof, Mcbeth and many more like them, strains their collective credibility.

  7. Howard Roark
    May 15, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    Great work, here, BillK & Steve.

    And isn’t it telling that the Colorado Springs Gazette tries hard to bury the fact that this f*ing punk lunatic was a righteous member of the IVAW? In fact, the two writers’ only mention of this scumbag and the IVAW was at the bottom of this article, placing him by proxy with the IVAW at a bookstore while collecting money for his bogus CVA “organization.”

    Obviously, the Gazette was trying to shield the IVAW from yet another embarrassment. How much longer until we have a revolt against these propaganda machines?

    Thanks to Steve’s screenshot of the IVAW’s membership roles in Colorado, I now see that this flaming puke was, indeed, a celebrated member of the IVAW.

  8. canary
    May 15, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    No, that doesn’t look like the rawer, skinny,” pimpled faced “marines in their 20’s with teenage bodies, Obama describes he saw at the Marine base in Fallujah, hours after “5″ marines were killed. Not “4″ as the other pathological liar says. pg 300
    It would be interesting to question the marines about both the liars. Obama’s pathetic discription of America’s finest; evidence of his little man complex.

    Hopefully, Hillary and Chelsea dodging bullets in Bosnia, and Chelsea’s majical jogging near 9/11 WTC while she sat drinking coffee in front of her tv, will come to his defense.

  9. canary
    May 15, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    How this group did not get on the DHS extremist list is beyond me.
    Member of the Week’s profile on home page, also honors soldier suicide art.
    Bogus name, There is no Camp Shell or A.O. Paradise he served.
    http://ivaw.org/member/sholom-keller Complaint letter to VA shrink

    (While my vitals were being taken in the emergency room, one of the guards had the audacity to approach me and state, “Thank you for being a veteran.”

    Although I specifically requested vegetarian meals, the trays that were handed to me at breakfast, lunch, and dinner did not contain sufficient foodstuffs to qualify as a meal; … I am a reasonably well-balanced individual, and that “I find the universe to be a happy joyous place filled with all kinds of things that make me smile, like sunshine and puppies and rainbows and unicorns and pink bubblegum and dead cops.”

  10. BillK
    May 15, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    Just a fun little update from the Denver Post:

    Dems red-faced over veteran imposter

    Democrats are incensed over how a man duped the party and veterans during the ‘08 campaign.

    By Michael Riley

    WASHINGTON — Rick Strandlof, executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance and the man most colleagues knew as Rick Duncan, was front and center during the 2008 political campaigns in Colorado.

    He spoke at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol in July, co-hosted several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the national group Votevets.org.

    And the mostly Democratic candidates he supported — looking for credibility on veterans issues and the war — lapped it up appreciatively.

    Now, politicians are dealing with news that the man they believed to be a former Marine and war veteran wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb, in fact, never served in the military — but did spend time in a mental hospital.

    Many of the candidates he supported won their elections handily and now say they were defrauded as much as anyone else.

    “His fraud is a slap in the face to veterans everywhere and a betrayal to us all,” Rep. Polis, a Boulder Democrat, said in a written statement Thursday.

    “It sounds like this man had a problem telling the truth and needs help,” said Tara Trujillo, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.

    There is little doubt that Strandlof had a remarkable ability to fool people, something aided by the fact that among his fabrications was his claim that he suffered a severe brain injury, which helped cover behavior that associates now concede was often erratic and strange.

    But there were also plenty of signs during much of the time Strandlof was working on behalf of candidates for anyone watching carefully.

    CVA wasn’t registered as a political organization until well after the campaigns were over, and then only at the state level despite being active in federal campaigns.

    And although he claimed to represent 32,000 veterans — the biggest post- 9/11 vets group in Colorado — Strandlof always showed up at events with the same small number of supporters, and there were few concrete signs he represented more than a close circle he had gathered around him.

    “Nobody really fully trusted any of those numbers. . . . He had a few dozen people who were helping him out. He claimed to have a huge mailing list that no one ever saw. The VFW, the American Legion, none of those traditional veterans groups had ever heard of him,” said one prominent veterans activist who worked for Democratic candidates during the campaign and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    “The veterans community was very protective over him because he had portrayed himself as a wounded veteran. This is someone who claimed spending 18 months undergoing physical rehabilitation after suffering debilitating injuries. . . . You don’t go at somebody like that hard,” the activist said. “Perhaps we learned a good lesson here.” …

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12373595

    Don’t you love the way it’s the typical Democrat behavior of being upset at the man, not at their own inability to even do the most rudimentary of background checks to make sure he was who he said he was?

    When this type of thing has happened to Republicans before, of course the MSM dragged the GOP through the mud for failing to do background research.

    But this time? Why, of course it’s all Strandlof’s fault.

    Of course that’s just until they come up with a way to blame this on the “atmosphere of hate” that Bush created, leading this poor mentally ill person to adopt this persona.

    Meanwhile, how were his actions and wild non-sensical inflation of numbers and protesting with the same core group of supporters over and over any different from any other liberal group?

    Say, Code Pink?

    The Post, a hard left paper if there ever was one, actually did a little digging for once:

    Representatives for both Udall and Polis said Strandlof didn’t directly work or volunteer for either campaign.

    In Udall’s case, Strandlof appeared in an ad paid for by an independent political group that was legally barred from communicating or coordinating with the Democrat’s campaign. (Jon Soltz, head of Votevets.org., said in a statement that his group usually checks the credentials of veterans used in ads but didn’t in this case “because he was already a well-established leader of a veterans group in Colorado.”)

    In Polis’ case, the relationship was closer. Strandlof and his group co-hosted what his staff described as “a handful” of events with Polis, including a party highlighting a “Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq” held during the Democratic National Convention.

    “There is a lot of hearsay, and Rick Duncan claims he’s best buddies with Jared — which is not true,” said Polis spokeswoman Lara Cottingham. She said Strandlof came to the campaign offering help, and they were glad to have it.

    The Polis and Udall campaigns emphasize that Strandlof was a bizarre exception to the outpouring of help they received from veterans disillusioned with Bush-era policies.

    “His actions in no way reflect on the credibility of real veterans who supported Mark’s campaign or on the importance of their issues,” said Trujillo, Udall’s spokeswoman.

    According to The Associated Press, CVA’s board on Wednesday night decided that the group would disband in the wake of news that Duncan was actually Stradloff.

    Let’s see now – an “outpouring of help” from vets disillusioned with Bush’s policies.

    So they get to trash Bush again, and once again mention all these vets disillusioned with Bush without having to actually present any. (From what I’ve seen, most vets disillusioned with Bush feel that way because he wouldn’t let them actually fight to win in Iraq, tying their hands will obnoxiously complex and irrational RoE, but I digress.)

    Meanwhile the “protest group” disbands when they’re discovered to be a fraud.

    Sounds about right.

    Yet somehow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth continues to be painted as a fraudlent group itself.

    Gotta love the MSM…

  11. Liberals Demise
    May 16, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    For his punishment he should be turned over to the Marines who cleared Fallujah……for a sure and just treatment. (they won’t kill him)

  12. Rusty Shackleford
    May 16, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    Maybe now, the libtards understand waterboarding.

    Then again…..

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