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news/2008/01/navy_tazewell_080122mar

Prosecutors: Corpsman forged valor awards

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer

Posted : Wednesday Jan 23, 2008 13:40:13 EST
  
NORFOLK, Va. — Court-martial proceedings against a hospital corpsman charged with forging documents to award himself a Bronze Star with “V” and other valor awards got underway Tuesday, in what Navy prosecutors are calling a case of “stolen valor.”

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (FMF) Dontae Lee Tazewell, 28, faces seven specifications of forgery and 11 specifications of wearing unauthorized ribbons and medals. Besides the Bronze Star, the unearned awards include a Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Navy Unit Commendation Medal and various other medals, according to the charging documents. Tazewell allegedly told people he risked his life to save Marines in combat in Iraq five years ago, and managed to get himself promoted to E-5 based on the phony citations, prosecutors said.

According to his official Navy biography, Tazewell, who joined the Navy in June 1998, rates only a Good Conduct Medal.

He did not speak during the daylong proceeding, but several of his direct superiors and fellow sailors did.

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman (FMF/SW) Michael Dean Smith supervised Tazewell during the deployment of Marine Wing Support Squadron 272 to Kuwait in early 2003. Corpsmen from the unit manned flightline aid stations at three airfields in Kuwait and sometimes rolled with supply convoys. But Smith said none of his sailors, including Tazewell, rated any of the decorations Tazewell allegedly gave himself.

“I can say 100 percent that nobody in my unit, MWSS-272, had any combat-related injuries whatsoever,” Smith told the court. “All of our convoys were uneventful. We never encountered any enemy action or any enemy fire or had to return fire.”

Chief Hospital Corpsman (FMF) Santiago Chavez worked closely with Tazewell at an expeditionary airfield in Kuwait. He said corpsmen went on supply convoys as a rule, but often headed south, away from Iraq, to other airfields in Kuwait. As for Tazewell’s performance at the airfield, Chavez said, “He did what everybody else was doing.”

In comments to reporters after the first day of the court-martial, Lt. Matthew Cutchen, Tazewell’s defense attorney, could not say if his client ever stepped foot in Iraq. “He adamantly denies the charges against him,” Cutchen said.

During the court proceeding, witnesses were asked to review the citations and certificates that Tazewell allegedly fabricated while working in the administrative office at a branch medical clinic at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Va.

Marine Capt. Adele Burks, former adjutant for MWSS 272, said the paperwork allegedly submitted by Tazewell on behalf of himself was almost wholly inconsistent with recognized standards.

“The overall format is incorrect with regard to fonts and the like,” she said, adding that the paperwork was endorsed by a fictitious three-star general. Reading one document allegedly crafted by Tazewell, Burks said, “Lt. Gen. Haviland does not exist,” in reference to MWSS 272’s commanding officer until 2004, then-Lt. Col. Joseph K. Haviland.

Navy prosecutor Lt. Matthew Wooten said Tazewell failed his March 2006 advancement exam and was facing separation because he hadn’t made E-5. In response, Wooten said Tazewell “conned the Navy” with “phony” citations that somehow passed through the chain of command.

The citations were so successful that Tazewell was treated to an award ceremony attended by more than 100 people in which a Navy captain lauded Tazewell by telling the audience “This is what a hero looks like.” Several military publications also wrote articles about Tazewell. Based on the awards, the Navy reviewed Tazewell’s record and advanced him to E-5.

According to the prosecutors, Tazewell went on to buy a Virginia vanity tag intended for Bronze Star recipients that reads “DocTaz.”

Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jerome Wilkerson worked with Tazewell at the Yorktown clinic and said Tazewell parked where he pleased.

“Sometimes he parks in the handicapped [space],” Wilkerson said, noting later that Tazewell had “bilateral hip surgery.”

The general court-martial, presided by Capt. Patricia Battin, will continue Wednesday. Tazewell faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank to E-1 and total forfeiture of pay, according to the Navy, if he’s found guilty on all counts


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 Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC

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WTF? Who's Mr. Pillow Pants? - Clerks 2

Big time looozzzeeeerrrr.  And then deny the charges. Fool.

"Let's Go Downtown" - Flight of the Intruder
 

http://www.327infantry.org/second/c_co 

Same Mud Same Blood - NBC documentary filmed 1967 RVN, chronicle Frank McGee

No, the Navy does not keelhaul by dragging them through the water under the keel of a ship, either across the width or from bow to stern; this would be considered cruel and unusual punishment no doubt.  The term has been modified to simply mean severely reprimanded.  It would be by educated appraisal that this young man will be reduced in grade to e-1 forfeit of all pay, receive a dishonorable discharge, have to turn in that specialty plate he has, sentenced lightly at best to no more than eight months in the brig (to save the Navy further embarrassment for not investigating his claims of heroism before issuing the awards) and then sent packing home where he will tell his friends he was a POW and a medical doctor. Perhaps the white jacket he really needs is the one with extra long sleeves that fastens in the back?

Time is relative, relatives take time.

Sailor convicted on 10 counts of wearing medals he had not earned

NORFOLK

A Navy hospital corpsman who claims he rescued six Marines and recovered the bodies of four others during an ambush in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom was convicted Wednesday of wearing ribbons he did not earn.

A judge dismissed the more serious charges of forging documents that led to the awards.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Dontae L. Tazewell was found guilty of 10 of 11 counts of wearing unauthorized ribbons. Some of the honors recognized Tazewell for hero­ism during an ambush on March 28, 2003, earning him the Purple Heart and Bronze Star in July 2006.

On Wednesday, Tazewell’s supervisors and others testified at his court-martial that the rescue never happened, painting a picture of a sailor so desperate to stay in the Navy that he concocted honors he did not merit.

Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Mann, who served with Tazewell as part of Marine Wing Support Squadron 272 in Kuwait in 2003, testified that, on the day of the supposed ambush, he knocked Tazewell down while running to tell of a helicopter accident on the runway of Joe Foss Expeditionary Airfield. That put Tazewell in Kuwait and not in Iraq.

“I don’t see how he could get a Purple Heart for getting run over by a big guy,” Mann said.

Alejandro Lira, a retired petty officer first class who also supervised Tazewell on that deployment, told of reading about Tazewell’s award ceremony in a magazine, calling the reporter and asking that she “look into it.”

“We have kids dying out there every day, receiving these medals posthumously,” he testified. “I just thought it was wrong.”

Garry Baker, who oversees Navy promotional exams, testified that Tazewell learned in May 2006 that he had not scored high enough to make petty officer second class, because of his evaluations, his award points and the competition that round. Because of his time in the service, he would have to leave the Navy.

Soon after, Tazewell told his supervisors and Baker that his last command had sent him award certificates, including the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Tazewell also noted that several of the evaluations used for his promotion score should have been excluded. After recalculations, Tazewell was promoted.

Under cross-examination by Tazewell’s attorney, Navy Lt. Matthew Cutchen, Baker said Tazewell would have been promoted based on the revised evaluation score, without the new awards. It was unclear whether Tazewell knew that at the time.

In summer 2007, Tazewell brought his supervisors paperwork for more awards, but Senior Chief Petty Officer David Short testified Tuesday that the content and format, including Tazewell’s own typographical quirks, were suspicious. By September, he was under investigation.

After the prosecution rested, Cutchen asked that Tazewell’s forgery charges be dismissed because the government failed “to present evidence of legal harm to the Navy.”

“What the command did of its own volition” in choosing to honor Tazewell, he argued, “is not a liability.”

Cutchen also asked that the charges of wearing unauthorized ribbons – particularly the Purple Heart and Bronze Star – be dismissed because Tazewell merely received the award certificates from his old command and sent them on. Tazewell’s supervisors told him to report to a ceremony where he received the awards, Cutchen said, thereby “authorizing” him to wear them.

Prosecutor Lt. j.g. Allison Ward said Tazewell’s actions harmed the award system’s integrity.

“Successfully duping your command into giving you awards does not authorize you to wear them,” she said.

The judge, Navy Capt. Patricia Battin, dismissed the eight forgery charges. She declined to dismiss the 11 charges of wearing unauthorized ribbons. She did not give a reason for either decision.

In closing, Ward argued that Tazewell knew leaving the Navy would mean losing access to the extensive medical care he’d had since returning from the Middle East. Along the way, he made himself a hero.

“This is what stolen valor looks like,” she said. “This is not what a hero looks like.”

In closing, Cutchen argued that “we tell our sailors if something doesn’t make sense, see their superiors.” For Tazewell, this meant showing the award certificates to his supervisors, who took it from there.

After the hearing, Cutchen said Tazewell “sincerely apologizes to those who may have been offended by his actions,” and he planned to “stand tall” during his sentencing, which begins today. Tazewell faces up to five years in prison and a bad-conduct discharge.

When asked whether Tazewell was ever in Iraq, Cutchen said he was, accompanying a convoy.

When asked whether he saved any Marines, Cutchen declined to answer, because of the pending sentencing.

"American Parachutists...devils in baggy pants...are less than 100 meters from my outpost line. I can't sleep at night; they pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere..."
(An entry in a German officer's diary found after the Battle of Anzio)

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer

Posted : Friday Jan 25, 2008 11:26:26 EST

  
NORFOLK, Va. — A hospital corpsman accused of wearing unearned combat awards was sentenced to two years’ confinement, reduction to E-3 and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday.

Prosecutors had asked that Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (FMF) Dontae Lee Tazewell be sentenced to 18 months’ confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.

Within minutes of the sentencing, an ambulance and two fire trucks raced to the courthouse, in response to an emergency somehow involving Tazewell. More information was not immediately available.

Before military judge Capt. Patricia Battin announced the sentence, Tazewell took the stand, saying news coverage of the event had caused his children and wife embarrassment.

“Because of the guilty verdict, I personally feel ashamed,” he said. “I feel like I brought shame to the hospital corps, to the Navy, to myself and my family.”

“This is about an accused who had a plan to con the United States Navy,” said prosecutor Lt. Matthew Wooten.

Tazewell, 28, was found guilty of 10 specifications of wearing unauthorized ribbons and medals on Wednesday. He was accused of using false paperwork to give himself a Bronze Star with “V,” Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Navy Unit Commendation Medal and various other medals, according to the charging documents. Tazewell allegedly told people he risked his life to save Marines in combat in Iraq five years ago. He was not convicted of the specification involving the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with “V.”

According to his official Navy biography, Tazewell, who joined the Navy in June 1998, rates only a Good Conduct Medal. But in a 2006 article appearing in the base newspaper Soundings, which covered Tazewell’s awards ceremony that was prompted by the alleged forgeries, the corpsman was said to have been ambushed on patrol in Iraq and repeatedly ran into the line of fire to rescue six wounded Marines.

The defense had put the burden on the Navy for awarding Tazewell the medals, claiming that the corpsman merely alerted his command to awards, with Lt. Matthew Cutchen saying, “He did what junior personnel are told to do.” Wooten refuted that point. “He could have corrected it; he could have stood up and said this wasn’t true,” the prosecutor said.

Wooten said that Tazewell not only awarded himself a Bronze Star, but “the accused decided to give himself the distinction of valor.”

Present at sentencing were several of Tazewell’s former chiefs and shipmates from his deployment to Kuwait, who testified during the proceedings.

At the conclusion of sentencing, a master at arms was prepared to lead Tazewell away in handcuffs.

On Tuesday, several of Tazewell’s direct superiors and fellow sailors testified.

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman (FMF/SW) Michael Dean Smith supervised Tazewell during the deployment of Marine Wing Support Squadron 272 to Kuwait in early 2003. Corpsmen from the unit manned flightline aid stations at three airfields