Media Promotes Another Phony Soldier

The media had been reporting that a child rape suspect in Las Vegas was a former Navy seal, based on his statements and their lack of investigation. Columnist Gordon Dillow of the Orange County Register didn't buy the story and quickly disproved the Navy Seal connection. In his piece today he explains why the story was allowed to stand for so long:

It took just one two-minute phone call for me to determine that fugitive accused child molester Chester Stiles was never a Navy SEAL. So why did so many news organizations give the impression that he was?

The answer, in my opinion, is simple: It's because some people are only too happy to portray American military men not as honorable warriors but as losers and thugs and criminals.

As you may know, Stiles is the creep who's suspected of videotaping his rape of a three-year-old Las Vegas girl. The appalling crime prompted nationwide news coverage and a nationwide manhunt for the 37-year-old career criminal.

Almost all of the news reports described Stiles as a "survivalist" who "claimed to be a former Navy SEAL" – although at least one TV station said that he was in fact a former SEAL.

But Stiles was never a member of the Navy's elite, highly-trained SEAL (Sea-Air-Land) special operations force. Not even close. According to Mike McLellan, a spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Stiles joined the Navy in 1988, was trained as an "engineman" and was discharged as an E-1 – the lowest pay grade in the military – in 1989. McLellan couldn't release the nature of Stiles' discharge, but it's likely that it was under less-than-honorable conditions.

In other words, not only was this guy not a Navy SEAL; he's not even a bona fide veteran.

"We wish more news organizations would have checked on this," McLellan told me when I called. Unfortunately, once this erroneous information gets out there in the news and on the Internet, it's almost impossible to correct it.

Nice work on the part of Mr. Dillow who I happen to know has spent a significant amount of time as an embedded reporter in Iraq.