Ward Churchill's Military Claims Proven False
Gunny Bob Breaks Story of Prof. Ward Churchill’s Real Military Background

February 11, 2005

DENVER—An exhaustive investigation by Bob Newman of Newsradio 850 KOA (Denver), who is also a frequent guest military & terrorism analyst on the FOX News Channel and a Men's News Daily columnist, into the genuine Vietnam service record of radical University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill, has revealed that Churchill’s claimed combat experience is in direct contradiction to his official military records.

After a confidential source provided Mr. Newman with documents pertaining to Professor Churchill’s military service and his employment at the University of Colorado, Mr. Newman began an investigation into the documents’ authenticity.

Using his own sources and calling upon the investigative skills of FOX News Channel’s Rita Cosby, Mr. Newman was able to verify that Professor Churchill, despite his public claim (in a 1987 Denver Post interview) of having been a paratrooper (Airborne qualified) who conducted long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs; extremely dangerous missions conducted by some of the most elite soldiers in the US Army) hunting North Vietnamese in Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive of 1968, and despite his claim that he was a point man in an infantry combat unit, was in fact trained only as a jeep driver and projectionist (he was trained to operate film-strip machines and movie projectors), according to official documentation from the National Personnel Records Center, the US repository for military records.       

Denver attorneys Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman, both colleagues of Mr. Newman at Clear Channel Colorado, then acquired Professor Churchill’s original resume that resulted in his being hired by the University of Colorado. That resume matched exactly the resume Gunny Bob had acquired from his confidential source. On that resume, Professor Churchill cited no combat experience whatsoever, no Airborne training, no infantry training or experience and no winning of the Combat Infantry Badge. Instead, it said his experience in Vietnam consisted of his duties as a “Public Information Specialist,” as which he “wrote and edited the battalion newsletter and wrote news releases.”

Verification of Professor Churchill’s real Vietnam service record was completed with the direct assistance of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

Gunny Bob notes that in the same 1987 Denver Post report, Professor Churchill admitted to being a bomb-building and weapons instructor for the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group active in the 1970s.

Gunny Bob won a 2002 National Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting on homeland security.

Click here for more information on Ward Churchill.

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