“For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
former Marine, proud to have served 4 tours in the middle east.” – Rob Pearson
BACKGROUND
Rob Pearson comes to us from Charlotte, North Carolina. He is 59 years old as of May 2018. He is originally from St. Louis, MO. People sometimes refer to him respectfully and affectionally as “Sarge.”
Pearson was brought to the attention of Military Phony due to inconsistencies in his claims and medals presented on his Facebook profile.
If we were to enlarge the above photos to get a closer look at his medals…
As you can see from the above enlargement, he has a Bronze Star Medal, a Purple Heart and a Combat Action Ribbon. Quite interesting is he has no deployment ribbons. No Sea Service Deployment Ribbon which is awarded for each deployment.
Then, the Good Conduct Medal is for active duty of three years duration. Since he has three stars on top of the ribbon, it would represent 12 years of active duty.
This is in contrast to the six (6) service stripes that he wears on his sleeve, which designate a period of four (4) years each. Six times four = 24 years.
An article states that Pearson retired with twenty-five (25) years of service, which is supported by the service stripes on his sleeve…
But… the twenty-five (25) year service claim is not supported by the four awards of the Good Conduct Medal which equal twelve (12) years. Perhaps he is speaking of time in the Marine Corps Reserve? (We’ll come back to this point.)
Pearson takes a lot of official looking photos in his dress blues. We thought at first they were from a formal function, but on closer inspection, it appears that he strung up an American flag on a backyard fence.
Difficult to see, but the Kuwait Liberation Medal is also upside down in this photo.
It is also upside down in this photo, which may have been taken as part of the same sequence on the same day. Here, Pearson claims “Special ops.”
Then, Rob Pearson has a display case of his awards and accomplishments…
Enlarging the display case shows the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon and the “Special Operations” claim, along with MSgt (E-8).
Pearson makes several references to combat and injuries while in combat…
On Rob Pearson’s Facebook profile, he claims to have done four tours in the Middle East…
You may have noticed that Pearson is a bodybuilder and works for a bodybuilding company. Well, he also puts his Marine Corps accomplishments on display at work as well.
You may be asking yourself at this point – although it is assumed that they are unaware, is it really fair to bring his Pearson’s place of employment into all of this? Well, it appears that Pearson does…
SOURCE: Rob Pearson’s Facebook and EUROPA Sports Products web page
We’ll let you be the judge of the ethics of the work association. As we stated, they are probably unaware. We can say for certain that if someone uses their military claims to gain or promote their work or work product, it may enter into some interesting territory.
Wouldn’t you love to hear the conversation that takes place in the below setting with active duty members?
To Rob Pearson’s credit, he looks like a rough, gruff, cigar-chomping Master Sergeant of Marines, so why would anyone doubt any of his claims?
Just a few more direct claims and claims by implication.
USMC Power Lifter…
This may be true… we cannot prove or disprove so we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Believe it or not, the Marine Corps does have a powerlifting team. If Pearson was on this team, it would be a pretty impressive accomplishment.
SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) – very pretigious training…
We will check the SERE claim in his official military records.
Then there are several direct and indirect claims of tours to the Middle East.
Rob Pearson certainly looks the part of a combat-hardened Marine MSgt.
A little difficult to see, but he seems to have a few less medals in the above photo. This will be discussed further in the SUMMARY & DISCUSSION section below.
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FOIA RESULTS – SELECTED
However, the DoD Manpower database shows different service dates for the second period of active duty.
Since there are no record of assignment (Chronological Record) entries for Nov 1986 – Nov 1989, there is a suspicion that the date of “November 1, 1986” on the Summary Sheet may have been a typo and it was meant to be “1989” instead.
In either case, the documented active duty service was less than the typical twenty years required for retirement. It was certainly less than the twenty-five (25) years claimed by Pearson. Recall that the Summary Sheet says “Retired” so this points to a medical retirement.
We also checked the USMC Combat Action Ribbon and Humanitarian Service Ribbon database.
There was no CAR or HSM listed for Robert Pearson. It should be noted that this database has been found to not include all awards, but it has been more reliable for recent conflicts. Still, no conclusion can be drawn from this result alone.
Then, there are the pages of record of assignments…
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FOIA RESULTS – COMPLETE
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DISCUSSION & SUMMARY
DISCUSSION
In looking at the case of Rob Pearson, it almost has the feel that a huge block of his career, including all of the claimed Middle East tours, is missing or not accounted for.
RETIRED
However, the key here is the designation of “Retired” on the Summary Page. That shows us that the records are complete. There were not enough years for a typical twenty (20) year retirement so there could have been an early retirement or a medical retirement.
In fact, if you combine this possibility with all of the hospital stays, it points to either an injury or chronic illness. In 1986, Pearson was transferred to the Temporary Disability Retirement List. He reentered the service at a later date for only a few years. This pattern of medical visits could not be related to a combat wound since he does not have a Purple Heart and he doesn’t have anything on his Combat History Page.
AWARDS
In the following photos, he seems to not have the number of awards that he does in pictures taken later. That is in spite of him having the rank/stripes of a MSgt (E-8) in both of the photos.
Later, the awards seemed to accumulate but the rank stayed the same. Plausible? Yes, but still a bit interesting.
In the following photo, marked as taken on 30 SEPT 1985 (850930) he has the rank of Sergeant of Marines (E-5) but only has a few ribbons.
Clearly one row of ribbons, and although it is difficult to make out, it appears there are two but maybe only one. This would be consistent with his record of assignments since his records show no deployments prior to 30 SEPT 1985. It shows the overseas assignment of Okinawa, but no deployments.
SERE
Rob Pearson had the MOS of 1345 — which is a Heavy Equipment Operator. He was in support of Combat Engineer units. We did not see and SERE school listed. He wears the t-shirt which would suggest that he was trained in SERE, but he makes no statements other than the photo.
POWER LIFTING
Pearson claims he was on the Corps Powerlifting team. As stated above, the Marine Corps does have a Powerlifting team but to prove or disprove this goes beyond our scope.
RANK
According to his official military records, Pearson’s final rank was Sergeant (E-5) vs. his claim of Master Sergeant (E-8).
TOURS – COMBAT
Other than Okinawa, no overseas tours as documented in Pearson’s record of assignments and further documented by his awards. Neither support four tours in the Middle East as he claims.
No Combat Action Ribbon or Purple Heart is listed in his records. It is difficult to determine which conflict(s) Pearson is claiming that would give him those awards.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS
We saw nothing in his military records that support a claim of “Special Operations.”
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SUMMARY
Most of Robert Pearson’s claims are not supported by his official military records. He was a Marine that served for over 10 years… but his records do not show that he served for 25 years. The service stripes that he wears on his sleeves to not match what is in his records.
He got out as an E-5 vs. an E-8. No CAR, no Purple Heart, and no Bronze Star medal. Ironically, we could not find support for having three stars on his Good Conduct Medal.
Pearson has a career in the Marine Corps that anyone would be proud of. It appears that he took liberties with the truth as many of these claims are unsupported. If he has supporting documentation as to many of these claims, we would be glad to help set the record straight but it’s not looking too good.
If Pearson used any of these claims to gain employment or uses them to sell his work products – it could put him in direct violation of the Stolen Valor Act.
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PHOTOS and SOCIAL MEDIA
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SOCIAL MEDIA
- FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/robpea
