BACKGROUND
James Jeenou Thao AKA Jee Nou Thao comes to us from Milwaukee, WI. Thao is 28 years old as of August 2018.
Recently, Thao participated in a festival community pageant and won the title of “Mr. Hmong Royalty”…
This is quite an honor and the title is accompanied by the responsibility to be an ambassador of sorts for the Hmong community and perform community service.
The title of Mr. Hmong Royalty was also accompanied by prize money — $1,500.
A big part of Thao’s contestant platform was being a U.S. Army veteran, having served in both Kuwait and Afghanistan…
SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10211324273094939&id=1603892119
Several rounds of the contest were in the Hmong native language, but the following round was in English…
The above video was shortened, but the entire video can be found on YouTube below…
NOTE: The judges had some delay so the presentation doesn’t really get started
until the three-minute mark. This is why we shortened the video above.
Thao’s work with other veterans was inspiring. We have little doubt that this contributed to his win.
BUT… there are some people that had doubts about Thao’s story. Others went so far as to suggest that Thao never served in the U.S. Army, let alone Afghanistan.
So, Military Phony filed for Thao’s military records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
. . . . .
FOIA RESULTS
DoD Manpower / SCRA
Since Thao is 28 years old today, and his claim was that he served for six (6) years in the U.S. Army, then the “sweet spot” for his service would have been 2013. On one extreme – ten years ago (2008) he would have been 18 years old and just graduating high school. On another extreme (2018) you could say he just got out of the service so backdating that by six years would be 2012. So, anyway you look at it he would have been in the U.S. Army in 2013. The only reason we point this out is for the display version of a search – 2013. We systematically searched every possible year since Thao was 15 y/o to present and got the same negative result.
. . . . .
NPRC
The National Personnel Records Center would hold any records of someone that had served during the time frame that Thao claimed. Since they could not find a record for him, they suggested the Department of the Army if by chance he was currently serving but current military service did not seem to be Thao’s claim since he used the term ‘veteran.’ In any case, they could find no record for Thao.
. . . . .
DISCUSSION & SUMMARY
DISCUSSION
We were actually puzzled that someone would attempt to enter a public contest and be awarded money based on service claims if they never served. It defied logic, but we could find no supporting evidence that James Jeenou Thao served, even using various combinations of the names on our requests to accommodate “Jee Nou Thao” as well as “James Jeenou Thao.”
. . . . .
SUMMARY
Unless Thao can come up with documentation that he served in the U.S. Army and beyond that, that he served in Afghanistan – it would appear that the $1500 prize money that he gained in the contest could be considered by some to be a violation of Stolen Valor.
If some ambitious folks in the Stolen Valor community contacted the contest’s organizers, they may find all of this to be very interesting. One would assume that integrity would be a factor in consideration of a contestant.
Heck, maybe the guy that came in second would also find this very interesting.
. . . . .
SOCIAL MEDIA
- FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ManakaMonica (deleted)
- FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/garlicsaltbae (new)