BACKGROUND
David R. Ziegel comes to us from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Ziegel is 64 years old as of June 2019.
Ziegel was featured in a local news article in his hometown during Memorial Day 2019. We don’t have the article but hopefully someone in his hometown of Beaver Dam WI will provide it.
To be frank – Ziegel has claimed to do many things in the Army. Almost too much to cover so we’ll try and hit the high points of the claims.
We cannot determine if Ziegel is claiming to be an AH1 Cobra Pilot or Gunner. Here he is talking about being “hot and black” which only a few with experience would know. He implies he is a “chopper jockey” but that could mean he was riding as the gunner.
In this post he talks about his flight jacket – which could be a pilot or gunner, but he has the rank of LT displayed on it. We have reliable input from around where he lives that he has claimed to be a Warrant Officer.
This post is interesting. The Cobra only has room for two, so if he is saying the other person is the gunner, he must be the pilot, unless he is staging the photo with two gunners and are not taking off.
Then there is the flight patch. Again, hard to tell if he is claiming he was a pilot or a gunner.
Then, the other unit patches and emblems…
But the following photo that he captioned is the clearest statement yet that Zeigel is claiming he was/is a pilot.
Then, here he talks about a safe landing…
Moving on from the Cobra pilot claim, he has other things that he did in the Army that are quite impressive. In this photo, Ziegel labels all of the members of U.S. Army Scout Team “Mamba” and Ziegel is to the far left in the photo.
But this is a well-known photo found on the internet, and can even be purchased on eBay…
But, Dave Ziegel claims it as his own, and his exploits in the Army are the real deal…
At this point, a pattern is emerging. Many of the photographs, except this one are too far away or out of focus to tell it if was him. Also, either the photographer or the people in the photo are all deceased, which makes Ziegel the only one that can verify.
There was a lot of activity that he claims to have participated in while in Central America… and he was trained to be a jungle expert.
People that knew Dave Ziegel thought all of these claims were strange because they saw him around town during the time that he claimed to be in Panama and other places.
But that hasn’t stopped Dave from thinking about his old Army days…
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ACTIONS CONDUCTED BY MILITARY PHONIES
Dave Ziegel’s military records were ordered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
We had to make 4-5 requests because we accounted for service in the National Guard, which would show up with a National Personnel Records Center request.
The NPRC kept referring us to the State National Guard (Wisconsin) but they in turn could not find records and sent us to the NPRC. It was an endless loop until we uncoupled the two requests.
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FOIA RESULTS
NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER (NPRC)
WISCONSIN NATIONAL GUARD
CRIMINAL
The following criminal record would cause an issue with Ziegel serving, so this throws doubts upon any recent claims of service.
https://arrestfacts.com/David-Ziegel-2u5v11
Looks like Ziegel spent some time in jail for the above.
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DISCUSSION and SUMMARY
So basically the NPRC is pointing to the Wisconsin National Guard and the Wisconsin National Guard is pointing to the NPRC.
Translation – neither organization can find records on David R. Ziegel.
What is interesting is that the Wisconsin National Guard has a counter-narcotics military unit.
STOLEN VALOR
If the claims by David Ziegel were used to leverage work, military or civilian promotions, or anything else of value, he may be in violation of Stolen Valor laws. State laws may also apply.
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PHOTOS
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SOCIAL MEDIA
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/dave.ziegel
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