Thomas William Cole – US Army SGT, Two Purple Hearts, Operation Urgent Fury, Blog of Shame
1310/28/2021 by militaryphonies
BACKGROUND
Thomas William Cole comes to us from Pendleton, Indiana. At the time of this writing, October 2021, Cole is 57 years old.
As you can see in the photo above, Cole wears a baseball cap with the designation “PURPLE HEART – COMBAT VETERAN.”
There is also a claim of combat wounded on his Facebook page.
There is also a claim on Cole’s Facebook page that he held the MOS of 98G2LAP in addition to serving from 1982 – 1996 with the 82nd Airborne.
A MOS 98G2LAP is listed as…
Also, there is a claim of being a SGT (E-5) while stationed with the 82nd Airborne.
Since there is a Facebook post claiming that Cole jumped into Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, that would mean he saw action as a SGT.
Thomas Cole – Facebook post
There is an implication that Cole is the serviceman in the photo. This photo is used throughout his Facebook profile, even used as his profile picture.
Thomas Cole – Profile Picture
However, this photo is from the Department of the Navy, taken by PH2 David Wujcik, has a VIN number of ‘DN-ST-85-02006’ and can be easily searched on the internet. The official DoD caption for this photograph reads:
Here is the photo at high resolution and with the assessionist information intact.
DN-ST-85-02006 – A Marine, wearing camouflage and armed with an M16A1 rifle, participates in Operation URGENT FURY.
The caption and VIN appear to have been assigned in 1985, so there could be some assumptions made by the DoD assessionist assigning the VIN and caption. Since the US Army and US Marines wore the same cammies, there could be a chance this is a US Army soldier but the fact remains that it is captioned that he is a Marine.
In the post made to Facebook about jumping into Grenada, there is a claim that Cole was shot in the chest.
On Cole’s LinkedIn page, there is a claim of two Purple Hearts for being wounded in combat.
Thomas Cole – LinkedIn
Also on Cole’s LinkedIn page, there is a claim of a Bronze Star.
Thomas Cole – LinkedIn
Then, this photo shows Cole with a long tab tattoo, which is implying he was in Special Forces.
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ACTIONS CONDUCTED BY MILITARY PHONIES
Thomas Cole’s military records were ordered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
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FOIA RESULTS
US ARMY HUMAN RESOURCES COMMAND (HRC)
FOIA Result – HRC – Thomas Cole – NGB FORM 22
The entire FOIA result will be provided below, but we extracted and consolidated all pertinent information such as rank and duty stations into a summary table. This table was not provided by the U.S. Army, but the information that they provided is summarized in the table.
US Army FOIA Complete Results
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MANPOWER DATA CENTER (SCRA)
We searched the DoD Manpower Data Center database and found the following service listing for Thomas William Cole.
DoD Manpower Data Center (SCRA) – Thomas Cole
This database was searched as well for any other active duty to present day. It did not show anything but sometimes the database is not reliable for recall to active duty from reserve status. This appears to be consistent with Cole’s NGB 22, however.
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OTHER RESEARCH
A newspaper article listing the servicemen killed and wounded in Grenada does not list Thomas Cole.
A case could be made that the above list is early reporting and therefore not complete but the claim in Cole’s post is that he was shot in the chest on the day he jumped in, so it would represent an early casualty — if true. Although there were some early recon elements that went in early, the main invasion of Grenada was on October 25, 1983 vs. October 23, 1983.
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DISCUSSION and SUMMARY
LENGTH OF SERVICE
There are discrepancies between Cole’s claim of being in the Army and at 82nd Airborne for the length of time he claimed compared to the NGB 22 file.
NGB 22 – BLOCK 18: Prior Service Dates
RANK
Cole was discharged as a SPC (E-4) vs. the SGT (E-5) claimed. The summary of the FOIA results do not support a claim for the rank of SGT (E-5).
MOS
We couldn’t find that Cole was ever assigned the MOS of 98G2LAP but it could be the case.
SPECIAL FORCES
Although Cole was in the 82 Airborne, there was nothing in his records to support a claim of Special Forces as his tattoo implies.
COMBAT
His records do not support the claims that Cole served in combat.
AWARDS
Cole’s records show no award of the Purple Heart – not to mention the two (2) that were claimed. Even though the NGB 22, which parallels that of a DD-214, does not have a Purple Heart listed, it would include all prior medals to date.
NGB 22 – BLOCK 15: Awards
SUMMARY
If Thomas Cole has used any of these claims to gain anything of value, he could be in violation of the Stolen Valor Act.
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PHOTOS
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SOCIAL MEDIA
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.cole.9279/about
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-cole-a52a576b/
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I don’t understand people who claim to be war veterans/heroes – i did 20 (1963-1984) was a cook and worked in personnel in both the USAF & NAVY (submarines) that’s is and I’m proud of my service.
Reason why is because you are bragging about your 20, they want that and accolades
I’m a retired 18A who later spent a lotta time in Iraq as a security contractor. When people ask me what I did in the military I often tell them I was a “cook” (if I feel expansive I’ll say I was a “food service specialist”). Why? Cuz’ if I tell them I was a 92G the conversation just stops right there and I don’t have to listen to them blither on about their second cousin or neighbor or bartender or salesman at the gun shop who was a “green beret”. Yep, it often seems that half the people on the planet know an SF guy or SEAL. Additionally I’m spared their stories of how they almost kinda sorta went to “green beret school” but pulled a ligament in their lower flexeris goffarkis muscle and missed their class window. So, yeah, I confess-I guess I’m a “military phony”…….
Oh, goody, we can finally make a comment on the lying embellishing POS Thomas William Cole. Hope you enjoy your upcoming Gooooogle Fame there Dippy, as you stand on the bodies and in the blood of REAL WARRIORS. My comment? ESAD mofo…The inherwebz are forever.
Plenty of comments at this linky…BITCH!:
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=118983
That guy should be ashamed but he has probably told this lie so long that his simple mind believes it. Trash
Wow. That’s lame. Somebody is actually faking being a Grenada invader!? What’s next-posing a hardship tour in Korea or FTX at Grafenwoehr? “Well, fellas, gather around and I tell y’all what a bloodbath “Team Spirit” 1984 was! There I be, sound asleep in my fart sack when our entire bivouac site was overrun by a horde of slicky boys and before I could say “turtle trap!” all our hex tents and Yukon stoves were stolen…..next thing ya know I had a sucking chest wound when we were bombed by a squadron of North Korean AN-2 Colts……”
He must really luv that purple heart hat-looks like when he dies the funeral director is going to need the “jaws of life” to pry it off’n his head!
Coincidentally, as a dumbass private I served alongside a then-buck sergeant whose name appears above on that list of Grenada combat wounded. He sustained, yes: a sucking chest wound.
What are the odds?
That guy showed up at our unit on Camp Stanley, complete with IWS from 82nd Airborne, in time to participate in Team Spirit ’84.
He was and is a good dude. Thanks for the laugh and that memory, Paulden.
Actually Jack, truth be told the absolute WORST decade of my life was the year I spent at Camp Casey 1983/84. Lets see…….for a variety of reasons as a brand new O-1 I had seven different platoon sergeants during that year (like my fifth one, an E-7, who was a Georgia cracker mentioned when he first spoke to the troops discussed how he was going to enforce grooming standards for “negro hair”, oh yeah that went over well with the 2/3 of my platoon who was BLACK!), I found out long after I took charge of my platoon some of the men had tried on at least three occasions to murder the lieutenant I replaced (in all honesty he kinda had it coming as he treated the men like dog sh!t), the battalion S-3 was a crypto-homosexual (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”) who made several romantic advances towards me (maybe I shoulda been flattered but being a rather uptight GUY I wasn’t) and when I reported what he did to my commander was told, “That’s IMPOSSIBLE! He’s a married man for chrissakes lieutenant!”
I spent a lotta time in Iraq and not one day there was ever as bad as a day in the 2ID, well-at least not before IS in 2014 that is…..
Sounds like being an el-tee at Casey was tougher duty than being a private at Stanley. Glad ya made it out, sir. 😉
His awards DO NOT list the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal AFEM that I could see.
I believed that was an approved U.S. military operation, for that award.
Seems he hos deleted his LinkedIn profile now where he claimed to have been a sniper instructor. HAHAHA
What a choad.
He certainly did not do a lot of research. I think the only non-Ranger Bat guys who jumped in were a couple of engineers from the 82nd? Also, I was a 98G once; I don’t see any time spent at DLI for a language, or Goodfellow AFB for AIT. Odd. And I was at Bragg in MI Co 7th SFG at the time and I knew all of the 98G/Cs at 313th and 525. None of them jumped into Grenada, all airlanded. I’m surprised he did not place himself in the friendly fire incident on a LLVI team from 313th.