Showing posts with label Army Green Beret. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Army Green Beret. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Someone's Dug up Father Corapi's Military Records Again

Edit  GMT 0.105 June 22, A lot of interest in Father Corapi's military records, again since Mark Shea, a non-soldier if I've ever seen one, has decided to continue his dark Crusade.   First, bear in mind that military records are notoriously inaccurate and that a lot can happen, especially given the irregular nature of Special Forces units in general.  Father Corapi may have also served on a B-Team [which doesn't require the intensive training of A-Team members] and worked in an SF Training unit which was actually at Fort Knox during the time he was assigned there as an Infantryman.  It may be possible to belong to a B-Team without having jump wings and it's also understood that you can move up to advanced  parachute training, and the, like later on.


I'll also point out that I"m confident that most of the people commenting are rear-echelon types who have no special knowledge on the Special Forces or the historical time period being discussed, the height of the Vietnam War just before Tet, when the demand for men and material was high.


As noted before and elsewhere, Father Corapi is challenging the authority of the Bishops to pass rules and ordinances like this, making a priest guilty till proven innocent. CNS points out that no part of Canon Law was cited.

This copy of Father's military file has been floating around at least for four years, and others have wanted to "debunk" Father Corapi as well. Well, it's stuck over on Free Republic and it's a bit hard to read some of the later entries, and it can look bad if you don't know how to read the document and the acronyms. You have to realize that there are no things that jump out at you saying, "this is a super secret, special forces trooper." After looking at Wikipedia, it says that Father John was sworn in on April 16th 1967. After finishing up his Basic at what looks like it may be Fort Gordon, he was enrolled at Fort McClellan on 23 June of 1967, where he was first in Charley Company, Second Platoon, 3rd Battalion of the 175th Advanced Infantry Training Brigade. It's entirely consistent with his story that while he was training as a basic Infantryman, he was already committed to be Special Forces, and looking forward to going with relish. He then attends a course where he appears to have gone to Ft. Knox for a time. That's mostly Armor there, so who knows what he was doing there but it lists his MOS as 11B10 Infantry, and states that he is a attached as "student". It's not too far from Fort Campbell where there is a Special Forces Unit and Air Assault.

Basically, you can come from any MOS and be Green Beret. Father Corapi's military record is ENTIRELY consistent with his descriptions in his rousing speeches.

In fact, this file has been floating around for a while and was dealt with very well by another poster at the Catholic Answers Forum, here, it's very exhaustive and does a good job of defending Father Corapi. It would make sense that Father Corapi was hurt and after becoming an Infantryman, was sent to a more appropriate job as a clerk typist in Germany working for a General, when it was very dangerous with all the Bader Meinhof types roaming around.