How one bogus Marine fooled an entire family

[CommunityEditor]

Reggie Buddle, the man who posed as a combat-decorated Marine and military chaplain, wasn’t authorized to officiate at veterans’ funerals, recruit new Marines, perform their marriages or baptize them before they went to Iraq, but for one family, he managed to do all four.

Buddle, who in reality is a retired Boeing machinist and an Army veteran who never saw combat, encouraged Debbie Laukeman’s son to join the Marines, in part by sharing his own made-up experiences. Her son, Christopher Bearce, was 19 at the time and turned to Buddle, who was engaging and a good storyteller, for advice.

“I signed the papers on my 20th birthday,” said Bearce, now 25 and living in San Antonio with his wife and newborn daughter.

Before he left for boot camp, Buddle baptized Bearce and two of his friends, who had also joined up.

Bearce served two tours in Iraq as a radio operator. In between tours, he asked his sweetheart to marry him. Buddle performed the wedding ceremony, although he was not legally qualified to do so. (State laws protect the legality of the marriage under these circumstances.)

And when Bearce’s grandmother, an Army veteran, died, Buddle donned his uniform and officiated at her service at Tahoma National Cemetery.

Now Buddle, who pleaded guilty in April to unlawful wearing of military medals and decorations, will be back at the military cemetery — this time doing community service by tending graves.

Laukeman has mixed feelings about the sentence, which includes two years’ probation and 500 hours of community service at the cemetery.

“I am not sure I want him anywhere around my mother’s grave because I already feel he violated her and our family,” Laukeman said.

“He baptized me and my friends. He married me, and he gave a speech at my grandmother’s funeral, all with no credentials,” Bearce said. “It feels like we were kind of taken advantage of. Those moments are something we’re not going to be able to get back. We can’t go back in time and have him not be there.”

Bearce and his wife hope to have a new wedding ceremony, this time official, on their fifth wedding anniversary, he said.

Buddle, 59, who has lived in Lakewood most of his life and been married for 25 years, is struggling to come to terms with his shame and understand why he did what he did, said his public defender, Colin Fieman. Court records state that Buddle was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and related depression in 2003, and is taking medication for both.

In a memorandum to the court, Fieman argued that Buddle, who served two years in the Army during the Vietnam War but never saw combat, acted out of a misguided sense of duty and his own religious convictions. He also said Buddle, who at one point had studied to become a lay minister but wasn’t ordained, never sought any veterans benefits that he wasn’t entitled to.

“Reggie wanted to go back to active service at the outbreak of the Iraq war but was too old and had too many health problems for that to happen,” Fieman wrote. “At one point, he even went to a recruiter and offered to go to Iraq in any capacity, even if it meant washing dishes in a mess hall.”

Instead, he wound up signing up others.



Full article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...marine_070803/


Buddle isn't the first to claim to be what he isn't. Why the Marines?

[The Universal Curmudgeon_guest]

Originally Posted by CommunityEditor

Buddle isn't the first to claim to be what he isn't. Why the Marines?

If you were an American and could be anything you wanted to be - wouldn't you want to be a Marine?

At least, in this case, it appears that Mr. Buddle wasn't out for personal aggrandizement and that he actually performed valuable service while "fulfilling his dream".

One wishes that one could say the same for the politicians who put on a military uniform for a PR stunt.

NOTE WELL-

In defense of 'God' being Reggie Buddle's One True Judge for his actions. The 'God' all Armed Forces Personnel of any rank have sworn to!... and dishonor their Branch, Government, Nation, UNIFORM, Friends and Loved Ones, and Self if not IN FACT complied with (The ONLY TRUE ACCEPTED REFERENCE to the WILL and NATURE of 'God' is in fact within the Bible). Please make reference to the later, for DEFINED and APPROPRIATE CONDUCT REGULATIONS in support of the following two OATHS (or those specifically related to the Individual's Barnch) made by (I believe) everyone on this FORUM:
MARINE CORPS OATH:

Enlisted: I (state your name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Officer: I (state your name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

So help me God? Those not in compliance? What dishonor be greater to any Uniform, Fallen Comrade, Active Armed Forces Representative, or ... Uniform? What Court Martial be held for violation? Is compassion and understanding warranted here, if not for Reggie Buddle? Answer: No!

The Pledge of AllegianceA Short History
by Dr. John W. Baer
Copyright 1992 by Dr. John W. Baer

“Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. The government would run a peace time economy similar to our present military industrial complex.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader's Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis's sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.

In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'

His original Pledge read as follows: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' He considered placing the word, 'equality,' in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [ * 'to' added in October, 1892.

Dr. Mortimer Adler, American philosopher and last living founder of the Great Books program at Saint John's College, has analyzed these ideas in his book, The Six Great Ideas. He argues that the three great ideas of the American political tradition are 'equality, liberty and justice for all.' 'Justice' mediates between the often conflicting goals of 'liberty' and 'equality.'

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge's words, 'my Flag,' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.
Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.

What follows is Bellamy's own account of some of the thoughts that went through his mind in August, 1892, as he picked the words of his Pledge:

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people...

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, 'Liberty, equality, fraternity.' No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all...

If the Pledge's historical pattern repeats, its words will be modified during this decade. Below are two possible changes.

Some prolife advocates recite the following slightly revised Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.' "

... and yet? For so many ... just words to be violated for irrational pride and emotion...

I took the Marine Corps Oath serious! And, I still fight with pride and Spirit for: "So help me God." and
quote:
one nation under God
.

Those that do not uphold these ASPECTS of BEING AN HONORABLE MARINE (or other Armed Forces Representative - as we are sincerely 1 Team). DO IN FACT THROW THEIR PRIDE AND HONOR AWAY ... and in addition are subject to Military Justice for VIOLATION of the OATH they took before GOD and IN A UNIFORM that merits better.

There is a saying: "Those who live in glass houses ... shouldn't throw stones!" There are others, maybe more appropriate too...

ONCE AGAIN I DIRECT THIS COMMENT ONLY TO THOSE:
"If the boot fits ... wear it!"!

I am proud of TRUE and HONORABLE MARINES, AIRMAN, ARMY and NAVY PERSONNEL, and SEEBEES, and the COP-ON-THE-STREET ... the FIREMAN who risks his Life day-in and day-out ... and Every American Citizen (and not) Worldwide who follows the above OATH; many times without taking it before a Ceremony.

ONCE AGAIN I DIRECT THIS COMMENT ONLY TO THOSE:BUT WEARING THE UNIFORM doesn't make either one or the other... it is the INDIVIDUAL 'BEING' inside 'Who' is to be honored! The later, ACCORDING TO YOUR OATH!

Neither one of the above documents speak of a 'uniform' as being 'god'!

[TOPSECRET]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

In defense of 'God' being Reggie Buddle's One True Judge for his actions. The 'God' all Armed Forces Personnel of any rank have sworn to!...

I am an atheist with 20 years, 24 days of military service. I swore to no God. One has the choice to swear or affirm. One also may opt to omit "so help me God." I affirmed and omitted. Other servicemembers may have chosen to swear, but not to YOUR God.

Inclusively yours,
Bill