Stolen valor and a retraction
Last September, I published a story on the Dubois County Veteran’s Service Officer (VSO) Kenneth Speedy Lefevre. Since then, information has come to my attention indicating that the details Mr. Lefevre shared about his service may be inaccurate.
The following is an account of what occurred and what has come to light due to the work of several local veterans dedicated to the integrity of the U.S. Armed Services. I have mixed feelings about the issue because I am a U.S. Navy veteran and the journalist who facilitated the proliferation of Mr. Lefevre’s stories.
Before meeting Mr. Lefevre for an interview about his service in the U.S. Marine Corps and his new position as the county VSO, I knew little about him beyond seeing him in passing at meetings and in public at various places. Before meeting with him, I watched his YouTube interview and introduction on the local veterans information channel, Scuttlebutt, in which he discussed his service, including injuries sustained in Syria.
Early in the interview, after observing him limp into the coffee shop where we met and based on his prior interviews, I asked about his service-related injuries.
During the interview, he told me a story of being involved in a convoy that was struck by an IED. He explained that he was in the vehicle behind the one hit by the IED, but in a cascade of effects from the explosion, somehow he was blown into the air and had suffered the impact of a “couple thousand” flechettes.
He described the IED as designed to work with two explosions: the first to breach protective armor, and a second to launch projectiles into the exposed individuals. He also showed me one of the flechettes he stated had been removed from his body.
Along with telling me about this explosion, Mr. Lefevre stated he lost four Marines and his dog, Karma. He then spent nine months in recovery before being medically discharged — though the timeframes are murky as to when those nine months started. In recent weeks, I have learned he was officially discharged in March of 2023.
That date is important as I became involved with several other local veterans in identifying inconsistencies in Mr. Lefevre’s stories.
After the interview, I did some cursory searches for an incident involving Marines in Syria, and though I came up with several incidents over the past decade, none identified Mr. Lefevre or, more significantly, four dead Marines and a dog named Karma.
However, there is such a thing as the fog of war, and, in good faith, believing Mr. Lefevre’s story to be true, I wrote my story.
In December, I was contacted by Gary Love, a retired Army National Guard officer who had served in the area as a recruiter before being appointed an officer and attending Infantry Officer Basic in Fort Benning, Georgia. After graduation, he was deployed to Iraq, where he planned 34 convoy missions.
With that experience, he had suspicions about the validity of Mr. Lefevre’s story and began researching incidents involving convoys in Syria over the past few years, as well as the types of explosives encountered. He also obtained casualty records from U.S. Central Command (CentCom) for the years during which Mr. Lefevre could have been deployed there.
He found there were no deaths or injuries reported by the U.S. Marine Corps in Syria through 2021, 2022 or 2023.
Military service entails geographically specific colloquialisms and vernacular. Meaning, you pick up ways of describing things and actions in service that are specific to the military and even to the areas in which you serve. For retired Lt. Col. David Flynn, the words Mr. Lefevre was using in his stories about the incident didn’t make sense. No one in Syria described things as he did in his stories.
Other veterans, Marines, who had served in Syria, were also asking questions about Mr. Lefevre’s account of his injuries, as well as his mentioning of a service dog.
Mr. Lefevre told me in his interview that his job as a forward observer was to identify targets and direct artillery fire onto them. In the Marine Corps, dogs are only used by military police personnel with specific training and qualifications.
Mr. Love stated he spoke to Mr. Lefevre about my story and was told that I had misattributed stories he was writing about other servicemembers in a manuscript he showed me during the interview.
Mr. Lefevre has never contacted me to correct any details in the story I published.
In response to Mr. Love’s suspicions and Mr. Lefevre’s statement that I had fabricated the story, I provided Mr. Love with recordings of my interview that included Mr. Lefevre’s statements.
In recent weeks, Mr. Lefevre has stated that I got some details incorrect, but hasn’t specified which details. He has also stated that he told me he wanted to concentrate on the VSO job in the story. Although at one point in the recorded interview he stated that excessive details need not be included in the story, he never said that the story of his actions in Syria was off the record or that he’d prefer it not to be included.
Veterans Daryl Hensley, Boone Taylor, Gary Love, Dave Duncan and Dave Flynn have continued to examine Mr. Lefevre’s statements and provided me with that documentation that includes timelines based on his social media feeds, including an image of him in a wheelchair dated December 2021, a screenshot of his LinkedIn account, CentCom records, statements regarding Mr. Lefevre’s inability to join the VFW and more.
Based on those documents, I met with Mr. Lefevre in his office on Thursday, Feb. 5, and asked him to provide evidence supporting his account of the IED convoy.
During that visit and in a subsequent visit on Monday, Feb. 9, Mr. Lefevre refused to provide medical documentation of his injuries, military orders to Syria, a paystub with added combat pay for being stationed in Syria, the names of any fellow soldiers or Marines involved in the incident, or the name of his Commanding Officer at the time of the incident as individuals I could contact to corroborate his story or Lt. Col. Dave Flynn could use to verify through the Marine Corps.
Mr. Lefevre provided a scanned document of a telehealth visit with an unidentified individual. It did not provide any names of the medical personnel involved in the checkup, nor where it occurred, nor the reason for the checkup. The appointment was dated for October 28, 2021, and listed an initial incident for the appointment as occurring on October 17, 2021.
When asked Mr. Lefevre stated he thought that was when the IED incident occurred.
He also told me that he did not know where the telehealth meeting occurred.
During our VSO interview back in September, he stated he was medically discharged nine months after the incident. The purported medical document’s date of October 2021 would have been 17 months prior to his medical discharge date.
At the meeting, he also provided an image of himself in what appears to be a hospital bed with his head wrapped in gauze. Again, the image contains no details or information, nor is it clear where it was taken. He also showed an image of contusions on what may be an appendage. It is a close-up image of bleeding wounds, but it is unclear what it depicts or whom it depicts.
A DD 214 is a document used to confirm an individual’s service, including medals and profession or specialty. It is issued following an in-person review upon an individual’s departure from the service. By his own admission, Mr. Lefevre’s DD 214 does not show he was awarded any of the medals or ribbons that would have come from serving in Syria.
This includes the Inherent Resolve Campaign medal awarded to anyone deployed to Syria in the timeframe he served. Nor a Purple Heart.
The Purple Heart is a distinguished military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who
have been wounded or killed while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Eligibility for a Purple Heart applies to
service members who suffered a wound: 1) As the direct or indirect result of enemy action, and 2) The wound
required treatment by a medical officer at the time of the injury.
Mr. Lefevre should have been awarded the Purple Heart based on the injuries he allegedly sustained in the IED incident.
He acknowledges he has never said he received a Purple Heart nor worn it on his uniform.
However, he can’t explain why it isn’t listed as an award on his DD-214, nor why he has not had the form corrected.
This is another important point, as his role as a VSO is to assist fellow veterans in obtaining the benefits they earned for their service. A job that includes helping veterans correct errors on their official records.
While Mr. Lefevre has never admitted to fabricating the story he has repeated on the Youtube channel Scuttlebutt, in the Dubois County Free Press interview, nor in the story published in the Ferdinand News (see below), he did provide a statement to me regarding the issue.
He wrote, “After reviewing what can and cannot be supported by records, I have to acknowledge that, in the absence of corroborating documentation, I cannot in good faith continue to state that the events I previously described occurred exactly as I conveyed them. I recognize there is a real disconnect between what I said and what can be verified, and at this point I do not have a clear explanation for how that disconnect came to be.”
He further stated he was retracting the claims he made “to the extent they cannot be substantiated.”
While the statement further clarifies that he should never have made the claims he did, Mr. Lefevre does not recant the validity of his story.
Lying about your service is protected under the First Amendment, and it isn’t isolated.
In essence, though, the act of falsifying your military service, rank or wearing unearned medals or uniforms is defined as Stolen Valor. Under the U.S. Stolen Valor Act of 2013, it is a federal crime if done to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefits.
There is no evidence that Mr. Lefevre has used his story to obtain any benefits other than the trust and admiration of veterans and the public.
Salty sea dogs and old veterans have their favorite stories to tell, and some embellish their time in the military. But, between veterans and friends around campfires, these stories aren’t necessarily harmful. Additionally, these stories may arise from the trauma of military service.
Mr. Lefevre’s story has been widely publicized, and as these statements have spread, the veterans he is assigned to assist have withdrawn.
I have spoken with several who stated that they will not trust him to assist them with their Veterans Affairs claims.
In a presentation provided to County Commissioners, Army Veteran Daryl Hensley outlined the damage being done.
In essence, stolen valor isn’t just about lying; it’s seen as a betrayal that steals dignity from real veterans and damages the foundational public trust that supports them.
This reduces public trust, may affect how the public continues to support legitimate veterans’ charities, increases the workload for these support programs, tarnishes the reputation of the military community, and undermines the credibility of real combat veterans.
The County Commissioners stated they are aware of the situation but declined to comment at this time.
It is important to note that members of the veterans community involved in the investigation of Mr. Lefevre’s claims have also met with him to assist him in this matter.
To provide a path to truth and forgiveness if warranted.
Ferdinand News story.
