Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren YoY Elizabeth listen here. Yeah, you know what's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: What's that you love animals? I do.
Speaker 3: That's not ridiculous. The part that's ridiculous is I was
Speaker 3: thinking about you because you've been looking for pets recently
Speaker 3: and going.
Speaker 2: Online, although sometimes I'm kind of looking for I see, yeah,
Speaker 2: definitely a dog.
Speaker 3: I've heard you talking to the intern so like, and
Speaker 3: then the dogs look at you and they go, oh,
Speaker 3: you should get a cat. Yeah, guys, that's messed up. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I was looking at some just online stories and
Speaker 3: I found one about a bird that was being offered.
Speaker 3: But you're a little late. There are about four hundred
Speaker 3: people ahead of you in line for this bird. The
Speaker 3: bird was put up by the Niagara SPCA, and apparently
Speaker 3: it's an Amazon parrot, really a really beautiful white fronted
Speaker 3: Amazon parrot. Yeah, but apparently the parrot was known for
Speaker 3: saying things like you want me to kick your rack?
Speaker 3: So this was a foul mouth, white fronted Amazon parrot
Speaker 3: which was known to be able to do like thirty
Speaker 3: forty different sounds. And uh, the SBCA are trying to
Speaker 3: give this pad away. They've been putting a posts on Facebook, right,
Speaker 3: so one of them is like quote on the bride side.
Speaker 3: If you want to keep unannounced company from dropping in,
Speaker 3: adopt pepper. They'll think twice after being cussed out by
Speaker 3: your new foul mouth feather friend.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 3: Give us a call if you want to add a
Speaker 3: spicy pepper to your life. Somebody get this guy a
Speaker 3: bar of soap or a humor loving home. So people
Speaker 3: they start as old you four hundred people, I want
Speaker 3: the bird.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: One person's like my grandma's eighty one years old, swears
Speaker 3: all the time, she needs company. This would be great
Speaker 3: for her. So there you go. I'm going to get
Speaker 3: you a cursing parrot.
Speaker 2: We should get a cursing parrot for headquarters.
Speaker 3: Totally in a poop flinging monkey.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's just for me, that's for you. That's good.
Speaker 2: H Do you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: What do you got for me?
Speaker 2: Dealing things? Especially valor?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: This is a ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 2: outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Damn right.
Speaker 2: I like to consider myself a pacifist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I consider you a pacifist.
Speaker 2: What's the exception of my violent language?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you have very violent languages.
Speaker 2: And my belief that I would be the perfect person
Speaker 2: to be command in the scandals, like just ordering deaths,
Speaker 2: not caring executing heads of state for the republic. But
Speaker 2: so I consider myself a pacifist, but I do support
Speaker 2: our military very much.
Speaker 3: Well, these are different things and for some people's capacities,
Speaker 3: Like you could be a personal pacifist, but agreement with
Speaker 3: the military. Some people are pacifists up and down the line,
Speaker 3: right right.
Speaker 2: I mean, we do have the most incredible fighting force
Speaker 2: in the world. I've heard that just the logistics of
Speaker 2: what they can pull off in a very short period
Speaker 2: of is mind blowing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really impest.
Speaker 2: And then you know there's that sacrifice, the risk that
Speaker 2: members of the armed forces take on. Oh I definitely
Speaker 2: you got the psychological damage as well as the physical.
Speaker 2: And that's why active duty and veterans deserve respect.
Speaker 3: Even if I don't agree with something that they were
Speaker 3: asked to do, I still support them fully exactly.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so whether or not. You agree, they earn respect,
Speaker 2: they earn deference. But what happens when you get folks
Speaker 2: with no integrity and a desire for respect and deference
Speaker 2: a lot of things. But I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you today about stolen valor my people. And it's not
Speaker 2: stolen valure.
Speaker 3: Oh not my people. I thought you met stolen like
Speaker 3: valure suits tracksuits.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, I really I should learn to speak. So
Speaker 2: these are military impostors who lie about being in the service,
Speaker 2: or they lie about the extent of their service for
Speaker 2: financial gain. Oh boo, Yeah, they say, the guys who
Speaker 2: were in it don't talk about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, generally speaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I found that to be true unless we.
Speaker 3: Speak with each other.
Speaker 2: That's when they do, right. The ones who crow about
Speaker 2: their service and like tilt tales of daring do and
Speaker 2: like missions in combat and like bragging about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they generally never saw anything, generally bes artists.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in the US, there's actually a federal law against
Speaker 2: stolen valor. So you can get fined or even do
Speaker 2: time if you misrepresent your service, particularly if you say
Speaker 2: that you were the recipient of a medal or like
Speaker 2: a badge or other honor.
Speaker 3: And is the qualifying part that makes a criminal that
Speaker 3: you are receiving money or goods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have like the fraud with intent to get
Speaker 2: money or.
Speaker 3: So it's essentially a type of fraud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like a tangible benefit.
Speaker 3: Oh benefit, like prep prioritized housing.
Speaker 2: The guy exactly, the guy who sits at the end
Speaker 2: of the bar regaling other barflies with like tales of
Speaker 2: his time in country, isn't really breaking the law until
Speaker 2: someone buys him drink and things, and then he is Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would suppose so technically.
Speaker 3: Okay, because he's getting something again stolen valor.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of military impostors, and I want
Speaker 2: to tell you about some some who are just plain ridiculous,
Speaker 2: But there have also been really high profile military impostors.
Speaker 3: I used to be a military and postor. You know
Speaker 3: some people with military reenactors. I used to pretend that
Speaker 3: I was in the Civil War and go to military
Speaker 3: reenactor places and just wearing like the wrong costume and
Speaker 3: just be like what. I'm like, I'm the guy who
Speaker 3: stole the costume in the Civil War. You need them too,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to get out of here. I'm the
Speaker 3: guy who's lying to get out of war. It's part
Speaker 3: of war. Just like this guy. I'm not allowed in
Speaker 3: two states.
Speaker 2: Now, let me tell you about a classic military impostor
Speaker 2: none other than l. Ron Hubbard, science really science fiction
Speaker 2: author and founder of Scientology would be so the like
Speaker 2: quote unquote Church of Scientology. They say that Hubbard was
Speaker 2: a quote much decorated war hero who commanded a corvette
Speaker 2: and during hostilities was crippled and wounded.
Speaker 3: Now you mean the ship and not the car.
Speaker 2: The car exactly so that. They also say that he
Speaker 2: served in quote all five theaters of World War two,
Speaker 2: which is mind blowing sane, and that he was awarded
Speaker 2: quote twenty one medals in pot service.
Speaker 3: What are all five? I'm going over my head in Europe, Africa,
Speaker 3: Asia Pacific. The Asia Pacific is one, and then I
Speaker 3: got the eastern front of Russia. I guess I imagine,
Speaker 3: but Russia, Poland, you know, right space? Or is it
Speaker 3: is Europe brooking into Western East?
Speaker 2: It could be?
Speaker 3: Is it just one theater?
Speaker 2: Europe, Africa, Pacific?
Speaker 3: All right, I'm running into you. Gotta what Arctic there
Speaker 3: was like battles up.
Speaker 2: At the I'm going to reach out and tell us, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to know is the other one like South
Speaker 2: America Space. Okay, so he said they won twenty one medals.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, according to the scientologists, he was quote severely
Speaker 2: wounded and was taken crippled and blocked to a military hospital,
Speaker 2: where he quote worked his way back to fitness, strength,
Speaker 2: and full perception in less than two years, using only
Speaker 2: what he knew and could determine about man and his
Speaker 2: relationship to the universe. Wait, what, yeah, the Tom Cruise
Speaker 2: of it all. So was el Ron in the military? Yes?
Speaker 5: Was he was?
Speaker 2: He was in the he was in the service. Was
Speaker 2: he a Tom Cruise esque super soldier? No, not on
Speaker 2: your life. So according to the experts.
Speaker 3: He didn't even say anybody, which.
Speaker 2: Means official Navy service records. Sure, his military performance was
Speaker 2: at times quote substandard.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 2: He did get some campaign medals, but he was never injured.
Speaker 3: That just means you were a place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, never wounded. He didn't get the purple heart that
Speaker 2: he said he did.
Speaker 3: Oh if he wasn't wounded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of his military service was spent on US
Speaker 2: soil in the lower forty eighth in administrative work or training.
Speaker 3: Do he defended Nebraska?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: He he briefly commanded two anti submarine vessels. But he
Speaker 2: did that in coastal waters off of Massachusetts, Oregon in California. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't remember forty two, forty three.
Speaker 3: I don't remember Massachusetts being sunk by any submarine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in June of forty two, he gets command
Speaker 2: of a patrol boat at the Boston Navy Yard. But
Speaker 2: he lost that post like really quickly because the Navy
Speaker 2: made this determination that he was quote not temperamentally fitted
Speaker 2: for independent command.
Speaker 3: Oh, can't let him take the boat out by himself.
Speaker 2: No, forty three, they give him command of a submarine chaser.
Speaker 2: He was in leadership of that for only five hours
Speaker 2: when he was like, I detected an enemy submarine.
Speaker 3: Off of five hours to lunch.
Speaker 2: So then he and the crew spent the next sixty
Speaker 2: eight hours engaged in quote combat.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, almost three full days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they came up empty. The Navy investigated. They figured
Speaker 2: out that he had mistaken a quote known magnetic deposit
Speaker 2: for an enemy sub anomenally eight hours chasing.
Speaker 3: Around this magnetic segment.
Speaker 2: So the next month he unwittingly fired upon Mexican territory,
Speaker 2: and then he was relieved of command. So that's all.
Speaker 2: As to like his crippling in battle in June of
Speaker 2: nineteen forty two, Navy records show that he was suffering
Speaker 2: from quote active conjunctiviis end quote pink basically ureath thraw discharges.
Speaker 2: So he had pink eye and a leap. Yeah. After
Speaker 2: his brief run as a wayward subchaser, he started getting
Speaker 2: sick a lot. He complained that he had ulcers, malaria,
Speaker 2: back pain. So in July, for yeah, he was like,
Speaker 2: so he gets checked into the San die Go Naval
Speaker 2: Hospital for observation. He lays up there for months.
Speaker 3: I got the sleep fever and like.
Speaker 2: While like, by laying in the hospital bed, he avoids
Speaker 2: a lot of heat from his commanding officers because they
Speaker 2: come in. He's like, so he faked his record in
Speaker 2: order to get ahead and lend himself an air of credibility.
Speaker 2: But that's like his whole career, right whatever, As it
Speaker 2: is known, he has said to many people. He said
Speaker 2: to many people over the years, quote, you don't get
Speaker 2: rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich,
Speaker 2: you start a religion. That's so, I mean that tracks
Speaker 2: with his whole career.
Speaker 3: So he wanted to get rich.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what you're telling you. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 2: know who else was a military impostor actor? Brian Denahey,
Speaker 2: what yah? He enlisted in the Marines in nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: eight and he served until nineteen sixty three, and one
Speaker 2: of his posts involved playing football on Okinawa.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding now, I'm not kidding you, big square guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, after he reached fame as an actor, his
Speaker 2: breakthrough role as Sheriff Will Teasel in First Blood.
Speaker 3: Uh huh nineteen eighty two, Sylvester.
Speaker 2: Saloons John Rambo, he starts talking about his military service
Speaker 2: in interviews, but he's not like, oh, I played football
Speaker 2: in Okinawa. He told interviewers that he served in Vietnam
Speaker 2: and that he was wounded in combat. So remember he
Speaker 2: gets out of the Marines in sixty three. Gulf of
Speaker 2: Tonkin is sixty four, Like he could have been one
Speaker 2: of those advisors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they were, yeah.
Speaker 2: The other military as.
Speaker 3: Military advisors.
Speaker 2: So you could like, maybe I'll give him the benefit
Speaker 2: of that. But in nineteen ninety nine he issued an
Speaker 2: apology quote, I lied about serving in Vietnam, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I did not mean to take away from the actions
Speaker 2: and the sacrifices of the ones who really did serve there.
Speaker 2: I did steal valor. That was very wrong of me.
Speaker 2: There is no excuse for that. Good for him for
Speaker 2: after that? Like is it a sort of survivor's guilt
Speaker 2: that makes men and create these narratives for themselves and
Speaker 2: get swept up in it? Like maybe they don't want
Speaker 2: to state outright that they missed out on the fire
Speaker 2: because that would be embarrassing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they also just want to like it's
Speaker 3: it's I mean, I don't know how to best put it,
Speaker 3: but basically it's like a test of being a man's man,
Speaker 3: right if you didn't get that opportunity, A lot of
Speaker 3: guys would just fudge it because they can't stand the
Speaker 3: fact that they didn't ever do it. I mean I
Speaker 3: never joined the military. I often sometimes even now year
Speaker 3: decades later ago, I wonder would have been like if
Speaker 3: I did, if I'd have been much more called onto
Speaker 3: the carpet of being a man's man all the time.
Speaker 3: I think it probably would have stung ab come hanging
Speaker 3: around a lot of guys who are I mean, John
Speaker 3: Wayne used to get all sorts of crap from John Ford,
Speaker 3: the film director, because he didn't really serve right, and
Speaker 3: John forbe was like active in the war. So they
Speaker 3: used to used to make all of the guys who
Speaker 3: were on Western heroes who were real veterans. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: all made fun of John Wayne. Seeing Charles Derning from
Speaker 3: bessel Horrause in Texas, he plays the governor Texas. He's
Speaker 3: one of the most decorated heroes of World War Two
Speaker 3: and he's an actor. I would have loved to I've
Speaker 3: seen him give Dennie some pretty sure that they were
Speaker 3: in sant circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, here's another one for you. You mentioned a
Speaker 2: military impostor here to me before I did. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: dread Joseph McCarthy. Oh yeah, hophead and US senator from
Speaker 2: Wisconsin who destroyed the Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 2: He said that he was in thirty two aerial missions
Speaker 2: in World War two. Uh huh, qualified for a Distinguished
Speaker 2: Flying Cross as well as an Air Medal. Said he
Speaker 2: was injured in battle, messed up his leg. He also
Speaker 2: had a letter of commendations signed by his commanding officer
Speaker 2: in chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Chester Nimits. Yes, Chester Nimmits,
Speaker 2: here's the truth. He did in fact join the Marines
Speaker 2: in forty two, and a lot of this you covered,
Speaker 2: but i'll repeat it. So he served as an intelligence
Speaker 2: briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. He volunteered to
Speaker 2: fly twelve missions as a gunner observer.
Speaker 3: Intelligence briefing means he points at the map in the
Speaker 3: mornings and says, here's where you guys go a little bit.
Speaker 3: I'll be here when you get.
Speaker 2: Back, sitting at this desk. The missions that he did
Speaker 2: fly as a gunner observer were pretty safe. That wasn't
Speaker 2: an active combat dropping food after the well after one
Speaker 2: where they let him shoot as much ammunition as he
Speaker 2: wanted to, like mainly at coconut trees. He was given
Speaker 2: that name Tailgunner Joe, and the medals that he got.
Speaker 2: He used his political influence to pressure the Marines ten
Speaker 2: years after he joined to get the awards. The letter
Speaker 2: from Nimetz, you know, McCarthy signed, wrote it himself.
Speaker 3: He wrote the letter writes.
Speaker 2: And here sign this, and then like so then Nimet
Speaker 2: sees that the commander's name is on its sign and
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, just whatever, that's what he's using.
Speaker 3: And he's also signing a bunch of other letters right
Speaker 3: of accommodations. It's kind of like just in thes.
Speaker 2: They've been pre approved. Yeah, those war wounds. He had
Speaker 2: a messed up leg, not because of a plane crash
Speaker 2: or anti aircraft fire like he said. He broke his
Speaker 2: leg during the crossing of the Equator celebration.
Speaker 3: Like the turtle celebration.
Speaker 6: Yeah, shell back now, yeah, he breaks it partying while
Speaker 6: wearing like a hula skirt and a war wound exactly,
Speaker 6: And so that's why people got like it would crack
Speaker 6: themselves up, calling him tail gunner.
Speaker 2: Joe. Let me give you one more famous military impossible.
Speaker 2: Ferdinand marcos No, the one who was President of the
Speaker 2: Philippines from sixty five. So while he was campaigning, he
Speaker 2: said he was quote the most decorated war hero of
Speaker 2: the Philippines. Well, how so he's like, I earned thirty
Speaker 2: three war medals, including the Distinguished Service Cross in the
Speaker 2: Medal of Honor, he's like telling everyone he led a
Speaker 2: gorilla force of nine thousand men.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, he did fight in World War two w
Speaker 2: W two, and he did get a couple of awards.
Speaker 2: He got the Gold Cross and the Distinguished Service star.
Speaker 2: But both of those are contested. Oh yeah, and the
Speaker 2: Gorilla Force leadership is total No, that's made up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he told that lie, not just for increased esteem and respect.
Speaker 2: He busted out the stolen valor because he told people
Speaker 2: all this stuff in order to get reparations in back pay.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, so straight up fraud. Amelda needed choes. It
Speaker 2: was straight up fraud. So those are Those are a
Speaker 2: few famous military imposters.
Speaker 3: What about your nine thousand person army that you let
Speaker 3: They all died.
Speaker 2: They all died. I was amazing to survive it.
Speaker 3: We want our last battle.
Speaker 2: They all died. Those guys are ridiculous. But I have
Speaker 2: a couple of seriously audacious ones for you, ones who
Speaker 2: faked it until they made it and did so in
Speaker 2: absolutely ridiculous ways. Let's take a break for ads, and
Speaker 2: then I'm going to unleash these beasts.
Speaker 3: I'm going to reset for audacity.
Speaker 2: Dude, you are going to love this story I have
Speaker 2: for you. You and I we get a lot of
Speaker 2: giggles out of the eighties mercenary super soldier thing. Yes,
Speaker 2: we do, like Arnold and Commando Rambo first Blood and
Speaker 2: because there's like always sort of a martial arts component.
Speaker 2: The hero has training from the mysterious East. Yes, always,
Speaker 2: and they're not specific, it's just vaguely Asian. So martial
Speaker 2: arts can be really beneficial, like health.
Speaker 3: Wise, especially for kids.
Speaker 2: Good balance, discipline, not like all about defending yourself in
Speaker 2: a dark alley, but it imparts the confidence to face situations.
Speaker 2: He can count to ten in Korean thanks to taekwon,
Speaker 2: and he pays attention better because it is.
Speaker 3: Also cleans around house.
Speaker 2: You're saying he cleans. He's more disciplined with that because
Speaker 2: they encourage him to clean at home and help out
Speaker 2: without being asked. Yeah, and like he's spatially aware and
Speaker 2: he's just so blasted cute in his little fighting outfit.
Speaker 2: So cute anyway. You know who else felt cute in
Speaker 2: a fighting outfit? Fella by the name of Frank Dukes.
Speaker 3: Frank Dukes. Why's the name sound familiar?
Speaker 2: Du x Oh, I don't know this Dukes? Canadian guy
Speaker 2: born in nineteen fifty six in Toronto.
Speaker 3: Are we sure it's not Frank Ducks.
Speaker 2: It's Dukes. Okay, you're gonna find out.
Speaker 5: Never.
Speaker 2: His family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven,
Speaker 2: and he says he was just like a nerdy kid
Speaker 2: in North Hollywood. His dad, Yeah, his dad was from
Speaker 2: this European Jewish family fought against the Nazis. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, Dukes told the La Valley College magazine Crown
Speaker 2: that his dad would quote play games with me to
Speaker 2: expand my awareness. Sometimes he would throw things at me
Speaker 2: unexpectedly to improve my reflexes. I know if that's why
Speaker 2: he did that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is that the story you tell yourself?
Speaker 2: His backstory?
Speaker 3: Sometimes he takes swings at me just to test my reflexes.
Speaker 3: Othertimes he verbally assault me just to test my replexes.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the training. So his legend is that
Speaker 2: he was introduced to and trained in ninjuitsu. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: by Senzo Tiger Tanaka of the Ninja. Yeah, exactly. Ninjutsu
Speaker 2: is ninja warfare. He was basically trained to be a ninja.
Speaker 3: Totally American ninja.
Speaker 2: Guys. Here, totally ninja means one who is invisible or
Speaker 2: one who sneaks.
Speaker 3: Thank you, by the way for putting it in G
Speaker 3: I Joe terms, so I can understand. I really I
Speaker 3: appreciate the ah. Yes, like snake eyes and storm shadow
Speaker 3: go on. So as you're saying being invisible.
Speaker 2: Wait, snake eyes was in ninja, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh no ninja bad ninja.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah yeah, So Japanese in origin adopted brothers too,
Speaker 2: they were I go on, there's a loto cannon jaijojijo wiki.
Speaker 2: So Japanese ninjas are Japanese, but they're based on Chinese
Speaker 2: military strategy, you know, art of war and all that,
Speaker 2: and so there are forty eight points to a ninja's
Speaker 2: fighting technique. Stuff like how to make throwing stars out
Speaker 2: of bamboo.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I was a nine year old boy.
Speaker 2: How to make shoes that are silent, you know, then
Speaker 2: little slippers. Fighting a bunch of dudes at once, like
Speaker 2: especially when they all stand around you in a circle
Speaker 2: their turns.
Speaker 3: How to fight a number fighting.
Speaker 2: How to fight with a sword at night, Oh different.
Speaker 3: Very careful, blinding reflections.
Speaker 2: How to listen to small sounds.
Speaker 3: Like squirrels and stuff beats, yeah.
Speaker 2: Squirrels, and then like you know, the.
Speaker 3: Wind, the sound of a child laughter in the distance.
Speaker 2: Ice cream trucks. They learn little moras that keep guard
Speaker 2: dogs from barking, like things that they can repeat to
Speaker 2: guard dogs. It's like, oh, Okay, bro, okay, we're cool.
Speaker 3: I know they also learned makeup, sure they do. They
Speaker 3: carry a makeup literally, ninjas carry a makeup kit just
Speaker 3: like the grooge and everything, so they could then affect
Speaker 3: the dress of a COURTI.
Speaker 2: Is in okay, all right? Interesting, Well Frank Duke's he
Speaker 2: learned all that. Yeah, and he learned it from a
Speaker 2: quote world famous teacher who was the descendant of forty
Speaker 2: generations of warriors. Ah Senzo Tiger Tanaka. Hey, Dizzy, why
Speaker 2: is it my nickname Tiger?
Speaker 3: That's waiting for you to bring that up just the
Speaker 3: other day, Like if you give yourself a nickname, which
Speaker 3: I did with Dizzy, I think it's only fair that
Speaker 3: you be Tiger give yourself a nickname. But I want
Speaker 3: to extend it and call your nickname is Tiger Tanaka too.
Speaker 2: I'm just a dizzy and Tiger.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: So according to Tig Yeah, according to Duke's, Tiger Tanaka
Speaker 2: brought him to Masuda, Japan when he was only sixteen
Speaker 2: for ninja training. It's so correct. It's it's child trafficking.
Speaker 2: Quote we quote. We developed a kinship like no other,
Speaker 2: Duke said about Tiger. Here's what Dukes wrote in basically
Speaker 2: his his biography. He wrote, but like the third person, okay,
Speaker 2: so of course quote the best people do. When the
Speaker 2: boy reached sixteen years of age, Tanaka brought him to
Speaker 2: Japan to the legendary ninja land of Masuda. There, the
Speaker 2: boy's outstanding abilities shocked and pleased the ninja community when
Speaker 2: he tested for the right to call himself Ninja.
Speaker 3: This sounds like Ska was telling the story. It sounds
Speaker 3: like a Middle Ages tale.
Speaker 2: Brought and in the manuscript that he has, he says
Speaker 2: that Tiger was found dead on July thirtieth, nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: and he was buried by a group of ninjas in California.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why, but in my head, it's
Speaker 2: like guys in ninja costumes in like the San Bernardino
Speaker 2: Mountains just digging a Hole's that's the way I saw that.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, Yeah, silently, just sitting there, sweating, digging a hole.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, though there's no record of Tiger in
Speaker 2: any historical text or from any martial arts.
Speaker 3: I've never heard the name before.
Speaker 2: There's no death record for him in California at any
Speaker 2: time during the nineteen seven, and.
Speaker 3: I used to buy ninja stars and go to Chinatown
Speaker 3: as a boy.
Speaker 2: Dukes explains this a way by saying that Tiger lived
Speaker 2: under an assumed na of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a community you've never heard of, part of
Speaker 3: an ancient tradition of silence.
Speaker 2: Shotto Tanamora, an actual recognized ninja master. He said in
Speaker 2: an interview that he had never heard of Dukes or Tiger.
Speaker 3: I don't know either one of them.
Speaker 2: He was like, quote, there is no mister Tanaka in
Speaker 2: Japanese history of the ninja family, of.
Speaker 3: Course, yeah, and they are all known. That's one of
Speaker 3: the other things Japan great record keeping.
Speaker 2: So Tanimura said that the nickname Tiger was used by
Speaker 2: a well known master in Japan who's dead, and he said, quote,
Speaker 2: many crazy guys stand up as ninja masters, but there
Speaker 2: is Jesus ninja masters.
Speaker 3: These are common roles for the crazy.
Speaker 2: There is a Tiger Tanaka, he just exists. In fiction.
Speaker 2: Tiger Tanaka is a character a Japanese agent in the
Speaker 2: Ian Fleming novel and James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
Speaker 3: Oh, is it a girl?
Speaker 2: No, a guy, It's a guy. When asked about that,
Speaker 2: Duke said, Ian Fleming used to base his characters on
Speaker 2: real people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a super spike guy. He knows you and
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: So he gets his ninja training course, then he goes
Speaker 2: into the Marines.
Speaker 3: Why just that's just downgrading. I mean, the man's a
Speaker 3: living ice weapon.
Speaker 2: I smell a movie coming.
Speaker 3: Claude van Dam write this day.
Speaker 2: Oh oh. He was in the Marines from nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: five to nineteen eighty one. And during this period of time,
Speaker 2: Uncle Sam sent him on secret missions.
Speaker 3: You think it's Vietnam done, Okay, I'll check out.
Speaker 2: Secret missions in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 3: Oh he went back.
Speaker 2: He's not over to the bamboo flutes like he's.
Speaker 3: Going to get the mia POWs.
Speaker 2: So while on these missions, he did a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: He did covert stuff, stuff he can't really talk about
Speaker 2: rambo stuff. Yeah. He was described in Black Belt magazine, which.
Speaker 3: Magazine ever as being.
Speaker 2: Quote decorated for his blade fighting techniques in actual combat
Speaker 2: in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 3: You know how it goes. When you were like reading
Speaker 3: books and going to school, he was studying the blade.
Speaker 2: He was studying the blade decorated, You say, Elizabeth, yes, yes, Sensey,
Speaker 2: how decorated Elizabeth great questions, Aaron, He said he did
Speaker 2: earn a secret medal of honor for his work. Secret
Speaker 2: and there wassible. There was a secret ceremony in which
Speaker 2: it was granted him secretly. He can't tell you any
Speaker 2: more about it.
Speaker 3: It's a secret.
Speaker 2: He opened ninjutsu schools, multiple schools. Yeah, and naturally you
Speaker 2: know he did that. And in the brochures it says
Speaker 2: he's quote one of the most decorated veterans of the
Speaker 2: Southeast Asian conflict. So at his house he had newspaper
Speaker 2: clippings about himself displayed. One was an editorial called a
Speaker 2: Silent Hero from the Washington Star Washington. Yeah, little problem.
Speaker 2: That is a newspaper, but their archives have no clippings
Speaker 2: about him. And then the phony editorial quotes from a
Speaker 2: commanding officer's diary quote, we're hungry, we're tired, we're all
Speaker 2: out of AMMO. We all might go mad if not
Speaker 2: for a spunky kid named Duke for short.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It goes on to talk about Duke's crawling through a
Speaker 2: minefield to rescue an Asian baby that he later turned
Speaker 2: over to a Taoist priest.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you're right. His name is spelled Dux anyway. Okay,
Speaker 2: when this is the other part of it quote when
Speaker 2: we almost gave up, the Duke by himself charged the gun.
Speaker 2: The next thing you know, the Duke was behind the gun,
Speaker 2: cutting the enemy.
Speaker 3: To pieces, not ribbons.
Speaker 2: He must have killed a hundred at least. He turned
Speaker 2: defeat into victory. One hundred at least. I don't know.
Speaker 3: One of their greatest heroes of World War One. Weack
Speaker 3: when people would do a lot of fighting hand by
Speaker 3: him and the storm, you know, in the trenches and everything,
Speaker 3: and go into a hole. He killed twenty people and
Speaker 3: like that was over the whole night. And that was
Speaker 3: in defense of somebody else who couldn't escape and they
Speaker 3: were charging him. This guy killed one hundred people or
Speaker 3: so at least in front of witnesses at least. None
Speaker 3: of them fought to go help him, hard to anything there.
Speaker 2: And they were tired and they were out of AMMO.
Speaker 2: So so, Yes, he was in the Marine Corps from
Speaker 2: seven twenty five to eighty.
Speaker 3: One, and he is a real person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he never left the United States. In fact,
Speaker 2: he never left San Diego. The scariest thing that he
Speaker 2: did there was fall off a truck on purpose. He
Speaker 2: fell up well accidentally. His military medical file said that
Speaker 2: on January twenty second, nineteen seventy eight, he was referred
Speaker 2: for psychiatric evaluation, quote expressing flighty and disconnected ideas about
Speaker 2: his supposed intelligence work. Oh right, yeah, And then a
Speaker 2: follow up medical evaluation at a military psychiatric clinic in
Speaker 2: Long Beach. They found him fine. They're like, hey, he's
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: He's good to hold a gun.
Speaker 2: They said that his only possible intelligence work was being
Speaker 2: sort of involved in gathering information about one individual. Oh
Speaker 2: so he did something.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the military has to deal with this
Speaker 3: a lot people who are just absolutely out of their gazebo.
Speaker 3: I want to be a super spy. I want to
Speaker 3: be a super soldier.
Speaker 2: But dukes, He said, the military sabotaged his record to
Speaker 2: discredit him.
Speaker 3: Of course they did, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: It's a very old scandal slash Michael Larson move. He
Speaker 2: claimed that the government did not know how much he
Speaker 2: knew about other covert operations, so they messed with his
Speaker 2: file to destroy his credibility. I'm not wrong, They're wrong exactly.
Speaker 2: They want you to think I'm wrong. Of course they
Speaker 2: tell you that I know too much. He said he
Speaker 2: wasn't getting the decorations he deserved, so he said that
Speaker 2: he just nagged them and bugged them. Yeah, until one
Speaker 2: day he gets a phone call telling him to go
Speaker 2: to an address in West la And he gets there
Speaker 2: and someone hands him a paper bag full of military medals.
Speaker 5: Mari.
Speaker 2: Marine Lieutenant Colonel John Shotwell.
Speaker 3: I'm picturing like a lunch bag of medals.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh yeah, so Lieutenant Colonel Shotwell in DC, he said,
Speaker 2: Duke's military file shows there is quote no indication in
Speaker 2: there anywhere that Duke's got any military awards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why would he?
Speaker 2: We got a paper it's a secret, Sarah, I forgot right. Uh.
Speaker 2: Marine Lieutenant Colonel David Tomsky was shown a photo of
Speaker 2: Duke's in uniform with his medals, and he said, a
Speaker 2: bunch of the ribbons were worn out of sequence.
Speaker 3: That's what I was about to say. We've talked about
Speaker 3: this because of scandal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tomsky said, quote, I do not believe there has
Speaker 2: ever been an instance of the medal of honor being
Speaker 2: bestowed secretly. And then one of the medals that he
Speaker 2: wore in the photo was an Army medal. Not a
Speaker 2: Marine medal, and Duke said he wasn't able to get
Speaker 2: the military to explain why he was given medals from
Speaker 2: different branches of the service.
Speaker 3: I thought that that gave out secret medals was a
Speaker 3: CIA because you can't know who their agents are. Sure,
Speaker 3: of all the government agencies, I thought they were the
Speaker 3: only one.
Speaker 2: Who really Well, maybe he was CIA. So we have
Speaker 2: this war hero trained as a ninja, of course, he
Speaker 2: said his phony master's phony last wish on his phony
Speaker 2: deathbed was that Dukes participate in something called the Kumi
Speaker 2: tem tem te. What is the km on a surface?
Speaker 2: Koumi te is the name for the part in karate
Speaker 2: training where you fight another person, basically scrimmage. But this
Speaker 2: was the Kumi te oh omega no holds barred mixed
Speaker 2: martial arts battle in which fighters faced off in sixty
Speaker 2: rounds of hand to hand combat.
Speaker 3: Did this take place on an abandoned island in the
Speaker 3: Asian Pacific, Yes, and run by a man who had
Speaker 3: claws for a hand.
Speaker 2: It's held in secret every five years.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: Dukes was apparently secretly invited to the Kumi Te Championship
Speaker 2: in Nassau, Bahamas in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: Oh like entered the Dragon.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he wanted to fulfill Tiger's dying wish that
Speaker 2: he'd go there and wreck shop. And he did, and
Speaker 2: he did so he was the first Westerner to win
Speaker 2: the tournament.
Speaker 3: Oh good for him.
Speaker 2: He set world records for most consecutive knockouts fifty six,
Speaker 2: the fast just knockout three point two seconds, and the
Speaker 2: fastest punch point one two seconds point.
Speaker 3: One two seconds.
Speaker 2: That's very fa fastest.
Speaker 3: Take that, Bruce Lee one inch punch. How about this
Speaker 3: tenth of a second punch?
Speaker 2: It's amazing. All of this is to be taken with
Speaker 2: a grain of salt. Since this was a secret competition,
Speaker 2: there are really no records for it, and according to Dukes,
Speaker 2: he was the first person to be given permission to
Speaker 2: speak publicly about the Kumite.
Speaker 3: So is he trying to basically take both Bruce Lee
Speaker 3: and Jean Claude van Dam's film careers and turn them
Speaker 3: into one life for himself that thought?
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, So he won a sword as one of
Speaker 2: the prizes for being the best fighter. Man, of course
Speaker 2: you got to win other trophy. If this sounds a
Speaker 2: lot like the plot of a Jean Claude Van Dam movie. Yeah, say,
Speaker 2: for instance, Bloodspot, First Spot On.
Speaker 3: Enter the Dragon and blood Spot. You just put him together.
Speaker 2: Story the nineteen eighty eight film is based on. Is
Speaker 2: Dukes is Kumite domination?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: Jean Claude van Dam plays a guy named Frank Dukes
Speaker 2: in the movie So Sheldon Lettie he came up with
Speaker 2: the idea for blood Sport. According to him quote, I
Speaker 2: had known Frank Dukes for a number of months before
Speaker 2: I came up with the idea for blood Sport. Frank
Speaker 2: told me a lot of tall tales, most of which
Speaker 2: turned out to be but his stories about participating in
Speaker 2: this so called Kumata event sounded like a great idea
Speaker 2: for a movie. There was one guy who he introduced
Speaker 2: me to named Richard Bender, who claimed to have actually
Speaker 2: been at the Kumata event, who swore everything Frank told
Speaker 2: me was true. A few years later, this guy had
Speaker 2: a falling out with Frank and confessed to me that
Speaker 2: everything he told me about the Kumaite was a lie.
Speaker 2: Frank had coached him and what to say? Curious So anyway,
Speaker 2: Dukes obviously disputes. He says that he's the one who
Speaker 2: wrote the treatment and the screenplay of course, and he
Speaker 2: worked as the fight coordinator for blood Sport, but also
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety film Lionheart and the nineteen ninety three
Speaker 2: film Only the Strong.
Speaker 3: Wait are you serious about.
Speaker 2: I'm dead serious. He was the fight coordinator for those films.
Speaker 2: That's true. In nineteen ninety six, he released the book
Speaker 2: The Secret Man, An American Warriors Uncensored Story, and in
Speaker 2: it he like he divulges that the CIA CIA director
Speaker 2: William Casey arranged to meet him in a bathroom.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: He said that Casey recruited him to work on covert missions.
Speaker 2: One of those missions was destroying a fuel depot in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2: Another was blowing up a chemical weapons plant in Iraq.
Speaker 3: Plausible.
Speaker 2: This is after he won the Kumite. He also he used.
Speaker 3: The drafting and scouting.
Speaker 2: It was a scout.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He used the sword he won in the tournament to
Speaker 2: pay off Philip Peno pirates.
Speaker 3: Wait to say that again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he won.
Speaker 3: He took the sword he won from the to pay
Speaker 3: off Filipino Park.
Speaker 2: Apparently they were hold because like they were holding a
Speaker 2: boat full of orphans caps. I need, I don't know.
Speaker 2: This is all I have here's what Dukes had to
Speaker 2: say about it. Quote, we took up arms and fought
Speaker 2: boat pirates and we got these kids free. I'm in
Speaker 2: touch with some of them, and they love me to death.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, I've got one kid who's about
Speaker 2: fifteen years old. All I have to do is look
Speaker 2: cross eyed at one guy and he'll kill for me.
Speaker 3: I've got an uncle I'm convinced has a book by
Speaker 3: this guy. Probably yes, he has a bunch of these,
Speaker 3: like Richard Marsenko type. So like these guys are like
Speaker 3: I was a secret operative for the whatever, right maybe
Speaker 3: the right? Yes. Sure.
Speaker 2: A lot of big names get mentioned in the secret
Speaker 2: manu huh. And they all said that his claims are garbage.
Speaker 3: Everybody.
Speaker 2: So Robert Gates of the CIA said he never heard
Speaker 2: of Dukes, nor heard anyone else.
Speaker 3: Former head of the SUP and again that they would
Speaker 3: say disavow.
Speaker 2: He said he worked for Storm and Norman Schwartzkough. General
Speaker 2: schwartz Cough and Major General John Singlob both said no,
Speaker 2: that's not hear he didn't single called the book quote
Speaker 2: virtually a complete fabrication. But this is what they would say.
Speaker 3: Of course, we've seen the movies.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth kinglob he had his lawyer tell the publisher to
Speaker 2: recall the book. Oh Dan Yeah, Soldier of Fortune magazine
Speaker 2: pointed out ten logical magazine right. Ten logical inconsistencies in
Speaker 2: the book, stuff like saying Casey personally handled his operations
Speaker 2: and made sure no one else in the CIA even
Speaker 2: knew he existed. But at the same time he talks
Speaker 2: about getting all of these documents supporting his missions. The
Speaker 2: CIA doesn't usually comment about stuff like this, but a
Speaker 2: CIA spokesman said the book was quote sheer fantasy and
Speaker 2: that his claims were quote so preposterous that we thought
Speaker 2: it was necessary.
Speaker 3: Like it reached a level of the CIA is okay, girl, Yeah,
Speaker 3: hold my hand.
Speaker 2: Publishers Weekly said, quote it's hard to tell whether the
Speaker 2: author is merely posturing or expressing his fantasy life in
Speaker 2: a memoir that reads as if patterned on the early
Speaker 2: paperback Avenger series. So Dukes. He said in the book
Speaker 2: that his father worked for Massad before World War Two
Speaker 2: and joined the Jewish Brigade in nineteen thirty nine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the problem. Massad wasn't formed until after World War Two,
Speaker 2: and the Jewish Brigade wasn't formed until way after nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, so never let the truth get in the
Speaker 2: way of good story. After fighting all the dudes at
Speaker 2: the Kumite, working as a CIA asset, amassing his orphan army,
Speaker 2: he went on to open a martial arts school in
Speaker 2: Woodland Hills in North Hollywood, of course, and there he
Speaker 2: taught his own house blend martial arts style called Duke's
Speaker 2: Rue Nijitsu.
Speaker 3: Is he any j.
Speaker 2: Well, here's how he defines.
Speaker 3: His Jean Claude van dam was actually good. No, I
Speaker 3: think budging.
Speaker 2: I think he's good practice. So here's how he talks
Speaker 2: about his fighting style. Dukes Ru Ninjutsu or Duke's Ru
Speaker 2: is a style in methodology developed by Hanshi Frank Dukes
Speaker 2: geared toward the individual that allows them to progress faster,
Speaker 2: building around the person's strengths and weaknesses, and uses practical
Speaker 2: real world self defense that best works for them, thus
Speaker 2: making its foundation ninjutsu and your mind, body, and spirit
Speaker 2: the weapon. Duke's Ru allows the person to handle dynamic
Speaker 2: situations and environments, be it fighting multiple attackers, fighting in
Speaker 2: the dark in a crowd or a hallway, wet icy
Speaker 2: soft heart, or slippery ground. Therefore, the student adapts well
Speaker 2: to the situation once properly trained.
Speaker 3: So like you're taught to like how to like pick
Speaker 3: up stuff off the ground and throw it.
Speaker 2: In the eyes of your attacks. Good, sign me up.
Speaker 2: Can I be honest with you?
Speaker 5: Please?
Speaker 3: Honest?
Speaker 2: I'm terrified that Frank Duke's is going to come after me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he still has. I feel like I'm pissing him off.
Speaker 2: And if he ever hears me telling this, I just
Speaker 2: want him to know that it's all in good fun
Speaker 2: and I respect his battle style and I'm guessing that Yeah,
Speaker 2: the government, did you dirty?
Speaker 3: Ah Ya? How about this? I am afraid of you.
Speaker 3: Frank Duke's Ninja to ninja. Let's go. Well, so no,
Speaker 3: he don't.
Speaker 2: He paired up with Jean Claude van Dam, and they
Speaker 2: co authored the nineteen ninety six film The Quest. They
Speaker 2: also apparently wrote another script together called Enter the New Dragon.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: And I knew he knew about Enter the Dragon.
Speaker 2: When The Quest came out, Dukes sued Van Dam for
Speaker 2: breach of contract. Dukes said the Quest was too similar
Speaker 2: to the manuscript to Enter the Dragon. In nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: Duke's lost his lawsuit. Apparently jurors found his testimony quote
Speaker 2: less than credible. No, how can that be?
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: One thing that Duke's told him was that audio tapes
Speaker 2: of his agreement with Van dam were destroyed in the
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four Northridge earthquake. That's cape that feels f
Speaker 2: He appealed. The appeal was dismissed in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: I do need to say that he stands by all
Speaker 2: of his statements to this day. He has a very
Speaker 2: extensive website that addresses all of the controversies. Frank Duke's
Speaker 2: Bloodsport dot com. It's d ux Bloodsport dot com. But
Speaker 2: he holds firm on all his claims. Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, I have the final boss of
Speaker 2: military impostors, oh man, and now my last faker, the
Speaker 2: final boss, the most ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You're kidding me.
Speaker 2: Frank Duke's was ridiculous. I don't know Frank Duke's okay.
Speaker 3: Who By the way, I'll fight you any time, son, Fredrik.
Speaker 2: No, we love you, dude. He would he would totally
Speaker 2: just my head would fly off my body.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he would beat you to death with my head.
Speaker 2: Yes percent, and it would be earned. I've earned it. Okay.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Friedrich Wilhelm Voit, Yes, this is a
Speaker 2: vintage one. He was born in eighteen forty nine in Tilsit, Prussia.
Speaker 2: That's now it was Prussia. Yeah, now it's Sovetsk, Russia.
Speaker 2: His dad was a shoemaker and he followed in his
Speaker 2: dad's footsteps. No pun intended, or at least he tried so.
Speaker 2: When he's fourteen, he did fourteen days in prison for theft,
Speaker 2: forgery and burglary. At fourteen, he also got expelled from
Speaker 2: school and his dad cut off that sweet shoemaking pipeline. Sure,
Speaker 2: it's a real shame because, like shoemaking is a true
Speaker 2: art form. He didn't write his ways he did. He
Speaker 2: did instead he forged postal orders and then he did
Speaker 2: twelve years hard labor for it. What Yeah, they were.
Speaker 3: Not fray a thing, people, We.
Speaker 2: Were not playing. So over the next three decades he
Speaker 2: spent a total of twenty five years in prison for
Speaker 2: stuff like theft, forgery, robbery. His life was terrible, and like,
Speaker 2: even though he spent most of his time in jail,
Speaker 2: when he's out he said he really wanted to just
Speaker 2: live like an honest, upright lawful life, and that just
Speaker 2: wasn't in the cards. So by the time he's fifty seven,
Speaker 2: he'd spent twenty seven of those years in the clink.
Speaker 2: He was out of prison, drifting around. He went to
Speaker 2: live with his sister in this area near Berlin. He
Speaker 2: even got a job in Berlin with like a really
Speaker 2: respected shoemaker thanks to all that early training he had,
Speaker 2: so he like hit the big time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he still knows the skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then the police got wind of him in
Speaker 2: his long record and he was expelled from Berlin in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six for being a quote undesirable. Oh so
Speaker 2: he made it look like he picked up stakes and
Speaker 2: moved to Hamburg, but he really stuck around Berlin as
Speaker 2: an unregistered resident. So here's this is the catch. Twenty
Speaker 2: two at the time, he couldn't get work because he
Speaker 2: had no papers, and he couldn't get papers because he
Speaker 2: had no work.
Speaker 3: So he's basically their equivalent of what we would consider
Speaker 3: an illegal alien.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, undocumented. He couldn't even get a passport so
Speaker 2: that he could go work abroad. So he's he's just
Speaker 2: stuck and it's not like he's he's born in Prussia,
Speaker 2: but like he's lived in what is then, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: around Berlin his entire life, whole life there. So he stole.
Speaker 2: He did piecemeal work here.
Speaker 3: In any town he tried to move to, whoever had
Speaker 3: the shoe, they would try to keep something like him out.
Speaker 3: I mean, like he's exactly, he's got no chances to
Speaker 3: go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is all he knows. This is the
Speaker 2: only area he knows. So he stole. He did piecemeal work.
Speaker 2: Then he got an idea. So with the meager money
Speaker 2: he had, he bought pieces here and there of used
Speaker 2: Prussian guards, captain's uniforms. Ok, he got his hands on
Speaker 2: some shined army boots and a captain's had. Then he
Speaker 2: went for a little stroll. Sure he wanted to see
Speaker 2: what happened when he acted like he was supposed to
Speaker 2: be there, everyone was respectful and courteous. Like he's a
Speaker 2: changed man. Everyone just snaps to attention. And between August
Speaker 2: and October of nineteen oh six, he wanders around Berlin
Speaker 2: in this military costume and he'd like bark orders at
Speaker 2: any soldiers that he encountered, and they'd obey immediately. So
Speaker 2: on October sixteenth, nineteen oh six, he's fifty seven years old,
Speaker 2: what's on the phony uniform? Takes a train to Tegel,
Speaker 2: a small town about an hour and a half away
Speaker 2: from Berlin. Probably not saying it right, apologies. Then he
Speaker 2: went to the local army barracks and a platoon passed him,
Speaker 2: and everyone gave him a sharp salute, and he raised
Speaker 2: his sword and he ordered them to halt. The corporal
Speaker 2: in charge stepped forward and Voight gave his order to
Speaker 2: the railway station. So then he tells the corporal they're
Speaker 2: acting under direct orders of the Emperor Old Wilhelm. The Shepherd, captain,
Speaker 2: the corporal, and seven guardsmen. They head off to the
Speaker 2: Berlin Circuit railway station and then there four guys from
Speaker 2: the fourth foot Guards regimen are already there, so he
Speaker 2: orders them to join the groupe. Yeah, a train was
Speaker 2: just leaving when they get there, but that wasn't a problem.
Speaker 2: He orders it to stop, and they commandeered the first
Speaker 2: class carriage just for him a man, and he stuck
Speaker 2: all of his impromptu troop in another car and they
Speaker 2: get to Copenick. That's the destination. He takes his makeshift
Speaker 2: unit right down to the town hall and he tells
Speaker 2: them that he was there to execute some official matters
Speaker 2: of importance, like he's just yelling at everybody. So they
Speaker 2: get there and he posts a sentry at each entrance
Speaker 2: and he tells them orders to shoot if needed. So
Speaker 2: like this is serious business and it's kind of open
Speaker 2: for interpretation, right anyway, So Voight and his men they
Speaker 2: marched into the office of doctor langer Hans, the mayor
Speaker 2: of town. Oh, and so Voight whipped out his sword
Speaker 2: and announced, you are my prisoner by the Kaiser's orders,
Speaker 2: and you will be immediately taken immediately to Berlin. What
Speaker 2: Longer Hans was like, I beg, and voy yells you
Speaker 2: add nothing to beg.
Speaker 3: I have already told you that you are my prisoner.
Speaker 2: Kaiservillehn Yeah, so Longer Hans. He's dragged to a carriage
Speaker 2: by armed guards and then driven to Berlin.
Speaker 3: What did this guy do?
Speaker 2: Voight tells the Copenick police. Careful law and order prevent
Speaker 2: calls to Berlin for one hour at the local post office. Sure,
Speaker 2: so they're all just frozen, of course. Zarin, close your eyes. Oh,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's October sixteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: oh six. You are the Copenick town treasurer Air von Wildberg.
Speaker 2: You're sitting at your desk, quiet lead tapping away at
Speaker 2: an adding machine, when you hear a commotion feet marching
Speaker 2: down a hallway. The door flies open, and a mustachioed
Speaker 2: older gentleman in a Prussian Guards captain uniform bursts into
Speaker 2: the room. He stares you down and then shouts for
Speaker 2: you to hand over the town's cash book. Confused, you
Speaker 2: turn your squeaky wooden office chair and open the safe
Speaker 2: that steps behind your desk. Your hands are shaking. You
Speaker 2: gingerly lift a metal cash box from the safe, face
Speaker 2: the captain once again, and set the box on your desk.
Speaker 2: In it are four thousand and two marks. The captain
Speaker 2: orders you to put the cash in a bag and
Speaker 2: place an official seal on it. You do it is ordered.
Speaker 2: He then asks for the receipt book. You slide it
Speaker 2: towards him on the desk. He quickly scrawls the signature
Speaker 2: in it, acknowledging the more than four grand he just took.
Speaker 2: What you don't know is that the name he wrote
Speaker 2: was that of his former prison warden He stares at
Speaker 2: you again and then orders his men to arrest you.
Speaker 2: He says, you are a charged with illegal bookkeeping, political
Speaker 2: corruption and irregularities committed in connection with the public sewage works.
Speaker 2: You don't resist. There are rifles and bayonets in your face.
Speaker 2: You know you're innocent and an investigation will clear you
Speaker 2: of any wrongdoing. You have faith in the system. You're
Speaker 2: shuffled out to a commandeered carriage. The captain orders some
Speaker 2: grenadiers to take you to Berlin for interrogation. Then he
Speaker 2: tells the rest of his men to stand right where
Speaker 2: they are for the next thirty minutes. Off you go,
Speaker 2: terrified and hopeful that all will be well. So Void
Speaker 2: grabs the money in the city coffers, and then he
Speaker 2: orders all the officials away. What's he going to do now? Well,
Speaker 2: he goes back to the train station. He's alone, remember,
Speaker 2: he tells him to stand there for half an hour.
Speaker 2: At the station, he went into the bathroom, changed back
Speaker 2: into his street clothes. He left his sword next to
Speaker 2: the toilet, and he shoved his uniform in a cardboard
Speaker 2: box against the wall on the platform. Then he disappears.
Speaker 2: Four thousand marks hand. He did stop to send a
Speaker 2: telegram to Berlin that said town hall occupied by troops,
Speaker 2: implore you to give reasons to quiet citizens. So this
Speaker 2: is about the time the soldiers showed up in Berlin
Speaker 2: at the police station with the mayor.
Speaker 3: He has managed so many things in this reactions and.
Speaker 2: Responses completely and it took a while, but like eventually
Speaker 2: everyone figures out they've been had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the chess game's over.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Word gets back to German army officials and they kick
Speaker 2: off this search to capture him, and pretty soon word
Speaker 2: of fake mission spreads all over Germany and then all
Speaker 2: over Europe and then all over the world. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: early virality, it's a great storytally, He's got this like
Speaker 2: lowly shoemaker, petty criminal that out the Germans and their
Speaker 2: Prussian discipline in their own way. Yeah. So the papers
Speaker 2: said that Kaiser Wilhelm the second laughed out loud when
Speaker 2: he heard a story, and he called him an amiable scoundrel.
Speaker 2: The thing he that's right. Well, he saw the whole
Speaker 2: thing as a testament to how much obedience and respect
Speaker 2: the military had among the people. Oh good, And a
Speaker 2: newspaper in Berlin stated, quote, it is undoubtedly a fact
Speaker 2: in Prussia that the uniformed triumphs not because he is better,
Speaker 2: or cleverer or more prudent than his neighbors, but because
Speaker 2: he is in uniform.
Speaker 3: Yes, of Germany.
Speaker 2: Yeah so the British press Russia saw it his confirmation
Speaker 2: of their stereotypes about Germans. The Illustrated London News reported, quote,
Speaker 2: for years, the Kaiser has been instilling into his people
Speaker 2: reverence for the omnipotence of militarism, of which the holiest
Speaker 2: symbol is the German uniform. Offenses against this fetish have
Speaker 2: incurred punishment. Officers who have not considered themselves saluted in
Speaker 2: due form have drawn their swords with impunity. On offending privates.
Speaker 3: Now drawing their swords, did they then use their swords?
Speaker 2: You just threaten them?
Speaker 3: Who knows the kind of like spank them?
Speaker 2: What's what? English author GK. Chester I love him, yes. Quote.
Speaker 2: The most absurd part of this fraud, at least to
Speaker 2: English eyes, is one which oddly enough, has received comparatively
Speaker 2: little comment. I mean the point at which the mayor
Speaker 2: asked for a warrant, and the captain pointed to the
Speaker 2: bayonets of his soldiery and said, these are my authority.
Speaker 2: One would have thought anyone would have known that no
Speaker 2: soldier would talk like that exactly, So a reward was offered.
Speaker 2: One of Voight's former cellmates ratted him out. He identifies
Speaker 2: him and then said, you know what, he bragged to
Speaker 2: me about this whole thing. So ten days later Voight
Speaker 2: gets arrested, like mid breakfast at the place where he's staying.
Speaker 2: He was not viewed unkindly.
Speaker 3: Like a big wallrus mustache.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, those exactly, So he wasn't viewed unkindly by
Speaker 2: the cops or even treated that way. In fact, the
Speaker 2: main inspector gave him a bottle of port and he
Speaker 2: showed up. Yeah, Voight turned over what little remained of
Speaker 2: the money.
Speaker 3: He stold they were taking the side of Kaiser Wilhelm,
Speaker 3: that this guy's like he's German.
Speaker 2: Really, they just think this guy's Yeah, he told the
Speaker 2: police commissioner, why if I'd run across you at Copenick
Speaker 2: town Hall, I'd have handled you in the same way.
Speaker 2: Like he's just jokes about everything. The main paper in
Speaker 2: Berlin ran a special edition about his capture and then
Speaker 2: gave it away for free to the public.
Speaker 3: Extra extra read all about it. For free.
Speaker 2: That's how big this story was. He was a folk hero.
Speaker 2: People thought that he should be allowed his freedom, that
Speaker 2: he was just like too smart to lock up.
Speaker 3: German pork heroes are funny.
Speaker 2: So he goes to trial. It is the event.
Speaker 3: He was ordering everyone around him. We were all listening
Speaker 3: to him. He's the greatest.
Speaker 2: They charged for tickets to get into the courtroom, like
Speaker 2: there was a ticket. You had to buy a ticket,
Speaker 2: and it was like a who's who in the gallery.
Speaker 2: You had like high ranking military officers, socialites, like all
Speaker 2: the creative intelligentsia.
Speaker 5: Ooh.
Speaker 2: So Voight takes the stand. He regales the court with
Speaker 2: his life story and he wrapped it up by telling
Speaker 2: the judge that he was quote a very honest thief
Speaker 2: because I only appropriated official funds. So, despite charming the
Speaker 2: spectators with his humor, he's found guilty of quote serious
Speaker 2: interference with the authority of the state and grave forgery
Speaker 2: of official documents. He got four years in prison. He
Speaker 2: only served two years after he won amnesty from Wilhelm.
Speaker 3: Wow the Kaiser acted on well.
Speaker 2: No King Edward the seventh of England pleaded for Voight
Speaker 2: to be freed, and that pressure yeah, led to the
Speaker 2: amy the.
Speaker 3: One who ducks out of the king. He's like, before
Speaker 3: I go, do you look out for quickly?
Speaker 2: Quickly? So the government formed a committee in charge of
Speaker 2: making sure that Voight was taken care of in his
Speaker 2: twilight years. Not to be like, how did this happen?
Speaker 2: Ladies from all over the globe, like more than one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty of them offered their hands in marriage.
Speaker 3: I'm doing this wrong.
Speaker 2: You totally are He supporters raised two thousand British pounds
Speaker 2: for him. What, yeah, was it a different time?
Speaker 3: Is what am I missing? Here?
Speaker 2: Four days after he gets out the like brilliant, the
Speaker 2: Wax Museum puts up a wax sculpture like Madame Tussau's Yeah,
Speaker 2: but in like the German one, puts up a wax
Speaker 2: sculpture of him wearing a captain's uniform. And then at
Speaker 2: the scene of his crime, another statue went up, this
Speaker 2: one declaring him the captain of Copenick.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: He he goes down, they unveil a statue. He goes
Speaker 2: down there to sign autographs and pose for photos, and
Speaker 2: then the cops come and they break the zoo up,
Speaker 2: and then the government banned his special appearances there.
Speaker 3: Oh wait a minute, only we can like dance on this.
Speaker 3: You can't dance on it.
Speaker 2: We don't profit from this. So in nineteen oh nine
Speaker 2: he published his memoirs.
Speaker 3: Of course, how I get the book up there?
Speaker 2: How I became Captain of Copenick. It went through a
Speaker 2: ton of reprints, the most recently in twenty sixteen. What yeah,
Speaker 2: people are still reading about this. He traveled all over
Speaker 2: the country selling postcards with his pictures on them. He
Speaker 2: took his act on the road, and he made his
Speaker 2: name for himself as Captain of Copenik by playing himself
Speaker 2: in like variety shows in Canada in the US.
Speaker 3: Okay, sure, like acting out the scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this tour almost didn't happen because US authorities wouldn't
Speaker 2: grant him a visa.
Speaker 3: Because of the war.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, he had all this bureaucratic red tape
Speaker 2: because don't forget, he didn't have any papers.
Speaker 3: Oh right, he's undocumented.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he's living in Luxembourg at the time,
Speaker 2: and he's working as a shoemaker and a waiter while
Speaker 2: he waits to get over to North America. He did.
Speaker 2: He got into Canada in nineteen ten, and then he
Speaker 2: was in a few shows put on by Ringling Brothers,
Speaker 2: Barnum and Bailey until nineteen eighteen. So that's how he
Speaker 2: gets in okay. His escapades were commemorated in a nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty Karl Zuckmeyer play, as well as four movies produced
Speaker 2: between nineteen oh six and nineteen fifty six, three TV
Speaker 2: shows between nineteen sixty in two thousand and one. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, he got his own postage stamp
Speaker 2: in Germany.
Speaker 3: He's a legend.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you about the play. As the Nazis
Speaker 2: took power, Zuckmeyer saw parallels with the Voight affair when
Speaker 2: it came to like blind obedience and fanaticism, and so
Speaker 2: he first produced the story as a comic strip, highlighting
Speaker 2: like all it takes to make someone what they are
Speaker 2: is their costume, sure, and like Hitler, rising star of fascism,
Speaker 2: hates it. And then Zuckmeyer then produced the story as
Speaker 2: a play and it was like super successful for two years,
Speaker 2: and then Hitler came into full power and shut the
Speaker 2: whole thing down. What resonated with people then and now
Speaker 2: is the catch twenty two of the whole thing. So
Speaker 2: he can't. He just can't earn an honest living, doesn't
Speaker 2: have a fixed address, can't get a job, doesn't have
Speaker 2: a job, can't get a fixed address, can't get a passport.
Speaker 3: And takes on the full powers of the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like he couldn't he could didn't have a passport,
Speaker 2: so they couldn't even like ship him back to the
Speaker 2: Russian town where he was born and knew nothing of
Speaker 2: Like we see a lot of parallels today.
Speaker 3: He's like the people now he don't have passports, they
Speaker 3: have to live in an airport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so, a London paper wrote, quote, he never
Speaker 2: could cope with bureaucracy gone mad. A society where a
Speaker 2: man couldn't get a job without a work permit, and
Speaker 2: couldn't get a work permit without a job. Voight couldn't
Speaker 2: stay where he was without an identity card, and he
Speaker 2: couldn't travel without a passport. At fifty six, worn to
Speaker 2: a frazzled cipher from backing this system, muddled by thirty
Speaker 2: years in jail for not conforming Wilhelm, Voight finally rebelled.
Speaker 2: He played a little trick.
Speaker 3: I have nothing wrong with what he did personally, maybe
Speaker 3: got what four thousand Deutsche marks or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's shit. So June nineteen twelve, news gets out
Speaker 2: that he had passed away in the London hospital, and
Speaker 2: like News nineteen twelve, newspapers all across Germany just are
Speaker 2: lauding him with warm and lengthy obituaries. But it turned
Speaker 2: out it was all a mistake. He was alive and
Speaker 2: he was living in Germany. He did like the obits though, like,
Speaker 2: given the warm fuzzies.
Speaker 3: He lived, it's got to be nice to see how
Speaker 3: people are going to talk about you in your day. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 3: Like I'm so tempted to fake my death just to
Speaker 3: have that.
Speaker 2: I see like there's nothing printed. I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: even that would be fun. That would be funny. He lived,
Speaker 2: He had like a life pension that this rich Berlin
Speaker 2: Dowager gave him.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then he also had an open invitation to eat
Speaker 2: for free at this local restaurant whenever he wanted.
Speaker 3: Well, that sounds right, like, oh you get free sandwiches,
Speaker 3: but the Dowager, that's impressive.
Speaker 2: And even so, though he lived in abject poverty in
Speaker 2: his later years because he lost everything in the post
Speaker 2: World War One recession. On January third, nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: He died from the flu in Luxembourg. He was seventy
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 3: Old, the aka the Spanish flu.
Speaker 2: I'd probably twenty two. The government paid for his funeral,
Speaker 2: but they wouldn't pay for tombstone. Circus Saracini sometimes yeah,
Speaker 2: and employer of his they paid for one. His lady love, Madam.
Speaker 3: Coconhat is she the dowager?
Speaker 2: No, she bought a burial plot with a fixed term
Speaker 2: concession in Notre Dame Cemetery in the city of Luxembourg.
Speaker 2: Meaning there's like a lease with an end date.
Speaker 3: Yea, as I'm saying, did they dig them up and
Speaker 3: move them?
Speaker 2: Well, she has this metal plaque put up that red
Speaker 2: and German. Blessed are the people who are homesick, because
Speaker 2: they should come home. And so, while passing through Luxembourg
Speaker 2: City in nineteen sixty one, the circus extended the concession
Speaker 2: for another fifteen years. But then when that fifteen years
Speaker 2: was up, the monument was supposed to be demolished. The
Speaker 2: director of the National Tourist Office got the German press
Speaker 2: all riled up, and they demanded that the lease be
Speaker 2: extended and everything remain in place. And like members of
Speaker 2: European Parliament spoke out in favor of unlimited prolongation of
Speaker 2: the maintenance of the burial place.
Speaker 3: That's great, great, who's going to pay? Going to write
Speaker 3: the check?
Speaker 2: While this is going on, his tombstone is falling apart,
Speaker 2: like it's literally crumbling. So the city of Luxembourg they
Speaker 2: organized a competition to design a new monument. They got
Speaker 2: one that was like a Prussian helmet in this like
Speaker 2: inscription I hope, yeah, So they moved it. His remains
Speaker 2: were moved to a new location in the cemetery, and
Speaker 2: as the funeral procession made its way to like reinter him,
Speaker 2: they passed by some French soldiers and a member of
Speaker 2: the funeral cortege told the commanding officer that the world
Speaker 2: famous Captain of Copenick was passing by. The Frenchman they
Speaker 2: they thought that the VIP from the Luxembourg Army was
Speaker 2: passing by. Like they didn't understand, and the leader of
Speaker 2: the platoon ordered his men to halt and fire off
Speaker 2: a salute.
Speaker 3: And the captains on it.
Speaker 2: It's like a last gesture of respect for a brother officer,
Speaker 2: like so he pulls off the stolen valor one last time, Zaren,
Speaker 2: what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Oh man? Uh, Like, the undocumented in a time where
Speaker 3: you can't really prove your identity because you don't have
Speaker 3: like a DNA and fingerprints like a known technology must
Speaker 3: have been a nightmare. But at the same time, I'm
Speaker 3: for a criminal kind of a dream because you can
Speaker 3: always say, on this other person, if you could forge
Speaker 3: your paperwork, great, But for someone like Camboo's unwilling to
Speaker 3: do that lifestyle instead, I just can't imagine. Well, I mean,
Speaker 3: tell these stories.
Speaker 2: Think about kids who were born in Mexico and they
Speaker 2: come here as an infant, sure, and they've never been
Speaker 2: to Mexico. Sure, and they are not citizens. They're under
Speaker 2: basically the situation you can't go anywhere, you can't get
Speaker 2: a job and leave the country. Yeah, So it's like
Speaker 2: there's no solution for them. I mean, there is a
Speaker 2: solution for it, but it's like to be in that
Speaker 2: position is such a it's so difficult, Like Catch twenty two.
Speaker 3: I'm so over it. I'm so ready for like United
Speaker 3: States of the World, not like the US runs the world.
Speaker 3: I don't mean that, but I mean like every world,
Speaker 3: Like oh no, not even well whatever new World over yet,
Speaker 3: but all the countries right or just federated states, and
Speaker 3: we have like a global governance at least at the
Speaker 3: level of like travel, documentation, taxes, pollutions, certain things that
Speaker 3: affect everybody on a global scale, Like can we always
Speaker 3: get this not the un I don't want like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have these people standard and make sure these
Speaker 3: people get fatter, don't choot each other. I don't mean that.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, do the global stuff and boom. I
Speaker 3: think it's ridiculous that we still don't have that. So
Speaker 3: there you go.
Speaker 5: Second away.
Speaker 3: I found it backwards, Elizabeth, I've already covered it.
Speaker 2: I do need to talk back.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, let's hit that up.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, did you see that? I love.
Speaker 4: Ridiculous crime.
Speaker 7: Just listen to the episode about the college art thief
Speaker 7: started out selling IDs finally stold the autubon books. You
Speaker 7: said a name Harry Balls, and he it should be
Speaker 7: pronounced Harry Falls and I.
Speaker 4: Anyway, love you guys. This is Gravy the truck driver.
Speaker 3: You could call me a nice.
Speaker 4: That's Gravy the truck driver.
Speaker 5: Peace.
Speaker 4: Hey, you guys, this is a grave the truck driver. Again.
Speaker 4: I've got to tell you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can use my name and voice on the
Speaker 7: email or whatever, just not my phone number.
Speaker 3: Antime in you gotta deal crazy with the truck driver.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the truck drivers. You bought it, a
Speaker 3: truck brought it.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. That's all for today. You can find
Speaker 2: us online at ridiculous crime dot com. We're a Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime on Twitter and Instagram. There's an email and then
Speaker 2: the talkbacks on the iHeart app. We reach out. Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Zaren Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton, produced
Speaker 2: and edited by highly decorated Admiral Dave Cousten, starring Annale
Speaker 2: Rutger as Judith. Research is by decorated Spanish American war
Speaker 2: hero Merissa Brown and member of Charlie Company Andrea Song
Speaker 2: Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by survivors of the
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