Stolen Valor Update

Remember Timothy Poe, the America's Got Talent military entrant who said he learned to sing to heal his stuttering? The first post is here...and the update here.

He got the stuttering from being injured in a horrific accident in Afghanistan while he was in the military.

And earned all sorts of medals.

A brave-looking photo of Poe accompanied all this, as well as lots of lump-in-the-throat comments and flag-waving. 

Only it wasn't true.

Poe wasn't in any horrendous accident. He was in an accident. (He has produced some military documents which refer to his 'physical disability'...but they're not real specific. Also, his injuries are relatively minor.)

He sang professionally before he was ever drafted to Afghanistan. “I do not know how to explain why I answered about never singing before,” he says. “I was in a band. But it was before the accident... When the judges asked, before I could even think about answering my words had already came out.”

Oh yeah, the photo wasn't of him, either.

Any other obfuscation, he blames on the accident -- it fogged his brain and Made Him Do It.
He's very sorry.

The 'exclusive interview' with Poe is here. (He was booted out of America's Got Talent, thankfully.) Just seems like another case of Stolen Valor - claiming experience and honors you never earned. Or deserved.


“I would like to take the time to tell the the American people how truly sorry I am that they had to endure the incomplete facts," Poe says during the interview.  "I understand how they feel.”