Copy of an e-mail I sent to the forum admin. We'll see if it gets any mileage:
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Admin,
Mike here. You'll know me as Hog. You already know my verified background. I'll start off with saying that I am responsible for the excitement and boost in forum thread count of last week. I should've taken more of an approach towards the admins with my suspicions of Jack McPeek (vusaf_tbird1) as not being who he claims to be. For that, I'll take the hit of being wrong in my approach; but my suspicions of McPeek are still very much alive; as are the suspicions of certain people at not only the squadron he claims to have flown F-16s with, but with the base officials as well. Post 9/11 security-wise, people impersonating public and/or military officials, is getting more scrutiny than it had before.
Now, Jon posted this, which he reiterated on in another thread:
We *do* take fakes seriously. True fakes have been banned before (AirbusPilot/Sudhir comes to mind). Just let an admin know if you suspect a fake. Public lynchings aren't any more effective, and wrongful accusations can ruin a good reputation.
That's a fair policy, IMO. Now for the forum's sake, it seems few people of the rank and file care whether someone is a fake or not. From Jon's statement above, I believe he does take it seriously, and I get the impression that he values the integrity, content, and reputation of fs2004.com. The issue with Mr. McPeek is garnering interest from my end of the spectrum (government), yet I was curious what the admin here intend to do, or not, regarding the issue.
Citationkid (Alex), knows me from jetcareers.com. He asked me to come over and check out Mr. McPeek's claim of being a USAF pilot, and I did. Admittedly, I should've gone to the admin first prior to beginning the public lynching, but my anger was spurred over the gross inconsistencies I was finding with Mr. McPeek's information, and his alleged claims. Post 9/11, as you well know, our US military is involved in battle in several places around the globe, most notably Iraq and Afghanistan. These days more than ever before, we have military people working horrendous days in crap conditions, away from families for extremely long periods of time, putting their lives on the line, and in some cases making the ultimate sacrifice. For someone to come out and claim to be a member of this military fraternity is not only wrong, it's dishonorable, disloyal, and a slap in the face to those that do the job on a daily basis. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
My evidence against Mr. McPeek:
-Complete lack of knowlege of military flying. Lack of knowlege of correct nomenclature, to include the wrong manufacturer of the F-16, which he claims to have flown. This is what got me started.
-With his birthday of 1978, there's absolutely no possible way he could've been an F-16 pilot in the time he describes, much less have gotten out, much less have tried out for the Thunderbirds; since he would've (best case) only flown the F-16 for 2 years, and he wouldn't have the flight time nor the experience to have ever qualified. None of his timeline makes sense.
-The unit he claims to have flown with. I have 2 personal friends flying F-16s with that very unit at Hill AFB. They, nor anyone else, has either heard of Mr. McPeek, nor anyone else that could've been in his situation (medical/heart condition; something one would definately remember even if not remembering the name).
-Mr. McPeek has been strangely silent on all of my questions. Fighter pilots like to talk, trust me. He won't answer any questions from me. The only one he ever answered was the one telling me he'd flown with the 421st Fighter Squadron from Hill AFB, to which I checked that out and found it to be false. I asked him via PM for more info, and he's never responded to anything else. I've posted my full resume, where is his?
-His story on pilot training and how he changed from transports to fighters in mid-pilot training is false. This has never been done in pilot training, and will not be done due to costs, time constraints, etc. Read my post in the "Authenticity" thread where I explain this.
-His lack of knowlege of usual fighter pilot jargon/phrases common to fighter guys. The way he speaks does not sound like I'm talking to a fighter pilot, it sounds like I'm talking to someone that read it from a book.
-His profile photo of him in a flightsuit with no rank and an ROTC cap pin; something fitting an ROTC student, which I think he is or may have been. Surely as a real fighter pilot he'd have other pics of himself, and his pic in an ROTC outfit matches his reported age i his profile.
-A photo he claims to have taken from an F-16, in which the aircraft and base do not correspond to where he claims to have been based. I cite this in the photo thread, as does Cessna-Five-Zero Bravo in recently closed post asking to reinstate Alex and myself.
Again, Mr. McPeeks silence on this matter is deafening. I know if I were accused of not being who I am, I'd come right out and accept the challenge as any self respecting fighter pilot would. Having this kind of person on your website seriously detracts from the website's credibility and good information. It also makes everyone involved in the website, as well as the admins, taken for fools; which I'm sure you are not. You yourselves have said that fakes are taken seriously. I ask you to help me confront Mr. McPeek on the matter. All I want is for him to come clean one way or another, for a "fellow fighter pilot" to either prove me right, or prove me wrong.
I close with this link to the front page of authentiSEAL, a website devoted to exposing fradulent Navy SEAL claimants. In the front page, simply substitute "USAF pilot" for "SEAL", and you get the drift of why this matter is important.
http://www.authentiseal.org/
Thank you for your time,
Mike Daftarian, Capt, USAF aka Hog.
We're pretty good at sniffing out the fakes, and we'll call them out.
