Why you gotta be so Purple Heart-less?
Earlier this month, Fox News ran with a story about a decorated Navy SEAL who loved President Trump so much he carved a mammoth presidential seal out of glass, with the reporter labeling him a “tough, tough man.”
As it turns out though, the only element of this story that actually got injured in the line of duty was the network’s thin line of credibility.
The segment claimed that John Garofalo “was awarded 22 commendations, including two Purple Hearts” and “listed twice during his service in Vietnam as missing in action,” but the 72-year-old now admits he lied, the Navy Times reports.
“It got bigger and bigger,” he said. “What I did I’m ashamed of, and I didn’t mean to cause so much disgrace to the SEALs.”
Although he served in the Navy during the time of the Vietnam War, his service lasting from 1963 to 1967, the New York resident got nowhere near Southeast Asia, his work as an aviation boatswain’s mate bringing him only as close as Spain.
Retired SEAL Don Shipley was the first to dispute Garofalo’s story, going so far as to contact Fox News about a retraction the day after they ran it on Oct. 8.
“You can turn this story around,” Shipley wrote to Fox News reporter Bryan Llenas. “I’ll help you, but avoiding it won’t help.”
When the network failed to respond, instead enjoying 1.5 million views on their Facebook page alone, Shipley contacted the Navy Times.
Not until Thursday did the network publish a correction and as of Friday morning the video is not available on their Facebook page.
“Over the last two weeks, we’ve worked with Garofalo’s family and the National Personnel Records Center to get to the bottom of a military past that Garofalo had claimed to be covert,” the correction states.
Additionally, an on-air correction ran Friday.
