Food Network contestant cooked up details about Marine service - Entertainment, TV, Television - Army Times

Food Network contestant cooked up details about Marine service

If it feels hot in the kitchen, that’s probably because Josh Garcia’s pants are on fire.

The former Marine cook has been whipping up some tall tales in his quest to win the title of “The Next Food Network Star.”

Now in its third season, the popular reality television show brings together 11 real-world cooks to compete for a six-episode series deal on the network. Last season’s champ, Guy Fieri, quickly became a standout on the network, and he hosts the new shows “Guy’s Big Bite” and “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”

After a June 1 interview with Garcia in which he shared details that seemed unlikely, if not impossible, Military Times dug deeper into his past. Much of the story, provided by both Food Network and by the man himself, doesn’t check out. In fact, he admitted so in a subsequent interview.

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Marine chef cooked up details about his service

Touted as a graduate of the New York Restaurant School, a former corporal and a grunt-turned-cook who served in Afghanistan, Garcia’s record is actually much less stellar. He didn’t spend nearly two years in the infantry, he didn’t deploy to any war zone, and while it’s unclear whether he was ever a corporal, what is clear is that the Corps showed him to the door nearly eight months early, as a private.

Oh yeah, and he never finished culinary school in New York.

“He attended but did not graduate,” said Midge Elias, director of public relations at the school, now known as the Art Institute of New York City. Privacy rules prevent the school from releasing further information, such as the number of course hours Garcia completed or whether the former Marine used the GI Bill to help finance his training, as he claimed.

Garcia, who turns 26 later this month, did serve in the Corps, enlisting Aug. 15, 1999, for a four-year tour that should have ended in 2003. But Garcia was discharged eight months early as a private for reasons the Marine Corps declined to discuss, citing privacy laws.

In a follow-up interview June 11, Garcia was asked to explain why he called himself a former corporal. He admitted to nonjudicial punishments that got him busted down to private, blaming his military troubles on a “hazing scandal” at his former unit.

Garcia claimed that he could call himself a corporal because he fought his administrative separation and was ultimately exonerated.

The Marine Corps has no record of Garcia’s rank being upgraded from private by any review board.

Likewise, the service has no record of Garcia deploying to Afghanistan, and certainly not as a member of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, the infantry unit Garcia said he accompanied to the war zone in 2002. In fact, Marine officials at the battalion’s home at Camp Lejeune, N.C., said the unit did not deploy to Afghanistan that year.

In a video profile for Food Network, Garcia says “when I was in the Marine Corps, I was a grunt for a year and a half, two years, and um, became a cook.” Marine officials said June 12 that the only military occupational specialty listed in Garcia’s file is food service, and there’s no record of him holding an infantry specialty.

Now living in Havelock, N.C., not far from the gates of his final duty station, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Garcia is the chef de cuisine at the French fusion restaurant Stacia’s Lieu Secret in nearby New Bern.

When confronted with the inconsistencies, Garcia said he never specifically told Food Network he went to Afghanistan but instead let producers there “believe what they wanted to believe.”

During the June 1 telephone interview — a conference call with the chef and a publicist for the network — Garcia was asked several times whether he was embellishing or omitting details from his military record. Rather than correct any inaccuracies then, the former Marine stuck to his story.

“I was just afraid of what they would say,” Garcia said in the June 11 follow-up interview, which was not monitored by the publicist. “I’m not dishonorable, dude. The unit was trying to cover up hazing, a big hazing scandal.”

During a second phone interview later that day, Garcia asked that the truth behind his military record not be revealed. He told stories of fights that stemmed from being a victim of hazing and of a command that wanted to ruin him forever.

“Everything I’ve worked so hard for will come crashing down,” he said. “Everybody there [in my military unit] told me I’d never amount to nothing. The worst thing I did was let the Food Network believe something that wasn’t true.”

It’s unclear what role his military past and culinary training played in his selection for “The Next Food Network Star.” There was no requirement for either in the audition process, and some other contestants have no culinary training or formal kitchen experience.

But the former Marine admitted that it was during the final selections for the show that he let the “war hero” notion take hold.

“That’s my fault,” he said. “I let them believe it — that’s my fault.”

When contacted about the inconsistencies June 12, Food Network issued a brief written statement:

“Food Network conducted routine background checks on the competitors featured in the series,” according to the statement, attributed to Bob Tuschman, senior vice president of programming and production for Food Network (and a recurring judge on the show). “It has come to our attention that some facts about Josh Garcia may have been misrepresented. We are currently investigating this situation and will have a resolution soon. His updated bio, pending further review, has been posted on the Web site.”

That night, Garcia’s profile had been updated to say that he had only attended the culinary school, and references to an Afghanistan deployment were eliminated. Garcia’s personal MySpace page also listed him as a graduate of the school, but as of the evening of June 12, his account had been made private, thus restricting access.

When contacted a final time for comment June 12, Garcia finally stopped talking.

“You’re going to have to talk to the Food Network,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to say.”

Most of “The Next Food Network Star” episodes have already been filmed. New episodes air each Sunday night (repeats air throughout the week) through July 22, with a panel of guest judges voting on who stays or goes.

The voting is opened up to America when the field is down to the final two, and viewers will decide the winner.

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Marine chef cooked up details about his service