Report: Fired training boss wore many unearned honors

Lt. Col. Gerald H. Green III's dishonesty didn't stop with his uniform.

The former head of the Army National Guard Warrior Training Center at Fort Benning, Georgia, was relieved of command in October while under investigation for wearing an unearned Ranger tab. Green admitted as much in a Sept. 30 statement to investigators which was provided along with other documents to Army Times via a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

"I have lived this lie and know it to be wrong," he wrote, saying that action "brought shame to me and my family, this organization, and the Army."

But when he was asked whether any other qualifications were noted incorrectly in his record, he admitted to wearing a Sapper tab he didn't merit ... and said nothing of several other items he'd been wearing without the right to do so.

"There is sufficient evidence ... that LTC Greene [sic] violated Article 134 of the UCMJ in many instances and over an extended number of years," according to the report, referring to the Uniform Code of Military Justice regulation covering the wear of unearned insignia, among other offenses.

The allegations against Green are being handled "through non-judicial and administrative action," Fort Benning spokesman Gary Jones said in an email. "Charges under the UCMJ were not preferred against LTC Green. The Privacy Act precludes us from releasing the precise details of that action."

Green also told investigators, seeking to confirm his statements, that he'd lost track of members of the unit in question. After locating the members, investigators found some had been in contact with Green regularly.

In an Oct. 29 statement given about a month after his initial statement, Green told investigators that "there was discussion of being put in for" the CAB and the ARCOM — presumably after his unit had returned in 2004 from Iraq — and he decided to wear the decorations "before receiving any type of documentation for them or hearing anything in regards to the submission of the awards. ... I was wrong in doing this."

He admitted to wearing the air assault wings despite dropping out of training twice because of injury.

Green remains on active duty at Benning, according to a spokesman with the National Guard Bureau. Details on his duty status were not immediately available, Jones said, and Green was away from the base the week of March 23.

Lt. Col. Edmund Riely took command of the unit in January.

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