Posted on 04/14/2005 5:07:39 AM PDT by Hatteras
'Pilot' dupes college officials Meredith student got free tuition
By ANDREA WEIGL, Staff Writer
RALEIGH -- In January 2002, Lisa Jane Phillips strode onto the campus of Meredith College in her U.S. Air Force captain uniform. The 34-year-old Cary woman left school a short time later because she was being deployed to Afghanistan as a pilot, or so she said.
When Phillips returned to Meredith a couple of months later, she had tales of missions to Iraq and elsewhere. She wore her military uniforms and flight suits, decorated with 10 medals, to classes. She talked about being wounded.
Meredith officials waived her tuition -- $42,178 all told -- because of her military service.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
That takes a set of stones. Well, sorta.
Maybe she is related to "Deep in the Hurtgen Forest", a past Freeper!
Decorated with 10 medals after only a couple months should have raised an alarm, if the Meredith officials had any familiarity with our military.
"Reporting for duty".
Oh, what a web we weave . . .
"Her story was so elaborate. She was involved in everything. She single-handedly saved the country," said Cynthia Stroot, acting resident agent in charge of the Department of Defense's Criminal Investigative Service in Raleigh. "Someone who knew better eventually caught up with the story."
That someone was Campus Police Chief Frank Strickland, who was an Army pilot during the Vietnam War. Strickland contacted federal investigators with his suspicions about Phillips, whose medals, investigators say, included the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and a Meritorious Service Medal.
College officials were tight-lipped about how they were duped.
Wonder if the Chief gets to keep his job?
Easy to guess why the officials were duped. If you know little or nothing about the military, anything and everything seems plausible in the ivory towers.
LOL. Sounds like she convinced them that she was a pilot by acting like an arrogant, strutting jerk...looks like you don't need the Y chromosome to pull it off.
Can't. Not enough purple hearts.
Gee, I never knew anybody like that! [/s]
I recommend Frank Strickland for a medal.
They were duped because they WANTED to believe the story. If it were a man, he couldn't have pulled it off.
Exactly, and only dumb liberals would fall for such a story.
It was when she described how she earned the "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence" medal that made the college officials suspicious.
This can be easily explained as well. She volunteered for a Top Secret mission out of Area-51 where she would be sent back in time using technology from a crashed alien spaceship. She travelled back to WWII and used her superior flying and technical skills to help America win WWII.
Not to mention the eye-patch and the wooden leg...
One of lowest crimes you'll see - folks pinning on medals, knowing they are not entitled to wear them or as in the case of this nutter, going the whole nine yards and faking military service.
The Walter Mitty Order of Extreme Excellence . . . hmmm.
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