Wow, this fraud has been in the news more times than any soldier I know!!! This "story" is ten years old.
"Conley has been trained as a Green Beret and is a desert warfare specialist"
And in this "story he even has "his own command".... damn good for a 56 year old, E-6 Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic!!!!!!..... (Funny no mention of Conley ever attending any "Green Beret" training, must be black ops classified Ultra-Oakley or something)
03.01.05 Soldier's story
Mike Lewis
March 1, 2005, last update: 12/31 @ 7:00 pm
Times-Mail Managing Editor
BEDFORD - Thanks to the American Red Cross, a soldier bound for Iraq got to visit his sick aunt and mother in Bedford.
Michael Conley, a 1966 graduate of Mitchell High School, is a science teacher and basketball coach in civilian life, working in Georgia. He's tasted some success. In 2002-2003, his Brandon Hall High School squad went 28-0 and won Georgia's Class AA state title.
A few weeks later, he was called into full-time duty with the Georgia National Guard.
"I've been on active duty since then," he said in a telephone interview from Bedford Regional Medical Center Monday.
Conley is a field first sergeant in the Guard. His mother, Laura Boone, 76, and his aunt, Alice Carter, 88, live in neighboring homes in Bedford.
"There's only about 12 feet between the houses," Conley said with a laugh.
But now both his aunt and his mother are ill. And that's where the American Red Cross steps in.
"I was able to get home because of Donna Eubank and the Red Cross here in Bedford," Conley said.
When people in the military face family emergencies, the Red Cross sends information to the commanding officer, who can send the soldier home.
"It's a 24/7 service for the Red Cross, anywhere in the world," said Betsy Henley of Bedford, the volunteer caseworker who handled Conley's paperwork.
"We have six volunteer caseworkers at the moment," Henley said. "We'd like to have more."
In Conley's case, he was able to come home for the weekend to visit Carter in the hospital. On Monday he was to meet with the physician handling his mother's heart condition.
It was a different world from where he had been, training for deployment to Iraq within 30 to 45 days.
Conley has been trained as a Green Beret and is a desert warfare specialist. His service has taken him to far-flung conflicts from Vietnam to Bosnia.
Now, at age 56, he has a command and is preparing troops for what they might face in Iraq.
"I've got my own command now, and they're good," he said. "My boys are good.
"I'm in charge of a company of 116 enlisted men and five officers. I'm in charge of all their training, their field training."
Getting back to those troops was also on the sergeant's mind as he visited with his aunt in the hospital Monday. He had planned his trip so he could have the longest possible stay with his family. That meant he faced a long drive back to the training station in Georgia starting this morning.
"I'm about 800 miles from Fort Stewart," he said.
Times-Mail Managing Editor Mike Lewis can be reached at 277-7258 or at
mikel@tmnews.com.
http://ww.tmnews.com/stories/2005/03...ive.453898.tms