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Local marine retracts Purple Heart claim
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
alcorn@vindy.com
NEW MIDDLETOWN
Anthony Kolat, Archive Story
Document
Archive of the original story, Anthony Kolat, October 23, 2009
Former Marine Anthony T. Kolat Jr.’s undocumented claim that he received a Purple Heart in connection with the Oct. 23, 1983, barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon cost him his affiliation with a local Veterans of Foreign War post.
It has now made him a target on the Internet by groups that are convinced he lied about being a Purple Heart recipient.
The barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemen, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.
Kolat, of New Middletown, interviewed at his home last week, retracted his original claim, made in a story published Oct. 23, 2009 in The Vindicator, that he received a Purple Heart during a search and rescue operation in the aftermath of the terrorist attack by a suicidal truck bomber who drove into the barracks.
He said he does not have the medal nor documentation to prove he was to receive a Purple Heart, and therefore has to retract his claim that he received the medal.
“I refuse to take credit for receiving a Purple Heart until I can prove it,” Kolat said.
However, his retraction comes with a caveat.
Kolat, trained as a combat engineer, claims he received the necessary Purple Heart documentation and is searching through his own records for the necessary documents, some of which he says may have been lost in a house fire. He is also seeking help from veterans organizations and the National Archives and Records Administration regional facility in Kansas City, Mo., to find the documents that he says would clear his name.
Kolat acknowledges that his DD-214 discharge paper does not list the Purple Heart among his decorations and awards and also does not list a deployment as a reserve that he says sent him to Lebanon.
He says, however, the omissions are a mistake.
Because he is unable to prove he earned a Purple Heart, Kolat said he had to step down from his elected office of chaplain with New Springfield VFW Post 2799 in Springfield and was dismissed as a member.
“As far as we could determine from his DD-214 [discharge] document, he was never outside the United States and was never wounded,” said David Coff, Post 2799 commander.
“He couldn’t produce the documents we requested,” Coff said.
The DD-214 lists dates and places of service and training, decorations and other information about an individual’s time in the military.
Kolat said he was in the Beirut bombing and wore a Purple Heart on Memorial Day and other functions, said David Blakeman, immediate past commander of Post 2799.
“That’s what got my attention. Something didn’t jibe. We did a records search, and service in Lebanon and receiving a Purple Heart were not listed on his DD-214,” Blakeman said.
“I thought it was a slap in the face to guys who earned it. We tried to handle the situation in-house and be done with it,” he said.
Kolat, who said he works part-time for a restaurant and is in danger of losing his home, was in the Marine Corps from Feb. 11, 1978 to Feb. 10, 1986, including three years of active duty from Aug. 22, 1978 to Aug. 23, 1982, and was in the reserve until honorably discharged as a sergeant.
His decorations and awards include a Good Conduct Medal, two Meritorious Masts, and a Letter of Appreciation, according to his DD-214.
Jeff Hamman, of Chesapeake, Va., who said he has been involved in researching the Beirut Bombing as an unofficial historian since 1996, began by compiling history and statistics for the United States interventions in Lebanon in 1958, 1982-84, and 2006. Most recently, he is working to compile an accurate list of Purple Heart recipients for 1982-1984.
Hamman said according to Kolat’s DD-214, he never served in Beirut, Lebanon nor did he receive a Purple Heart.
Hamman said he was a Navy corpsman on active duty from 1977-1981 and while in the naval reserve thereafter was activated during Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, both stateside.
The Blog of Shame, posted by Military Phonies, a Stolen Valor group, displays on the Internet Kolat’s military records obtained from the National Personnel Records Center under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.
“The records confirm what I am saying,” Hamman said.
According to his DD-214, Kolat was released from active duty on Aug. 21, 1982.
Hamman said Marines of the 32nd Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) landed in Beirut on Aug. 25, 1982.
“This was four days after Kolat was released from or a year before the Oct. 23, 1983, bombing of the Marine barracks,” he said.
Kolat, a combat engineer, said he was activated as a reserve at the time of the bombing and was deployed with the 24th MAU to Beirut, but again has no documentation to prove what he says.
“I was not there when the barracks was bombed, but we participated after the explosion. I know you can’t get a Purple Heart unless you are in combat; but it was still a fighting situation,” he said.
Kolat was working as a clerk in a Marine Corps reserve unit in New Castle, Pa., at the time of the bombing and was never deployed to Beirut, Hamman said
He said he is working on a list of about 30 individuals for whom he is seeking “absolute confirmation” that they were wounded in the Beirut bombing and deserving of a Purple Heart.
“My ultimate goal is to create an accurate list of people wounded in the Beirut bombing and other U.S. interventions in Lebanon,” he said.
Hamman believes Kolat’s action rises to the level of a violation of the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, which makes it a federal crime to fraudulently hold oneself out to be a recipient of any of several military decorations or medals, including the Purple Heart, with the intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit.
Ohio does not have a Stolen Valor law, so legal action would have to come at the federal level, officials said.
The original story posted in 2009 on Vindy.com has been removed because Kolat cannot substantiate his original claim that he was honored with a Purple Heart.