Thomas Exists (UPDATED)

He's Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and he thinks we're all "chickenhawks."

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

You're whining, Private. I'm sure that they didn't teach you that in boot camp or infantry school. Apparently you also never learning that citizens of this country have a right to question anything put forth as "truth" for public consumption, whether we actually had the same experience or not.

Now, if you're done with dancing around the issue, let's see some corroboration for those anecdotes.

UPDATE: Bryan of Hot Air found Beauchamp's old blog which contains some very interesting entries, presumably written before the private deployed to Iraq.

UPDATE: Photos of Beauchamp:

PREVIOUSLY:

Greyhawk Calls Out The New Republic
"Scott Thomas": Poseur?
Still Looking for "Scott Thomas's" Cohorts
Further Comments from Foer
A Note From New Republic's Foer
Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source
Gruesome Stories from Anonymous Sources

Comments

[Tully]

I started with January 2006 and worked my way forward. Note that date: this whiner joined in 2005, and he's complaining he was deployed to a war zone? GMAFB! What'd he expect? Candyland?

"My goal is to become an incompetent leader that gets fragged by 30 something NCO's at a forward operating base in Sadr City."

I'd say he's halfway there, and he'll never ever be a leader in the military. I'm archiving his blog entries before they vanish.

Here's a REAL gem from before he shipped out.

And then there's this one, also from BEFORE he left Germany.

I don't think you can believe a word this guy says without film and photos. He thinks he's a soul-meld of Kerouac, Hemingway, and Mailer. Barnes was not far off.

[ErikZ]

I haven't been keeping an eagle eye on the writer, but so far, everything just seems screwy.

For instance, the blog posts the previous commenter linked. The first thing I noticed was that he didn't capitalize the first letter of a sentence in many instances.

That's supposed to be the writer that wrote the original articles? I can't even do that when I'm typing drunk. It would be like confusing They're and Their.

I think we'll get the whole story though if people keep on asking questions. :)

[Wayne]

I'll bet this clown is one of those guys that just makes working around him into a living Hell.

I wonder how much of what he's written is just an effort to avoid really doing his job.

Could it be that he's hoping they'll give him the boot and that he's left a swath of destruction on the sacrifices of the good people around him that will make him a hero to all of the treehugging, soldier-hating, Michael Moore-worshipping human feces that threatens to destroy our country?

I knew people like this when I was in the Navy. Folks who realized that they hated serving and that they wanted to hurt everyone else who served around them. They hate it so much that they will do as much as they can to ruin the military or at least some small part of it - no matter the cost to those around them.

Its all about them you see. When I read this guys' writings (and the comments of the retards who swoon over him) I see this type of person.

[Tully]

A real Blue Falcon special. This guy was a Dem activist and Dean supporter before he enlisted, and a "creative writing" grad.

I notice from the MySpace comments that he seems to have dumped a German girlfriend about the time he left Iraq and went back to Germany. About April. Nice guy--he was engaged and/or married to that TNR reporter at the time. "She meant nothin' to me, baby!"

His actual time in theater seems to have been shorter than I would expect. And he seems to have dropped a grade between arrival and return to Germany. Article 15?

[baldilocks]

Back when I served in locations in which Army personnel were stationed, I was told that it was relatively easy and common for Army enlisted personnel to be demoted, especially those of lower rank. I don't know if things are the same now.

Back in the force reductions of the '90s that was true. Especially for noncomms. But not so much nowadays, and not in the field. He got knocked back for something before he was outed. Wonder what?