The story about what these soldiers did is not true


In the age of social media, “news” can spread like wildfire and whether it is true or not is not of much concern to most if the story is entertaining enough.

For example, there is a story circulating about five soldiers from Fort Polk being heavily armed and on the run after stealing a military aircraft.

The story, which is riddled with typos, from “Channel 22 News” reports:

On April 19th at approximately 5:00 pm a group of Fort Polk soldiers Hi jack a 30 million dollar aircraft. Soldiers were believed to be heavily armed, CID has only been able to positively identify 3 of the 5 soldiers SPC Wilkerson, SPC Garcia ,and SPC Pierre if you have any information regarding these soldiers please contact Fort polks command team or any local authorities.

Even though the story contains more typos than an E-5 infantryman’s counseling reports, many servicemembers/veterans are sharing the story within veteran social media groups.  But it did not take long for Popular Military to officially debunk the story despite the obvious signs it is fake.

Fake news
A military/veteran Facebook group in which the story was shared.

The home page of “Channel 22 News” makes it clear that the website is far from being a news website. In reality, it is a website set up for creating fake news for social networks -which there is already too much of on the internet.

“Create A Fake Story And Trick All Your Friends!,” the website’s homepage says. “Simply Create Your Own News And Then Share It On Your Social Network Pages!”

When it comes to the “Fort Polk soldiers AWOL after stealing military aircraft” fake news story, it is very likely that somebody in their unit thought it would be a good prank.  The soldiers in the fake news story’s photo are wearing the unit crest of the 46th Engineer Battalion at Fort Polk.

The person who made this fake news story might of thought it was harmless joke but if they are a soldier in this unit and get caught, they will have to face their hard-charging, former Special Forces instructor, Command Sergeant Major.

CSM Loham
During 25 years of service, CSM Guy Lohman leadership positions include Pre Diver Qualification Course Instructor, Squad Leader, Lead Diver, Platoon Sergeant, Diving Supervisor, Operations Sergeant, Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center Diving Course Instructor/Writer, Army Master Diver Course Manager, Senior Drill Sergeant, USAJFK Special Forces Underwater Operations School Instructor and Hyperbaric Chamber NCOIC, Division Force Protection Sergeant Major.

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