Talk:Guy Putnam Jr./@comment-261619-20181014014233

The Virginia-Pilot article does not assert he is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War.

It states he was an enlisted guy in the United States Navy, at the time of the Spanish Civil War. It says something that is clearly incorrect. The article says he served IN SPAIN, and rescued US citizens there. Ordinary enlisted ratings in the USN, serve on ships, or on Naval Bases, not on shore, in foreign countries.

Even if the USN had a Naval Base in Spain, at the time of the Civil War (it didn't), or he was chosen to be part of a landing party, briefly set ashore to provide security while US citizens were being rescued, that would not make him a "veteran" of the war. The USA was officially neutral.

Serving on a USN ship, in the Mediterranean, or in the Atlantic, in peacetime, may entitle Putnam to some kind of ribbon. It does not entitle him to call himself a veteran of a war where the USA was neutral.

Did a 100 year old Putnam make this mistake? Or was it the Virginia-Pilot reporter? About a decade ago I was working on a wikipedia article, and my google news search directed me to an article from the Virginia-Pilot. There was something odd about the article. Google helped me confirm that 90 percent of the article was plagarized. It repeated several paragraphs I had written on the topic, for the wikipedia, several paragraphs written by Carol Rosenberg, and several paragraphs written by Andy Worthington. There was basically nothing written by the Pilot's reporter, and no attribution was given.

So I am going to assume Putnam was misquoted