Marine Corps News, news from Iraq - Marine Corps Times

False Marine chaplain spun web of deceit

Courtney Hopkins, a former Marine, first met Reggie Buddle in 2004 at his home, where he presided over a wedding for a leatherneck who had just finished boot camp.

A year later, the man she called “the Rev” baptized her newborn son and presided over her wedding to Staff Sgt. Bryan Hopkins.

“I had known [Buddle] for a year and my husband knew him even longer, so it just seemed like the natural choice. We trusted him,” Hopkins said.

Buddle wore the uniform and rank of a Marine captain and spun heroic tales of serving in Vietnam. He attended the local Marine Corps birthday ball in full uniform. The Marines at the recruiting substation in Tacoma, Wash., trusted him, asking him to marry them and baptize their children. The Washington State Senate even arranged for him to give an invocation with a Marine color guard to start a daily session.

There was only one problem. Buddle lied about it all.

A federal judge sentenced Buddle on July 29 to two years’ probation and 500 hours tending graves at Tahoma National Cemetery after he pleaded guilty to unlawfully wearing military medals and decorations.

The judge chose the national cemetery for Buddle to do his community service to teach him what it means to truly serve, U.S. Attorney Ron Friedman said. However, it was stressed in court that Buddle must avoid any interaction with families and will provide only labor, he added.

Buddle, 59, did serve two years’ active duty in the Army during the Vietnam War from 1967-69 and two years as a reservist, getting out as a corporal, but he was never shipped overseas. The retired Boeing machinist also attended a Presbyterian seminary in the 1990s, but never graduated, said Christopher Lensch, dean of students at Western Reformed Seminary.

The investigation into Buddle started with a call last fall to the POW Network — a Web site known for alerting the public to military frauds — from his sister-in-law, who became suspicious when he showed up at his father-in-law’s funeral in full Marine uniform, officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Justice Department confirmed.

Shortly after, the VA inspector general started wading through Buddle’s military records and discovered the web of lies, said M. Davidson Martin, the special agent with the VA office of the inspector general who oversaw the investigation.

Martin also acquired photos showing Buddle wearing the Defense Distinguished Service Medal — the highest peacetime defense award; the Combat Action Ribbon; the Presidential Unit Citation; the Vietnam Service Medal; and gold jump wings, he said. Buddle had earned none of them.

The IG’s investigation found proof he presided over six weddings and one funeral, almost all involving the Marines who worked at the Tacoma recruiting substation or Marines recruited through it.

Buddle was ultimately charged with unlawfully wearing military medals, but he never faced charges of misrepresenting himself as a chaplain.

Befriending Marines

Buddle would visit the recruiting substation next to the Tacoma Mall at least once a month, said Maj. Forrest Poole, commander of Marine Corps Recruiting Station Seattle. He sometimes brought along possible recruits, but never worked at the station. The Marines working there trusted he was a chaplain and built relationships with him, Poole said.

Whenever Marines asked him about the fact the Marine Corps doesn’t have chaplains, Buddle would tell them the Corps had made him an “honorary” chaplain because he had served in Vietnam and later been ordained, Hopkins said.

When Hopkins and her husband hit a rough patch in their marriage, she said they trusted Buddle enough to confide in him and ask for advice on how to strengthen their relationship.

He told stories of serving as a Recon Marine and receiving two Purple Hearts. Buddle made up an elaborate story for Hopkins’ brother describing how he won a Purple Heart after guitar string was wrapped around his neck on the battlefield, she said.

“After we found out, my brother told me he came to the conclusion he was a fake right [when he told that story],” Hopkins said.

In fact, Hopkins said, when the Marines started to reassess the stories Buddle had told, they realized they matched famous war movies such as “Full Metal Jacket” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

Buddle posted on a Web site he started March 24, 2005, that he worked out of Recruiting Substation Tacoma, was ordained at Western Reformed Seminary and that “I serve Christ as a United States Marine ... Reserve.”

Buddle did study at Western Reformed Seminary, applying for enrollment in 1993. He completed two terms, each 15 weeks long. He didn’t complete his third term after dropping out of the seminary for health reasons, Lensch said.

He described Buddle as an “enthusiastic” student who was always studying the Bible. “I would recommend that he could provide spiritual advice, but I would have said no way to baptisms and funerals,” said Lensch, a chaplain in the Air National Guard, on Aug. 2.

However, Lensch wrote a letter of recommendation for Buddle, dated Feb. 9, 2005, that was submitted during Buddle’s sentencing proceedings. It read: “I am very happy to commend Mr. Buddle for a chaplain ministry with the Marine Corps.” Further down, Lensch wrote “very few clergy have the instant rapport and understanding that it takes to minister to Marines in a combat environment, but Reggie Buddle is already up to speed in his ministerial skills.”

When a reporter read the letter back to Lensch over the phone, he said he regretted writing it and would have written it differently if he knew what he knows now.

“I knew that he could never put on an officer’s uniform,” he said. “I scratched my head when I saw that and never supported him when he told me he was honorary.”

“The Marine Corps encouraged him, even writing a letter saying he was a honorary Marine chaplain,” said Buddle’s public defender, Colin Fieman, referring to a memo dated Dec. 23, 2004, submitted by the Tacoma recruiting substation to Lensch, stating Buddle was an honorary chaplain.

“What was happening was Buddle was playing both sides, having the seminary send letters to the Marines and then the Marines sending letters to the seminary,” prosecutor Friedman said.

Fieman said his client did not want to be contacted because he had received death threats and had to move from Lakewood, Wash., his home since the age of 14.

“He felt totally ashamed about the whole thing; in fact, he was suicidal at one point,” Fieman said.

Buddle was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2003 and suffers from depression, Fieman said. He said his client was only trying to find a way to help his country and never got anything out of lying to the Marines.

The aftermath

When Hopkins — a lance corporal until a leg injury she suffered in boot camp forced her to separate in 2003 — found out about Buddle’s deception in February, she said she was outraged. Then, the rage turned to panic.

“We had been claiming we were married on our taxes and getting paid as if we were,” she said. “We thought since he wasn’t really a chaplain that our marriage wasn’t legal and we defrauded the government.”

Hopkins’ husband was slated to deploy back to Iraq with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, a few days after finding out about the problem. The couple scrambled to determine if their marriage was legal, calling aides at the Washington State Legislature, but no one could give them a straight answer, Hopkins said.

She stood holding her infant son and waving goodbye to her husband as he deployed, still without a clear answer about their marriage. A couple of weeks later, an official with the VA called and told her the government was pressing charges against Buddle. She also learned that her marriage was legal due to a provision in state law protecting couples who go into a marriage in good faith from false officiants.

Her husband returns from Iraq with 2/7 later this month, and Hopkins said they plan to remarry eventually. “We can get remarried, but what about the families of the people he buried,” she said. “You can’t redo that.”

Discussion:

Buddle’s deception