He was billed as a war hero, and he took full advantage of it.
Nobody realized he was only a war hero in his own mind.
Arnon “Sonny” Cool was a longtime president of the Summit County Veterans Service Commission and commander of the Military Honors Burial Team out of VFW Post 3383 in Firestone Park.
Now he is neither, outed by a group called Green Beret Posers Exposed.
Cool spoke often in public, chirping to veterans’ and school groups about the two Purple Hearts he was awarded for wounds suffered in Korea and Vietnam while a member of the Army’s elite Green Berets. He even had the Purple Heart license plates to prove it.
In 2014, Cool told Copley High School students about fighting in Korea at temperatures of 30-below, and spoke in depth about his experience in a MASH unit after being wounded.
All of which is a bit problematic.
As it turns out, he has no Purple Heart, much less two.
He never served in Korea.
He was never a Green Beret.
For much of his 20-year career — not 22, as he always claimed — he was a military policeman.
Cool did serve in Vietnam and earned a Bronze Star. That’s impressive. But any veteran will tell you that’s a far cry from being a member of the Special Forces with two Purple Hearts in two wars.
“Not So Cool” Sonny, as one angry retired Green Beret has dubbed him, admitted during a phone conversation on Thursday that he fudged his resume.
“Yes, it’s true,” he said.
Why?
“I retired in ’73 from the Army. Shortly after, my wife and I got divorced. I went into a very deep depression. It seemed like no one appreciated what I did. That’s why I made up the story.
“I’m sorry for it. I made the mistake.”
He claims only “some” local veterans are angry at him, but admits all of them are “disappointed in me.”
“I apologized to my VFW. What else could I do? I’m still a member of the VFW. I’m still a life member of the American Legion.”
But Cool was shamed into resigning two years into his third five-year term as president of the Summit County Veterans Service Commission. He also resigned from his job as commander of the Honors Burial Team.
A voicemail left for Larry Moore, executive director of the Summit veterans commission, was not returned.
Cool’s confession is also available online, on YouTube, in a pair of phone conversations recorded by Green Beret Posers Exposed. (Just Google “Sonny Cool.”)
The first is a 30-minute conversation in which he denies the accusations. During a much shorter call the following day, he told the interrogator he had talked to his pastor and wanted to come clean.
“You are correct,” he says in the audio clip. “I am a phony.”
Cool, a native of West Virginia, turned 80 years old in July. Is it fair to go after a guy who’s 80?
Green Beret Posers Exposed certainly thinks so.
One of the folks behind Cool’s outing was Steve Antson, a Special Forces veteran who is highly involved with the group. An effort to contact him via Facebook failed, but material supplied anonymously to the Beacon Journal explained the group’s position this way:
“It gets tiring seeing the ‘I feel sorry for these people’ or ‘they must have a mental disorder.’ These are calculated actions. They know what they are doing.
“We don’t post any people with mental disabilities. These people do it for money, for jobs, for positions at work, for free things and for accolades [from] their gullible friends.
“We have compassion for [the mentally ill] and you won’t see them here. We have no compassion for posers, and there is no age limit on being outed.”
Nor should there be.
It’s one thing to fudge a little about your high school batting average. It’s quite another to present yourself as heroic Special Forces veteran when you’re not.
Phonies like Cool cheapen the tremendous sacrifices of the brave souls who actually earned those honors.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31.