Why do it? More unnecessary bloating by a former servicemen who should have been rightly proud of his true service and deployments yet tainted it by bloating to impress young cadets claiming airborne status and calling his adult instructor colleagues “crap hats”.

Meet Michael McFarlane who served with the Royal Scot’s Dragoon Guards

He served in Iraq and Syria which makes this outing so much worse as he’s giving it big licks and shit dits to cadets about his airborne days to kids.

Now all that is great but only one problem. He never passed any of the listed pre Para selection tests and has never attended RAF Brize Norton’s No1 Parachute Training School or passed the Basic Military Parachute Course which on passing awards you the entertainment to wear the Parachute with Wings.

The prerequisite courses required to attend the Basic Military Parachute Course are as follows.

1.All arms P Company

2. .All arms Commando Course

3.Pathfinders

4.UKSF selection (hills phase)

We were able to get sight of his course qualifications which lists (all arms Parachute (army) 17 Sept 2006. Previous to that entry there are no pre Para courses listed and his branch/trade postings show no para pid postings.

We were able to run that date, his name and number checking every swinging dick who attended Brize Norton from BPC 1170 -01-2006 to the final full BPC of that year 1180/2006 24/11/2006.

To be more exact BPC 1177 the only basic course of that month which his docs claim he passed on 17/09/2006 actually ended on the 22/09/2006 having completed their final jump the night before, no McFarlane is listed out of the 64 men who attended the course.

McFarlane's name and number was run through the full system and no match could be found. Anywhere. very strange! He had also never attended a Physical Training Instructor course at Royal Army Physical Training Corps which he claims allowed him to attend the BPC and wear wings without having to pass P Coy which we all know is completely false.

A PTI Course is not listed in any official army or tri service documentation as a prerequisite to attending or even being accepted to gain a military parachute qualification.

In order to be accepted to attend the Basic Military Parachute Course after passing one of the listed above you have to be in an airborne unit with a Para pid or being posted to one within six months.

Our contacts confirmed this policy was in force at the time and despite passing any of the prerequisite courses if you did not have a posting order or proof of a Para pid you would simply not get on the course.

We posted up a CC1 and it did not take long to get feedback

Where's his wings gone Taken 2017

However, hardly anyone accepted his apology which was not surprising as it was more of an excuse and blaming others for his bloating and we knew he was bragging to adult cadet instructors about his time jumping a RAF Brize Norton.

Here are a few examples of the club members response to his excuse.

No Pre Para course

No records of a military parachute course.

Verdict Bloater.

Soon after the exposure went live he wanted to apologise.

He claimed he did not know about our come on down, but we knew this was a lie as he had got a mate to PM us the night before claiming we had got it all wrong and he has ptsd etc. Despite knowing he was lying to us we still giving him a chance and put it to the club.

Had he passed a basic military parachute course in 2006 his mates in his unit would have noticed him wearing Wings as it’s an achievement to be proud of have gained and he would have been able to them.

Dress regulations state the award of Military Parachute with Wings can still be worn regardless of no longer being part of an airborne unit or if no longer in receipt of Parachute Pay.

How could this happen?

We know of many cases at the time were JPA records under Course qualifications had been manipulated with false entries or clerks had simply input the wrong course designation or incorrectly by those with JPA admin privileges.

We have exposed a few Bloaters in the past who had simply attended an adventure training sports parachute course who then felt it was perfectly ok to wear wings and be airborne once a civilian. Only for it to end up in tears years down the line as they dig themselves deeper into the lie. In some cases serving members of the armed forces have been investigated by RMPs and charged and subject to court martial were financial gain was made.

In others a quick chat in the COs office and told to remove the wings or other course qualification claims. Some people will think ‘so what?, it’s just a badge’ but try saying that to the people who worked hard to pass a pre Para selection and go on to attend the Basic military parachute course and earn the right to wear Para wings, then knowing some people think it’s ok to just put on an eBay badge and enjoy all the kudos for doing nothing other than a jolly on the all arms sports parachute course.

Worse still bragging about it to cadets as an adult and big timing it to other adults.

Here’s his confession...

McFarlane was aware of our investigation and allegations as some of his former colleagues had challenged him previously after pictures of him wearing wings emerged on Facebook.

He quickly deleted the pictures but he could not delete pictures from the army cadets official Facebook page.

McFarlane was aware of our offer to simply own up to a silly mistake and just move on in order to prevent this exposure. We genuinely wanted him to take up that offer, but he ignored it.

Bloating is bloating no matter what you have done in your career turning a blind eye to it because someone deployed is not something this club will do, but we will always give ex serving a better chance to come clean than a full blown walt. Observations from a non Winged up veteran after reading our report.

A very small amount we’re willing to excuse his apology but the vast overwhelming majority did not fall for it. Which is a first for the WMHCHQ We did warn McFarlane, people would not fall for his excuses.

We also knew he had been lying about his job description.

So for the first time in the clubs history we cannot accept his excuse, he was only sorry for getting caught and just attempted to shift blame onto others for something he knew was wrong to do.

WMHCHQ…out

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