Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida built his political career with stories of heroism in the U.S. Army and as a private military operative, but several former colleagues say he exaggerated or lied about being “blown up” twice in Iraq, being an Army Ranger, training as an 18 Delta Special Forces Medical Sergeant, being a military-trained sniper, and saving the lives of two soldiers wounded by enemy fire. They also allege he walked away from his post in Iraq when his employer asked him to verify his service record.
As much time and energy as Mills has spent promoting his history, he’s now running from some of the details as the men he served with and the media are increasingly questioning his record, his personal life — and his truthfulness.
Mills is under new and intense scrutiny after
Blaze News revealed that he was married in 2014 by a radical imam in Falls Church, Va. The imam, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Hanooti, was a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundraiser for the terror group Hamas, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. The wedding took place at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, where two of the 9/11 hijackers once attended and where notorious terror leader and al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki was an imam.
‘People could have f**king died depending upon him if he failed to perform.’
Mills has consistently presented himself as a Christian since he ran for Congress, but there continues to be controversy over whether Mills converted to Islam in order to marry Rana Al Saadi in 2014. His girlfriend recently told the
Daily Mail “that the claims made in the Blaze article are entirely untrue,” while five former associates, including one on the record, told Blaze News that Mills told them he had converted at the time of his wedding.
‘It just started to make sense. It was like, “Oh well, he couldn’t f**king run any more. He couldn’t hide any more.” Why else would someone do this?’
Many former associates also recently went on the record with Blaze News to dispute his record of accomplishments overseas. “He has a monstrous gift of bulls**t, and it’s impressive,” said Jesse Parks, Mills’ supervisor during the last of his time with DynCorp. “It’s also pathetic. Because [the way] I look at it is people could have f**king died depending upon him if he failed to perform.”
“He’s handsome, he’s charismatic; he has always used that [to] his benefit,” said William Kern, a former U.S. Marine counter-sniper who worked with Mills at DynCorp carrying out security missions in Iraq. “So, you know, he fooled a lot of us.”
Leaving DynCorp
Multiple men who worked with Mills at military contractor DynCorp International told Blaze News that when the company demanded that employees verify their military service, training, and qualifications at the request of the U.S. State Department, Mills delayed until the deadline, then disappeared, leaving his rifle and gear laid out on his bed. They say he never returned and that fellow soldiers searched for him to no avail.
Parks said he warned Mills and other soldiers that they needed to turn in documentation of their military record and achievements to meet a demand made by the U.S. State Department in early 2009. He said that for weeks, Mills did not comply. On the day of the deadline, he said he again warned Mills to turn in his proof of credentials.
‘He literally walked off of the US consulate in the middle of the night under darkness.’
“I found Cory and I told him flat out, ‘Cory, if I don’t have your bio and your supporting documentation in my hand by 1900 hours [7 p.m.] today, you have to go get on an airplane tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. and leave.”
Parks said after issuing the order, “That was the last I saw Cory, because he piled up all of his DynCorp s**t and his State Department serialized items, weapons, this, that, and the other, on his bed, and he walked out the gate. Nobody ever saw him again.”
Parks said he was the one “who f**king fired him.”
Kern said the next morning, during his run, people began to notice that Mills was no longer around. “What’s going on with Cory? No one can find him. He left his radio, his Glock, his sniper rifle, and his M4 on his bed,” Kern said. “And he literally walked off of the U.S. consulate in the middle of the night under darkness. He walked out the back gate. We have video of that.”
Kern said once they determined Mills left on his own, “It just started to make sense. It was like, ‘Oh well, he couldn’t f**king run any more. He couldn’t hide any more.’ Why else would someone do this? Why would someone walk away from a $200,000-a-year job? I mean, just submit your s**t, dude.”
Mills said the story about how he left DynCorp in Iraq was “bulls**t.”
“No one walks off in the middle of the night unarmed in Iraq,” Mills said. “All right? Let’s just put it first like that. I put my gear on the bed and walk out in the middle of the night? No.”
Mills said he requested early release so that he could return to the United States with his girlfriend, who was leaving around the same time.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t go walk around and knock on everyone’s door to go, ‘Hey, by the way, guys, I ended up getting a contract release for two days,’” Mills said.
“Like, a week or two weeks earlier than my contract was set to expire, because I wanted to go home with a nice girlfriend,” Mills explained.
“This is the thing that’s so ridiculous about these types of fabricated nonsense, is that, I mean, it’s so outlandish.”
‘Blown up’ twice?
Mills has often made the claim that he was “blown up” twice while on missions in Iraq for DynCorp.
He points to a certificate of appreciation he received from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as proof of his brave actions. The certificate reads, “In grateful recognition of your prompt and brave action when your motorcades were hit by an EFP on March 15 and April 19, 2006. You exhibited the highest caliber of professionalism and your actions saved the lives of your comrades.”
Kern said there were blank templates of the certificate floating around. “There were [around] 35 guys that got that same thing,” he said.
The first incident, on March 15, 2006, involved a motorcade that got blown up by a roadside bomb. Blaze News confirmed that Mills was present at this scene. However, photographic evidence and sources have called into question the seriousness of his injuries.
‘It would have been impossible for him to be wounded.’
Mills told Blaze News he suffered a concussion when the Suburban SUV in which he was riding was damaged by an IED. “I ended up hitting my head,” he said. “… Was it some severe, maiming wound? No. I’ve got the actual document that shows where I was hit.”
“Why are you saying on your website that you were wounded, and now you’re telling me a different story?” Blaze News asked Mills.
“I had a concussion. So a concussion isn’t being wounded? Knocking your head off an actual armored vehicle door and having to go get treated and have three days down, that’s not being wounded, right? So what is your definition? Do I need to lose an arm? Do I need to be shot in shrapnel? Just tell me. Tell me what your definition of wounded is. Because apparently, [traumatic brain injury] is not an external wound.”
Blaze News pressed him on his claim that he suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Mills responded: “No, I actually just got reviewed by the PA and the doctor there, and they basically told me to monitor myself for the next 24 hours.”
RELATED: STOLEN VALOR: Tim Walz allegedly LIED about his military service; abandoned his unit
Photo courtesy of Scott Kempkins
On April 19, 2006, in a separate incident, Mills’ motorcade was hit by a roadside bomb as it made its way toward the Ministry of Electricity. According to a summary report obtained by Blaze News, the two lead vehicles in the convoy had turned right toward the Ministry of Electricity when the following Humvee was struck by an array of explosively formed penetrators with five or six linked devices.
Mills’ vehicle was allegedly 50 yards away from the one that sustained bomb damage, and his colleagues said he was never wounded.
A photograph provided to Blaze News by Scott Kempkins, one of Mills’ colleagues who was wounded in the attack, shows Mills with a large bloodstain on his right pant leg after the mission. Kempkins and others who were there said that the blood did not belong to Mills.
Courtesy of Scott Kempkins
“Cory was absolutely not wounded,” said Scott Kempkins, who suffered injuries from the bomb. “While Sergeant Ray was bleeding quite a bit, it definitely was not life-threatening, so that blood on Cory’s pants was from Sergeant Ray. He didn’t need to lie about anything.”
Kempkins said he was behind the driver of the Humvee when the bomb blew.
“I got hit in the shoulder, the neck, and the leg,” Kempkins said. “And then the guy in the turret took a little bit of shrapnel to the side of his face. That was it. Cory’s vehicle was already around the corner and about 50 yards down the street. It would have been impossible for him to be wounded.”
Cory Mills (middle) and Scott Kempkins (right).Courtesy of Scott Kempkins
Chase Nash, who rode in the same vehicle as Mills in the motorcade, agreed.
“I just want to be very, very clear that there was one vehicle that was hit that actually took a blast, and it wasn’t the vehicle that I was in and it wasn’t the vehicle Cory was in, that vehicle I was in,” Nash said. “I wasn’t wounded. Cory was not wounded. I know for a fact that is true. Cory was not wounded.”
Kern said it makes no sense for Mills to lie about being blown up, because he did render medical aid to the men in the Humvee and accompanied them to the battalion aid station.
“If Cory had just told the truth, it would have been extremely honorable,” Kern said. “But Cory was never, ever blown up as a private security contractor. … You can look at all the State Department documents on when people were injured, contractors were injured. Cory was never injured. His name will never come up because it never happened.”
Kempkins gave Mills credit for the medic work he did after the explosion, but said the injuries were not life-threatening.
“Credit where credit’s due. He bandaged everybody up, we went to the aid station, and they flew us to the green zone,” Kempkins said. “Now having said that, any basic medic could have done exactly what he did. Nobody was life-threatening. There were no severe amputations where [some]body had an arm blown off or a leg or anything like that.”
Mills further confirmed that he was not in the vehicle that was hit the second time, despite his congressional website claiming that he was struck twice: “That’s correct.”
Other claims draw fire
Mills’ colleagues said he lied about other things, claiming to have been with the Army 75th Ranger Regiment based at Fort Benning, Georgia. Max Woodside, who was at one time Mills’ team leader, told Blaze News, “I bought all of his bulls**t. He told me he was a Ranger. I didn’t vet him or anything. He told me all the cool-guy s**t. I didn’t know.” Woodside said that, all things considered, Mills “performed well at every mission we were on. He perpetrated the lie, and then he performed well.”
But Woodside echoed many of Mills’ other former colleagues when he told Blaze News that “I had to earn my rights, I had to earn my stripes, and I had to earn my abilities to be able to do things I did. And he didn’t.”
Parks said that a veteran who retired from the Rangers and later worked for DynCorp confronted Mills about his tall tales.
“One day, our deputy project manager … who retired from the 75th Ranger Regiment, flat stopped Cory in the street, and he says, ‘If I hear one more time that you have said you were a Ranger, I’m gonna beat your ass within an inch of your life and send you home on a medical flight,’” Parks recalled.
Mills (left) poses with members of the Army 75th Ranger Regiment.
Courtesy of Scott Kempkins
To be a Ranger medic, Mills would have had to go through an advanced 42-week course to become an 18 Delta: Special Forces Medical Sergeant. According to his official DD-214 form, Mills was a combat medic certified with the “Emergency Medical Technician Course” in 1999. His primary specialty, denoted by the Military Occupational Specialty code “91W2P 00,” corresponds with “Health Care Specialist.” There is no mention of service in the elite Army Rangers, although he has described himself as
one in the past.
Screenshot from a 2015 Vice article.
Kempkins said when the DynCorp operation had to move to Northern Iraq after losing the government contract for Baghdad, he started to notice Mills’ stories.
“We started hearing the stories [that Mills was claiming] he was a Ranger and all this other stuff,” Kempkins said.
‘This guy doesn’t know s**t about being a sniper.’
DynCorp sent Mills to its sniper school based on his claims of having prior experience. The truth of these claims has since been called into question. Mills’ talk about being an expert sniper also raised eyebrows among his DynCorp co-workers.
“He was supposed to have been this super-duper military-trained sniper and all this s**t, and they [DynCorp] sent him to their sniper school,” Parks said. “He got through it, but he really struggled. It was like he was learning it for the first time, as one of them told me. If he was some hot-s**t sniper from the Army, it should have been a breeze.”
Parks said Mills’ former colleagues “want some f**king answers from Cory.”
“I like guys that go to Ranger school, guys that went to sniper school,” Parks said. “I mean, these are very long, hard courses. And not everybody graduates from this. And for him to basically say that he had done all of those things, there’s some really tough [questions].”
Mills was able to enroll in a course to become a Designated Defense Marksman, which is supposed to be limited to those who attended an accredited military sniper school.
“I’ve never ever heard of us giving up a sniper slot to send a medic,” said Bobby Oller, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper, squad leader, and master gunner who served in Afghanistan and as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He later worked for DynCorp. “What does that serve the unit? And what aspect ever on the battlefield would it have to have your medic as the sniper?
“Is he gonna set his rifle down and run over and help somebody?” Oller said. “You know that would never happen whatsoever. I mean, it’s just, it’s not even fathomable.”
When the State Department snipers working for DynCorp had to go to the range to re-qualify, some noticed peculiarities about Mills and his approach.
“We would look over, and Cory would be doing s**t on ballistic calculators, you know, like apps,” Kern said. “Everyone’s sitting there going, ‘Dude, it literally takes you longer to put the information in than it should take you to do this in your head.’”
“So everyone was picking up on stuff like that. ‘Cory, what the f**k do you mean? You’re asking what grain bullet we’re using? Dude, we only use match ammo. It’s 168 grain. It’s the same s**t you’ve been shooting in the military as a sniper. What are you talking about, Cory? Why are you asking a dumb question like that?’”
Kern said Mills didn’t speak the “verbiage” common to snipers.
“I’ve trained with SS snipers. I’ve trained with SEAL snipers. I’ve trained with law enforcement, L.A. County SWAT guys,” Kern said. “I know and I understand that we all have different training, and I understand that the formulas are different.”
“But the stuff that [Mills] was saying … I remember thinking, ‘What are we doing? Is this out of a movie?’ Snipers have a verbiage … sniper observer monologue. … This guy doesn’t know s**t about being a sniper.”
According to
Mills’ application for a promotion to shift leader at DynCorp, he served as a medic in the 75th Ranger Regiment and received training at the U.S. Army Sniper School in November 2002. Those alleged facts are not on his DD-214 discharge paperwork, and several of his DynCorp colleagues say they are false.
RELATED: Maryland Gov. Moore calls stolen valor over Bronze Star an ‘honest mistake,’ deflects blame
Mills’ DynCorp application.
He also
claimed he was an attachment member of Joint Special Operations Command and “performed numerous joint operations missions in Iraq.” The JSOC information is also not listed on Mills’ DD-214.
Questions on Bronze Star
Questions are also being raised about the information used to justify Mills receiving the Bronze Star.
Mills said the Bronze Star has been on his official military record since 2004. Some of the men who served in the Army with him have questioned the details used to justify the honor, however.
The Army Form 638 that details support for Mills’ Bronze Star says Mills earned the award for acts of heroism in Iraq in 2003, including rendering lifesaving aid to two wounded soldiers and subduing an enemy combatant in a separate engagement.
‘He didn’t save my life. I don’t recall him being there, either.’
Five former service members — including two whom Mills allegedly saved — question the details on the Army paperwork as misleading or false.
The form said on March 31, 2003, in Samawah, Iraq, south of Baghdad, Mills saved the lives of Corporal Alan Babin and Private First Class Joe Heit, who were hit by enemy fire.
“At great risk to his own life, he applied emergency lifesaving medical care to both soldiers and assisted in their evacuation back to U.S. forces, saving the lives of both soldiers,” Mills’ Bronze Star form said.
There is no mention of Mills in accounts given by members of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne, Alpha Company, or from the company commander. Two men, PFC Jesse Walker and Staff Sergeant Augest Berndt, tended to Babin’s and Heit’s wounds under fire.
“In the middle of that firefight, we started taking crossfire from across the road,” said Sgt. Steven Dukes, a member of Alpha Company, in a 2004 report by the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It was pretty intense. [Rocket-propelled grenades] were hitting the trees around us. We were taking it from both sides.”
When Heit was shot in the head, Babin started running toward him when he was shot in the abdomen. Heit’s wounds ended up being minor, but Babin was badly wounded. According to one account, “Staff Sgt. Jesse Walker ran to Alan, started an IV, put dressings on his wound, and administered drugs to stop the bleeding.”
Heit told the news
website NOTUS that Mills’ claim about him isn’t true.
“He didn’t save my life,” Heit said. “I don’t recall him being there, either.”
The third achievement cited in Mills’ recommendation for a Bronze Star said his unit came to the aid of another U.S. unit pinned down by enemy fire.
“Bounding forward under murderous enemy fire, Sgt. Mills’ team gained and maintained fire superiority on the enemy. Entering the building, Sgt. Mills’ platoon sergeant, SFC Joseph Ferrand, was grabbed by an enemy insurgent. Jumping into action, Sgt. Mills threw himself at the enemy insurgent and subdued him, saving the life of SFC Ferrand.”
Ferrand disputed the description, writing in a complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics that Mills’ story was “false and a fabrication.” Ferrand said he “was not involved in any claims that Cory Mills makes about me,” adding that “the act never took place.”
Asked why men he served with at DynCorp and in the 82nd Airborne dispute so many of his claims, Mills said: “They’re entitled to have a different recollection. And some of them, obviously, I didn’t have a great relationship with, and I’m sure some are probably disgruntled.”
‘It’s not going to impact me in my elections.’
An April 2024 letter issued by the U.S. Army in response to a 2023 Freedom of Information Act request said there could be errors in Mills’ Official Personnel File regarding awards and that officials are “reviewing the records to resolve the issue.”
The Bronze Star recommendation was signed by now-retired Brig. Gen. Arnold Gordon-Bray. “I endorsed his Bronze Star,” Gordon-Bray said in a text acquired by Daytona Beach News-Journal. “As I did for all my NCOs. The specific actions had to come from the battalion.”
Gordon-Bray told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in August 2024 that he awarded the Bronze Star to “all my squad leaders and above.” He said, however, “I am not validating any of the specifics.”
There are questions about when the Form 638 was signed by the brigadier general. Oller said the form Mills used was created in April 2021. The form lists an (R) by Gordon-Bray’s name for “retired.” The general retired in 2012.
Mills defends his record
Since running for office, in media appearances and at campaign events, Mills has presented his military expertise for years as a reason voters should trust him in Congress. He recently traveled to the Middle East and spoke with multiple foreign leaders and lectured generals in a House hearing about “warrior ethos.”
The congressman also disputes Blaze News’ reporting.
“You haven’t reached out to the people in the vehicle. It’s comical. I’m laughing at you right now because of that. That’s how great your journalistic quality is,” Mills told Blaze News.
Blaze News has reached out to numerous people who worked at DynCorp with Mills, and so far none of them has supported Mills’ version of events. When asked for the contacts of anyone who could back up his claims, Mills gave Blaze News some names but never got back to us with contact information. Chase Nash, who was in the vehicle with Mills, disputes his story.
“It’s not going to impact me in my elections. It’s not going to impact me in my future. So I know what I’ve done. The guys who are truly with me know what I’ve done. Am I a hero? No, I’m not. The guys that served with me are absolutely heroes. So you guys knock yourselves out,” Mills told Blaze News.
Matthew J. Peterson, Cooper Williamson, and Steve Baker contributed to this story.
Cory mills, Army ranger, Sniper, Dyncrop, Army, Congress, Iraq, Bronze star, Joint special operations command, Stolen valor, Politics
