Rhode Island Rep. Lied About Military Service

Let's add this one to the Big Book Of Scandal Management: If you have a run-in with the law, do not explain it away by pretending to have fought in a war you didn't fight in. Rhode Island State Rep. Daniel Gordon is learning that one the hard way; Gordon was arrested recently on charges that he was involved in a 2008 police chase in Massachusetts. The arrest brought to light a four-month jail stint he'd served in 1999 for assault.

Amid calls for his resignation, Gordon said his problems were the result of alcoholism, which in turn was caused by PTSD suffered in the Gulf War. But the AP obtained his military records, and discovered that though he'd been a military aircraft technician, he'd never been near a battlefield—his only overseas assignment was in Japan. WPRI 12 then discovered that he hadn't been awarded the Purple Heart either, further puncturing his story that he'd been wounded by shrapnel in Baghdad. (More Daniel Gordon stories.)