I am fortunate today to be in a position to give something back to my community. So I don’t want to seem ungrateful when mentioning that being a somewhat public figure brings with it a certain amount of notoriety. I have always been proud of my lifelong work in philanthropy, politics, baseball, business, and cancer research. My years serving various presidential administrations and elections, in particular, were an important time in my life. Unfortunately, it is incidents from that earliest time in my life that sometimes get dredged up over and over again – and I’ve addressed my time in the Nixon administration 35 years ago and have been very straightforward about it.

Recently, however, other allegations have again surfaced on the blogosphere – allegations which are hurtful, and more importantly, untrue. I’m talking about an incident dating back nearly 50 years, when I was on active duty in the Army. Rumors abound that I killed and barbecued a dog in the summer of 1959. This is simply not true.

A recent statement from one person who was there – retired and highly decorated Colonel, Andrew P. O’Meara, Jr. – couldn’t make it more clear:

“Scurrilous allegations have recently been directed at Fred Malek charging that he killed and barbecued a dog in the summer of 1959. The allegations are totally false. During a trip to Peoria, IL in the summer of 1959, I became inebriated and in an ill-advised preparation for Ranger School survival training, I killed and barbecued a dog [Fred and a few others happened to be on the trip to Peoria but had nothing to do with the incident]. I was subsequently arrested, brought before a Magistrate, fined $200 for cruelty to animals and the incident was closed, I take full responsibility for my ill-advised actions that were a source of embarrassment to the Army and the Ranger School”

Andy takes full responsibility for the incident. I’d like to thank Andy for being a man with the integrity, to volunteer this information on the record and help keep the record straight and clear up my name.

It would have been far easier to ignore this issue, so I thank him for bringing the facts to light however uncomfortable it might be. Andy sets an example of admitting our mistakes and moving on, hopefully leaving the world a better place than we found it. And that’s what I’d like to do as well.

Hopefully this will begin to clarify and refocus attention on my future works and the subjects that I am passionate about.

Again, thank you Andy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Army, Fred Malek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.