It has come to my attention as the Editor of the Loadout Room that we had an article published that was taken from another site without permission. We have pulled the article from our website and have taken disciplinary action with the writer (Dirtfrog). Max (aka Dirtfrog) is new to our team as a writer and did not intentionally make the mistake. Max is a former Navy SEAL and has proved himself to have a high level of integrity during his time in the Teams. We are going to keep Max on as a writer and stand beside him through this (That’s what we do as Veterans). We are going to work closely with Max and any other new writers to be sure they adhere to the rules and regulations of writing for a media company. However, if this happens again we will show no mercy to Dirtfrog and he will be performance dropped.
“Plagiarising is unacceptable, and none of the Editors on this site or elsewhere will stand for it, not for one second. However, the easy way out would be to just toss Max over the rails but, I believe him when he says he screwed up with the assembly and links in the article in question, and he just didn’t know better. So I think we are making the right decision by choosing the harder path, of standing by a teammate when the going gets tough. I have full confidence given Max’s background as a former Navy SEAL, that he’ll take his lumps and overcome this in short time with Scott’s continued tutelage. ” –Brandon Webb, CEO Force12 Media
“To all the Loadout Room readers. My name is Max Pranger, I’m a former SEAL Team guy and I want to put an apology out to all of you. When you are reading articles that are on the Loadout Room, you are expecting to see awesome gear and weapon reviews. I am a new to this writing thing on the LOR and was trying to keep up with the more experience writers or “Big Dogs” and I put out information that was not solely my own without crediting the original source when I assembled a recent article. I am holding myself accountable for that and no one else. There is a saying in the military special ops community…”you can get one hundred attah-boys, but if you get one aww-fuck, you have to rebuild your reputation”. Well, I just got that one “aww-fuck” out of my own doing. That is my job to fix and repair.” –Max Pranger (Dirtfrog)
-Scott Witner, Editor
(Featured image courtesy of Pipe Hitters Union Youtube Channel)
