Shirley, You Jest!
Claim: Actress Cindy Williams penned an editorial denouncing a proposed pay raise for the military.
Status: False.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
Variations: In early 2002, one small change was made to the e-mail: "But, tomorrow from Kabul, I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Origins: The editorial critical of military pay raises alluded to above and the irate response to it penned by an airman at Hill Air Force Base are genuine, but the author of the original editorial has been mistaken for her her much more famous namesake.
Cindy Williams, who starred in the hit 1973 film American Graffiti and portrayed sweet, lovable Shirley Feeney on the popular 1970s sitcom Laverne & Shirley hasn't been writing newspaper articles denouncing our "overpaid" servicemen. Back in January 2000, a different Cindy Williams — one working as a senior research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Office: E38-603
Phone: 617-253-1825
cindywil@mit.edu
and was once assistant director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office — contributed an op-ed piece to The Washington Post (not the Washington Times) in which she criticized a proposed 25% pay increase for military personnel (on top of a 4.85% raise that had just been enacted). In her article, Ms Williams maintained that claims that servicemen in the military suffered a 13 percent "pay gap" relative to the private sector were inaccurate, and that military personnel were already well paid compared to the average American.
The full text of Cindy Williams' article can be found here. The response quoted was indeed drafted by the airman named, although it was not published in The Washington Post.
The misidentification of the original article's author has caused considerable grief for Cindy Williams the actress:
"I've done everything to try to squelch it, but nothing seems to work," says Miss Williams of "Laverne and Shirley" fame. "I have people writing and calling me, even my friends, asking: 'Are you against a pay raise for the military?' And I reply, 'You know me, I'd fight [in the military] if I could, because I am such a patriot.'"
Ironically enough, much of the angry correspondence (even "hate mail") the actress has received has come from the military ranks.
"It's been really worrisome," says the actress. "It's terrible to malign people like that. I don't know where to go to say I didn't do this."
We hope this site is one of the places through which Ms. Williams the actress can get out the word that she really didn't do it.
Last updated: 21 February 2005
The URL for this page is www.snopes.com/politics/m...y/gipay.asp
Claim: Actress Cindy Williams penned an editorial denouncing a proposed pay raise for the military.
Status: False.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
Variations: In early 2002, one small change was made to the e-mail: "But, tomorrow from Kabul, I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Origins: The editorial critical of military pay raises alluded to above and the irate response to it penned by an airman at Hill Air Force Base are genuine, but the author of the original editorial has been mistaken for her her much more famous namesake.
Cindy Williams, who starred in the hit 1973 film American Graffiti and portrayed sweet, lovable Shirley Feeney on the popular 1970s sitcom Laverne & Shirley hasn't been writing newspaper articles denouncing our "overpaid" servicemen. Back in January 2000, a different Cindy Williams — one working as a senior research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Office: E38-603
Phone: 617-253-1825
cindywil@mit.edu
and was once assistant director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office — contributed an op-ed piece to The Washington Post (not the Washington Times) in which she criticized a proposed 25% pay increase for military personnel (on top of a 4.85% raise that had just been enacted). In her article, Ms Williams maintained that claims that servicemen in the military suffered a 13 percent "pay gap" relative to the private sector were inaccurate, and that military personnel were already well paid compared to the average American.
The full text of Cindy Williams' article can be found here. The response quoted was indeed drafted by the airman named, although it was not published in The Washington Post.
The misidentification of the original article's author has caused considerable grief for Cindy Williams the actress:
"I've done everything to try to squelch it, but nothing seems to work," says Miss Williams of "Laverne and Shirley" fame. "I have people writing and calling me, even my friends, asking: 'Are you against a pay raise for the military?' And I reply, 'You know me, I'd fight [in the military] if I could, because I am such a patriot.'"
Ironically enough, much of the angry correspondence (even "hate mail") the actress has received has come from the military ranks.
"It's been really worrisome," says the actress. "It's terrible to malign people like that. I don't know where to go to say I didn't do this."
We hope this site is one of the places through which Ms. Williams the actress can get out the word that she really didn't do it.
Last updated: 21 February 2005
The URL for this page is www.snopes.com/politics/m...y/gipay.asp
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Richmond
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