HUDSON: A press conference called Monday by Hudson mayoral candidate David Hack to defend his military record ended abruptly with reporters, including the Cleveland television reporter who broke the story that questioned Hack’s role as an Army Ranger and who followed the retired sergeant to his car.Hack remained silent during the press conference. Instead he used the courts to offer his view on the validity of WKYC (Channel 3) reporter Eric Mansfield’s questioning of Hack’s affiliation with the Army Rangers.Hack filed a defamation lawsuit in Summit County Common Pleas Court against Mansfield, a retired major in the Ohio National Guard, Mansfield’s employer WKYC, as well as Hudson Mayor William A. Currin and 25 “John Does.”“Lately there has been a smear campaign started against Sgt. Hack,” said Hack’s attorney, Dean Hoover, at the press conference.Hoover and a man identified as Robert W. Wagner spoke on Hack’s behalf. The questions over Hack’s military career arose late last week as the nonpartisan campaign for Hudson mayor entered its final weeks.Hack, 71, also known as “Sgt. Hack,” owns US Wings in Hudson, which sells military gear and clothing. He has said in a book that he wrote about his life and on his political website that he trained Rangers during his time in the Army, but did not graduate from Ranger school.However, in his autobiography, The Life of a Warrior, he refers to himself as a Ranger and writes that he arrived in Vietnam with a Ranger unit.Wagner, who would not reveal his own military rank at the press conference, defended Hack.“He was assigned to Ranger camp, he put over 20 classes through Ranger school,” said Wagner. “Did he go to Ranger School? No.”Wagner is identified on the website of the Joint Veterans’ Commission of Cuyahoga County as a 1970 West Point graduate, a Ranger and a Vietnam vet, whose last assignment in a 37-year career was commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.Wagner, who said he has known Hack for about a year, said because Hack was assigned to the Ranger training camp, even though he did not go to Ranger school, he can be called a Ranger.Mansfield repeatedly asked Wagner to reveal his rank as Wagner was speaking at the press conference, but Wagner ignored the reporter’s questions.After the press conference, Mansfield followed Hack to his car and continued to ask him whether he was a Ranger. He also asked Wagner repeatedly whether he would provide any more identification to him.After the press conference, Hack said in an interview from his car with the Beacon Journal that “if you are an instructor, a cook, office personnel, or assigned to a Ranger company, everyone refers to them as Rangers.”In an April 1993 photograph published in the Beacon Journal, Hack wore a black Ranger beret and a jacket that identifies him as U.S. Army Ranger David Hack. Hack’s biography indicates that he served in the Coast Guard prior to enlisting in the Army and received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in Vietnam. He ended his career as an Army recruiter and has said he was once the top recruiter in the country, enlisting 253 men and 15 women into the Army.Hack declined Monday to provide reporters a copy of DD-214, his official Army discharge papers and related records, but on his election website he has posted a DD-214 from 1965 that said he was a Specialist 4 at the time in the 1st Ranger Company’s 1st Student Battalion.“In spite of his perseverance and fortitude, he seemed to get stuck at one point and did not go through the entire Ranger training as he had expected,” Hack wrote in his book.On his election website, www.davidhackformayor.com, Hack wrote “for 21 days a month for 2-years, while assigned to the Ranger Department, he supported over 20 Ranger School training cycles, always believing that his own start date would come.” He went on to say that “Sgt. Hack regrets that he never got his Ranger class date and the opportunity to earn his Ranger Tab” and he is “very proud of his 2-years of duty with the Ranger Training Brigade.”Tracy Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga., said in order to be awarded a Ranger Tab, the Ranger insignia that is worn on the shoulder of the Army uniform, “you have to complete Ranger School. Training Rangers does not make you a Ranger.”Bailey said if a soldier served with a Ranger company in Vietnam, then technically, the soldier can be called a Ranger but only if that soldier served with one of those companies.In his book, Hack wrote of landing in Vietnam off of a Rangers transport plane and that his first hours in Vietnam were “awaiting an unseen enemy to spring from the jungle, whose numbers could have surely overwhelmed the small Rangers’ unit.”This summer, Hack, a former police chief in Sebring, was awarded several Army medals earned, but never received, during his Army career. At the ceremony, led by U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Bainbridge Township, Hack was identified as a member of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division when he was wounded in 1968.Hack said his complete military records will come out in court.“His military record is what he said it is,” Hoover said.Mansfield declined to comment. WKYC news director Rita Andolsen said the station stands behind its reporting.Mayor Currin said he has not seen the lawsuit, but added “there has been no defamation of character of Mr. Hack.”Jim Carney can be reached 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.