Wilkens, Charles "Joe"

http://www.illinoistimes.com/gbase/Gyrosite/Content?oid=oid%3A4116
EXPOSED

... "More than a dozen veterans were interviewed for this story. All shared two reactions: bewilderment at Wilkins apparent failure to realize that he already was a war hero, and utter disgust at the possibility that he may have claimed honors he did not deserve. Those who know him personally expressed profound sadness; those who dont know him had trouble sympathizing with him."...

http://www.illinoistimes.com/gbase/Gyrosite/Content?oid=oid%3A4117
MARCH 31, 2005

Friends in high places
BY DUSTY RHODES

For a farmer’s son from the tiny southern Illinois town of Cobden, Charles Joseph Wilkins’ success in academics, business, and politics is phenomenal. He has built a prestigious and lucrative career comprising all three fields.

At Sangamon State University, which became the University of Illinois at Springfield, Wilkins divided his time between teaching business-management courses and assisting the most powerful people at the university — first as faculty associate to the vice president for academic affairs and later as executive assistant to the school president, a post he held through 1988. University administrators waived the school’s policy requiring a doctorate for tenure and full professorship, granting Wilkins both despite the fact that his highest degree was a master of government. .......

...... Wilkins’ state connections have been more lucrative. For four years, 1999-2003, he had a $40,000-per-year contract to advise the Secretary of State Police Department, in addition to $35,621 from White’s office in specific grants and contracts on which Wilkins served as project director. Since 1999, he has served as one of three paid members of the state comptroller’s Merit Commission, a panel that decides employment issues for the agency’s nonunion employees.

Fundraisers for the scholarship UIS established in Wilkins’ name bring out representatives from all of his power bases. The booklet promoting the scholarship contains glowing letters from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, former U.S. Sens. Gary Hart of Colorado and Alan Dixon, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones, Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, and Comptroller Dan Hynes.rman, co-chaired a reception at Pasfield House to raise funds for the Wilkins scholarship.

In August, Davlin and former Springfield Mayors Hasara, Langfelder, and Houston, along with the mayors of Jerome, Southern View, Chatham, and She

=========================================
April 7, 2005

..... I don’t think dishonest people like this should serve to help veterans when their lies have only helped themselves.  Because of his “Silver Star” and “Purple Hearts” the University of Illinois at Springfield made him a professor without the required education it would normally take a person such as me. ....  They would not allow me a teaching position with only Maters, unless perhaps I had a “black-ops clandestine” background.  How convenient.  It is a shame that being a veteran was not enough for Mr. Wilkins.  I am a wife of an AGR Illinois Guardsman, a daughter to two Army officers, and a grand-daughter of a Purple Heart Battle of the Bulge glider pilot. All Veterans that I have ever spoke with have said that if someone served meritoriously through terrible combat they would not be braggarts about it.  I think this man needs to be exposed in the national media for the opportunistic ways he has used his service and lied.  There are veterans all over this country that don’t get to drive Corvette’s with Purple Heart plates, and they have been injured in combat and deserve the awards they have earned.  These Veterans are trying to get medical care, food, and housing.  There are heroes of today’s war such as Illinois National Guard Maj. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs from an RPG and then tried to land her Blackhawk helicopter in Iraq .  She does not care about the awards she may one day be able to brag about, she is trying to get reinstated to fly for the military again.  And let us not forget about the ones who have not or will never make it home. .......