Video of 2019 World Drill Championship viral as Indian-origin man joining US Army - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
23rd September 2019 / 3:57 pm / Last updated: 23rd September 2019
A video of a man performing a drill is being shared with a claim that a man of Indian-origin was conscripted in the US Army. “Nirav Shah. From Gujarati JAIN family joined U S.Army. during last leg of his selection at field exam. During one of the toughest drill training final test. Salute to his drill 👍👇”, claimed one Chandrakala Kadam while posting the video on Facebook. As per the post, the man seen in the video is from a Gujarati-Jain family and his name is Nirav Shah.
Nirav Shah. From Gujarati JAIN family joined U S.Army. during last leg of his selection at field exam . During one of the toughest drill training final test.
Salute to his drill 👍👇
Posted by Chandrakala Kadam on Sunday, 22 September 2019
Many other users on Facebook and Twitter have shared the video with the identical narrative. A few more individuals have shared the same video with the claim that the man’s name is Syed Hameed ul Hassan with an Indian ancestry and his family is from Uttar Pradesh. A post by one Syed Saleem has been shared more than 1,000 times on Facebook so far.
Several other people had posted the video with a similar claim.
After carefully watching the video, Alt News found a banner in the video – “National High School Drill Team Championship” –which suggested that this video had something to do with a drill championship that annually takes place in Daytona Beach, Florida (USA).
Then, we looked at the stitched badge on the uniform of the drill participant. From the screenshot posted below, it was unclear and hard to read the badge. However, with little legibility, it was assumed that the first letter of the full name was “a” and it ended with “no”.
We then Google searched for the website of the World Drill Championship and found a list of individuals from the year 2007 to 2016. On sifting through the available list for full names ending with “no” and starting with “a”, we came across a name that read, “Alejandro Paulino”. He stood 10th in 2015 World Drill Championship.
However, in the 2015 video of the solo category performance by Alejandro Paulino, there was no name tag on the uniform.
Looking for Paulino on Facebook, we found his Facebook Id which said that he is a student at the Universal Technical Institute.
On May 5, Paulino had posted the same video with a message, “1st place at the 2019 World Drill Championships”, suggesting that he stood first at the 2019 World Drill Championship.
1st place at the 2019 World Drill Championships
Posted by Alejandro Paulino on Sunday, 5 May 2019
In a Facebook conversation with Alt News, Paulino confirmed he does not have Indian ancestry and further added, “This is me in the video. This is a competition of rifle exhibition drill. I am not in the military. This is a military-style competition where we perform rifle spins. This is all for fun.”
In conclusion, a video from the World Drill Championship was falsely shared as an Indian-origin man enrolling in the US army.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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