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An investigation by Boston Globe staffers revealed that Joseph J. Ellis, author and Pulitzer Prize winning history professor at Mount Holyoke College, had been lying for years about his involvement in the Vietnam war and civil rights movement of the 1960s. During Ellis's tenure at Mount Holyoke and Amherst College, the professor accompanied his lectures on the Vietnam conflict and American culture with details of his "past" while serving for the 101st Airborne Division. The Globe that found during the time period that Ellis claimed to be serving in Vietnam, records show he was at Yale earning his master's degrees. Ellis's actual military experience, as recorded by the National Personnel Records center, shows that his "active service" began basic training at Fort Gordon and later accepted a teaching position at West Point.