Fake War Stories

[101combatvet]

As anyone who has read memoirs of veterans knows, identical or near identical anecdotes have a funny way of appearing in these first person accounts. Could these have been oft-told tales at reunions, repeated so often that an observer starts thinking it happened to him?

It is interesting that you say this.... it is understandable there would be many similar stories from men that fought together or side by side especially when they would have witnessed the same events. I did meet a veteran that almost quoted stuff out of a few published histories about his unit.... someone pointed it out to me once at a re-union. I dismissed it as maybe bad personal memory and it was all he had to talk about. I have had other veterans just flat out tell me... I was there but I can't remember a **** thing about it. Heavy drinking can take a toll on you. We had another guy that used to show up at some of my Dad's unit re-unions and all the veterans for the most part knew he was a fake but they didn't really care or say anything outside their circle. They just let him talk and drink and allowed him to have a good time as if he had been a member of the unit. The association president who I knew had been in the company that the faker identified with, I once asked if had known him and he raised his eyebrow at me and and said.. "I've never seen his name on one of our rosters." Years later he was identified as having served in another completely different unit.... the news was published online and in print but it never phased him until his death.

 

[Evan]

I didn't read all of the post, but as soon as I saw Walter Williams I knew this was going to be about fake or real. Kinda disappointed, I took an interest in Walter Williams because of this video:

 

[shanniereb]

It is amazing that all it takes is a little research time and patience. They steal the glory away from the people who really deserve it.

 

[Rob9641]

We've had them here as well. Several years ago we had a gent bragging to the four winds how he had "humped an M16 all over Vietnam as a Marine." Just one problem w/ that; when he said he was in Vietnam the Marines were still carrying the M14. Fell apart after that. Another insisted he had been a Green Beret, another claimed to have served 25 years... again a little research proved them as frauds.

My own experiance over many years of hanging around GI's & vets has shown me that those who brag about their own heroism... are generally either exaggerating or outright lieing.

If you wanted to set one elderly friend off just mention the name: John Kerry. Oh my, Bruce refused to wear his own Purple Heart because he felt he didn't deserve it (he'd been reported AWOL for returning to his unit before being released from the hospital) wheras John Kerry got three Purple Hearts while spending nary a night in a hospital.

The ACW was certainly no different.

As to the murder of civilians, it happens but there also are those w/ an agenda who like to smear the military

GI's are like any other group; there are good men & there are those not worth their weight in used cat litter.

Trust but verify.

Just for information, here's what Snopes said about Kerry's service record: http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

This thread made me dig up something from my grgrandfather's journal. He was stationed in Serbia, a doc, WWI and left a great record of his tours ( along with some iew bullets taken from wounded, puttees, a plethora of photos of the hospital there and a hair-raising account of the Lusitania convoy ) I'm sorry the scans are not good, but it transpires this kind of thing transcends wars.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

 

[shanniereb]

Wow, some report!

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

It is pretty cool- this page made me laugh pretty hard when I first read it. It's the first thing I thought about when this thread came up. It'd be a ton harder now, with the internet obviously but it looks like people are still at it, with tall tales.

You know, it's a lot different than claiming say, a college degree when one does not exist, or even athletic feats which never happened. This sort of thing is kind of crummy, given the men who really WERE in these various conflicts- all of them changed forever and some of them not coming home. Makes you take words like 'honor' a whole lot more seriously, when someone flushes theirs down the toilet.

 

[shanniereb]

I agree with wholeheartdly. You could not have said it any better!

 

[Jake Patterson]

It is pretty cool- this page made me laugh pretty hard when I first read it. It's the first thing I thought about when this thread came up. It'd be a ton harder now, with the internet obviously but it looks like people are still at it, with tall tales.

You know, it's a lot different than claiming say, a college degree when one does not exist, or even athletic feats which never happened. This sort of thing is kind of crummy, given the men who really WERE in these various conflicts- all of them changed forever and some of them not coming home. Makes you take words like 'honor' a whole lot more seriously, when someone flushes theirs down the toilet.

Well put.

 

[unicornforge]

We seem to live in an age of liars. When I worked at the university computer center, about half the managers that they hired, and later fired, had claimed and were hired based advanced degrees that they didn't have, not to mention their other claims. On one occasion I read the resume of the receptionist at the computer center. According to her resume instead of answering the phone, she claimed she was a manager supervising and proof-reading all the work produced by the computer programming staff.

My belief is that the lying started while we were all kids in school. Naive kids like myself didn't cheat, but the stars of the classrooms all read the Cliff Notes and had their parents build their science projects for them. The best grades were awarded to the kids that cheated. What message does it tell kids when the cheaters get the best grades and the honest kids don't?

Cheating seems to be prevalent throughout society. Knifemakers claiming to be "master bladesmiths" when the photographs of their work shows extremely sloppy fit with massive gaps between blade and guard. An art instructor at a prestigious art institute in Baltimore that misted a photograph with spay paint and claimed it as *his* art. Managers that claim job experience that they didn't have. And especially martial arts schools with "Masters" that barely had any and sometimes no martial arts training (you can find them in just about every major city and especially in small towns). Everywhere I look, I seem to see successful people blatantly lying about their skill and accomplishments.

The human race throughout history has rewarded lying and punished honesty.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

The human race throughout history has rewarded lying and punished honesty.

I agree it has, and maddeningly so, but boy, when they get caught publically they DO look really, really stupid.

The other thing is, it HAS to be hollow, walking around saying you're something you're just plain NOT. Great, everybody and their brother believes you to be an ex-marine, or a master bladesmith, or a doctor- whatever. YOU know you're not, and a big, fat fake. That's a pretty good punishment.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Along these lines... John V. Quarstein, in his book The Monitor Boys, goes through and lists every known Monitor crewmember and a little about them... AND provides a listing of men who later claimed to have been on the Monitor (and a little about where they really were at the time).

 

[unicornforge]

I agree it has, and maddeningly so, but boy, when they get caught publically they DO look really, really stupid........

I hope that is the case, but I have not noticed any but the most famous people getting much bad press for lying. The human race seems to simply accept that lying is part of the job of most professions such as: politicians, lawyers in courtrooms, policemen in questioning "suspects", businessmen, managers in dealing with employees, salesmen, mechanics.... I could go on but I am pretty sure the everyone has their list of professions expected to lie.

...... YOU know you're not, and a big, fat fake. That's a pretty good punishment.

In my humble experience, people that get caught lying seem to just keep lying. They seem to think that they are so cleaver that they can just throw more lies and fix any situation. I have not noticed them as having *any* shame or regret when caught. Basically such folks seem to have no moral compass and come across as being sociopaths (the politically correct term being Antisocial Personality Disorder http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Perso...eria for the Personality Disorders 5-1-12.pdf).

 

[Robtweb1]

There are a lot of wanna-be's claiming law enforce service also, usually accompanied by fantastic stories of heroism and/or winning a shootout or physical contest with a dangerous criminal. My wife's uncle is one of the worst of these.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Oh wow; I can't imagine what it must be like to actually sit and talk with one of those people. Do you call him out, or try to avoid talking with him (or just try to avoid the topic)?

(ETA: My brother in law is a former Georgia state trooper; I can only imagine the fireworks if he ran up against someone pretending to have been in law enforcement.)

 

[BillO]

I agree it has, and maddeningly so, but boy, when they get caught publically they DO look really, really stupid.

The other thing is, it HAS to be hollow, walking around saying you're something you're just plain NOT. Great, everybody and their brother believes you to be an ex-marine, or a master bladesmith, or a doctor- whatever. YOU know you're not, and a big, fat fake. That's a pretty good punishment.

I never served and I never felt any desire to say otherwise. I don't really understand why someone would. Although I have been telling people for years that I'm pretty.

 

[Shadow9216]

The other thing is, it HAS to be hollow, walking around saying you're something you're just plain NOT. Great, everybody and their brother believes you to be an ex-marine, or a master bladesmith, or a doctor- whatever. YOU know you're not, and a big, fat fake. That's a pretty good punishment.

I have to disagree with you there- WE believe it would be hollow, and you'd feel shame for pretending, because we KNOW what honor is. To those of us for whom it is more than a word, but a way of life, we can't imagine anything worse than living without honor.

But to another kind of person, maybe someone who thinks they're somehow "special", that they're owed something by society because of their inate greatness, or someone who has no qualms about getting something for nothing, then the fake vet/war hero "shtick" is a great way of life: People buying you drinks, paying for your meals, offering you jobs, parades and accolades from coast to coast. Book and movie deals, consulting spots on TV shows. The financial and social rewards are well worth the risk for such posers.

I work with the Stolen Valor task force in my spare time, ferreting out these imposters. Many of them have been unmasked in one state only to start up again in another. The criminal penalties (which are minor in most cases) are not a sufficient deterent compared to the financial incentives and/or social benefits. That, and society doesn't seem overly concerned about such fakes.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

I'm a big puss, and do not know quite why but that post put tears in my eyes.

There's a TASK FORCE for this? Wow. It's awful to think it should be necessary, is the thing but thank you for doing it! There's just something SO, so repulsive in this, bottom line. Can't put my finger on it. I once worked with a Vietnam vet for 3 years before I even knew what he'd done there, and we were very good friends. He was a tunnel rat over there, too, decorated, came home and opened his own painting business. His FATHER finally told me- said for God's sake, don't let him know I told you, I'll be hash. I'm just using him as an example, you see it alllll he time, the real ones do not speak of 'it'. ( Ok, I just thought of a few CW generals whose memoirs blow that to heck. )

But to another kind of person, maybe someone who thinks they're somehow "special", that they're owed something by society because of their inate greatness,

THIS! I've never, ever seen it put more succinctly. Exactly! Probably now getting into the realms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I'm very sorry to hear the penalties are minor. I do think in this case a very good idea would sticking them all on an island somewhere for containment would be cleansing for all of us. It could be called Baron Von Munchausen island.

I also think if Bill O says he's pretty he's probably quite stunning, I know I believe him.

 

[johan_steele]

IMO the more a man brags on his own heroism & accomplishments... the more likely they are to be fiction. I've known quite few real combat vets over the years, the one thing they have in common is a lack of interest in bragging about how many men they killed or how heroic they were. I'm reminded of Stephen Ambrose and his interviews of WW2 vets. Grandpa were you a hero? No, but I knew some.

I witnessed one exchange between a former Soviet officer who had been in Afghanistan and a college kid who wanted a war story & wouldn't take no for an answer. He simply looked at the boy and asked if he would like to hear how he held his dieing radio man in his arms and promised the man he would see his moma again; or if he would prefer him to explain how they chased the Muj out of the caves w/ Diesel fuel & flares & shot them as they appeared, unless they his men had taken casualties in which case they would let them burn. The young man went pale at the hard description and finally took the hint. I bought the man a Vodka... which he declined and I dropped him off at his apartment. He didn't say another word past thank you that night.