This was published last week on BreachBangClear.com
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We’re losing the fight against Stolen Valor. It seems like every week we hear a new military poser story, involving a range of people from homeless bums to senior politicians. Many veterans, myself included, have personal stories of poser encounters. Web sites like Guardian of Valor and This Ain’t Hell continually expose egregious Stolen Valor cases, and aren’t likely to run out of story subjects within my lifetime.
Here’s evidence of how bad the problem is: approximately 3,400,000 Americans served in Vietnam, off its coast or in the Vietnam Theater. But according to the National Vietnam Veterans Foundation, nearly fourteen million have lied about serving in Vietnam. “During [the year 2000] Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are not.” (http://www.nationalvietnamveteransfoundation.org/statistics.htm)
The scope of the Stolen Valor problem is enormous. I think there are two main reasons why. First, so few Americans today know anything about military service that tricking them with unbelievable war stories is ridiculously easy. And second, fewer and fewer Americans care at all about military honor or integrity.
Military lies are easy to pull off
Last year I met an old Army buddy, Dave, for dinner. We were friends before deploying and later served in the same company in Iraq. He did two notable things in Iraq: after his convoy was ambushed and stopped one night, he ran around in the open under fire trying to get it moving again. And he – literally – dug up an Improvised Explosive Device with his bare hands during a patrol.
The IED thing deserves explanation. While patrolling Dave saw wires leading to a pile of trash beside the road. He called it out and moved up to investigate, but wasn’t certain it was an IED.
“They always told us not to waste EOD’s time with false IED reports,” Dave said. “I figured I better make sure it really was one before I called it in.”
He dug into the trash and saw the wires going into the dirt. So he dug into the dirt until he found an artillery shell. But it wasn’t connected to the wires, so he kept going until he uncovered a second one. Wires were going into this one. He finally stood and announced, “It’s an IED!”
Dave told me about it a few days later. Long before he finished the story, I interrupted him with “WHAT THE FUCK COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN THINKING?” I was sure some frustrated insurgent had been screaming “Allah dammit!” while watching him and furiously touching a wire to a car battery.
So last year when I met Dave for dinner, an old high school friend joined us. My high school buddy was a Navy veteran who served in the 90s. When he sat down, I introduced them.
“Joe, meet Dave. We served in Iraq together. He’s all messed up because an IED went off in his helmet. He would have been okay, but a secondary went off on the other side.”
Dave burst out laughing. I joined him. But my high school friend flinched, waited for the laughter to die and quietly asked, “Are you doing alright now?”
My high school friend is no dummy. He’s an educated, intelligent professional, and is involved in organizations and activities that support veterans. He just didn’t get our Army humor, and because he never served in Iraq he didn’t know how ridiculous the IED-in-the-helmet joke was.
A Navy veteran was that easy to trick, if that had been our intent. How easy do you suppose it is to trick someone who knows nothing of the military?
Read the rest at http://www.breachbangclear.com/stolen-valor-is-no-big-fucking-deal/
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at chris_hernandez_author@yahoo.com or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
http://www.amazon.com/Line-Valley-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00HW1MA2G/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=09XSSHABSWPC3FM8K6P4
http://www.amazon.com/Proof-Our-Resolve-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B0099XMR1E/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0S6AGHBTJZ6JH99D56X7