Fake military guys & the Stolen Valor Act of 2005

QUOTE
"tomcervo" wrote in message
...
On Aug 22, 8:39?am, "William Black"
wrote:
"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message

...





On Aug 21, 10:38 pm, frank wrote:
On Aug 21, 2:33 pm, Tiger wrote: 'War Stories'
Have Some Facing Prison
August 18, 2008
The Oklahoman

John Smith said he was a Navy SEAL who was imprisoned in Vietnam after
his helicopter was shot down.

snip

What I don't understand are the politicians who do this. Had a guy in
South Texas, said he had MOH. Put it in his brochures, was caught. Can
we say stupid? Got jail time, lost his city elected job.

Wife knew a guy who didn't make it through basic, got out for the good
of the service. Goes around saying he's a Vietnam vet, hangs with
them. guess he's good enough to pass, but one of these days he's going
to get caught.

What burns me are all the ads in the local papers, wanting to buy
medals, decorations. I'm sure there are enough people who sell them.
But, jeez. Give them to the vet's high school for a wall of honor,
call the VFW or the Legion, contact the local historical society, but
sell them?

Is it just me, or am I too sensitive over this?

Well, I have played that game. Guy in local store said I looked like a
vet, had I ever been in Vietnam? I said "yes" about six hours total,
coming and going. He thought that was true of many others without the
caveat.

As a Brit I have some real problems with all this.

Why does anyone care?

If you 'plug in' to the ex-service system you'll certainly come into contact
with people who will know, ?and there's no advantage in pretending you're
something you are not.

Back in this thread someone mentioned that someone pretended to be a MoH
winner.

Surely something like that would be exploded in seconds, ?it's not as if
there are that many of them. ?Certainly, ?in the UK, ?a VC winner would be
someone of note in the local community and someone claiming to be one who
nobody knew about would be liable to be checked out reasonably quickly.

What advantage accrues to someone in the USA if they pretend to have had a
distinguished military career?


Most of it is pathetic overreaching, like the Major in "Separate
Tables", with a few outright mental cases. But someone in a prominant
local or greater position--teachers, officials, politicians--seems
pathological. It's so easy to check, you'd have to be nuts to try and
fake it, particularly with any kind of front line unit or valor
decoration.
OTOH, I'm always interested in seeing how Vulcans and neocons with
Viet Nam draft birthdates handled that character check.
UNQUOTE

The main reason it is so hard to claim to have earned some medal you haven't
is because of the gazetting of awards: any claim is easily verfiable. My
experience with such caddish behaviour in the U.K. and Commonwealth is that it
usually a claim of service in something like the SAS, SASR or JTF2, all of
which are very taciturn when it comes to confirming or even denying someone's
membership.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)