January 4, 2019

“Stolen Valor”

In my recent holiday travels, I came across two separate individuals that claimed years of service in the military of our great nation.

The first individual (in a McDonalds that had a TV, and Fox News was talking about the Kurds, Syria, Etc.) I sat a table away from a guy and his wife. Soon we talked about the news cast, and he claimed that he had been in the Korean War, and that he had earned the Bronze Star with V, the Silver Star for Heroism, and three purple hearts. He claimed that he was a Ranger in the Special Forces 10^th Group.

Hmmm. “Amazing,” I said. “Well, I never did anything like that. But I have a couple of questions.”

“Shoot,” he said.

“OK, you look about 40 to me…is that about right?”

“Yeah, I am 43. I know I look older, but I’m pretty healthy. I still get up every day and run ten or eleven miles.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “I mostly run to the refrigerator or the toilet.”

We both laughed.

“But seriously,” I said…”The Korean War was 1950 to 1953. How old were you in Korea?”

He stammered for a bit, then backtracked trying to think quickly. “Um, about 17, I think…it’s all a blur these days. My health is so bad I can’t do much…”

(do remember that he said he ran 10-11 miles per day a short spell ago…)

“oh, I see. Well, I was just doing the math dude. 43 years ago, it was only 1975. I was 9 years old, and sure as fuck wasn’t in the service yet. I went to Korea in 1985, and while it only has a stalemate/ceasefire, it’s relatively peaceful these days.”

He fumbled around, and said that “none of that applied to him, because he was Special Forces.”

I laughed out loud. “You’re a bull-shitter, dude. Ok? 10^th Group is responsible for European and some Middle East stuff, but not Korea. You need to stop lying and do something better with your life.”

He muttered something inaudible, and he and his wife (now looking at him in a weird and puzzled way) got up and left the restaurant.

The second was when my daughter and I visited a bar on New Years’ Eve to toast the New Year and drown the old one.

An attractive woman was there, and was wearing a very sexy dress, and had blonde hair that was fixed up like Mary Tyler Moore used to do.

Since we were seated at what normally is the waitress station, we interacted with most everyone that came up to the bar to order drinks.

She immediately told us that she had spent 20 years in the Marine Corps, and showed us her Drill Instructor tattoo on her bare shoulder. She talked and cussed like a Marine (I have known and still know many Marines), and bought us a round when my daughter told her that I had been in the Army for 22 years.

We proceeded to talk about our services (respectively) and she said that she wished she was back in the Corps (it sounds like “CORE”).

I asked her where she did her Drill Instructor time, but I said “D.I.” because that’s the accepted abbreviation for those words. She ignored me, and I asked her again. She looked at me as if I’d asked her a trigonometry question, and remained silent.

“Drill Instructor time…” I said, “where did you do it?”

“OH,” She exclaimed…”Parris Island. You can’t be a Marine Drill Instructor for females anywhere else.”

“Oh, I see.” I said. “So where do Marines go for training after they leave Boot?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “That was never my worry. I just got ‘em through boot camp and that was the end of my job.”

“I see,” I said. “Well, Army troops go to AIT {Advanced Training/ you learn your specialty during this time}, and that might be on the same base, or another base.”

“Oh yeah,” she said…”we do that. I think it’s on Fort Leonard Wood (FLW).”

I told her that I went to AIT on FLW…for Basic Training, Engineer School, Demolition School, and Basic Non Commissioned Officer’s Course.

“Oh,” she said…”we don’t do any of that shit. Marines are fighting men. They don’t need all that dumb shit.”

“I see;” I said. “So where were you stationed besides Parris Island?”

“No-where…” she stated. I was there all of my twenty years.”

I never pushed it past that, because she was drunker than an American 18 year old in a Brew Haus in Heidelberg, and I also didn’t want to start a bar fight. I’m getting a little too old for that shit.

Admittedly, the Marine lady didn’t have a story as false as Ranger Rick’s was, but I still doubted the validity of most of her claim. Stolen Valor is rampant out there, folks, and those of us that did our time don’t care for it in the slightest. Those of us that lost soldiers wearing the same uniform (that we see people acting out their fantasies in) not only pisses us off, but it is also illegal.

So when you see a “soldier” that is 40 pounds overweight, and has a questionable looking uniform on their body… take a photo and post it on Facebook. We’ll let you know if they were true or not.

-Jim