Milsurp After Hours

There was a post about this on an Ethics forum which I haunt frequently and these links came up;
http://www.anzmi.net/cases.html which deals with Australia and New Zealand.

and

http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/list_of_names.htm which is an American site and goes into more than just medal wearing.

Here in the States we have The Stolen Valor Act which criminalizes the wearing of medals which one did not earn. Phonies pop up all the time, for example the Atorney General for Connecticut is in hot water with veterans organizations now for claiming to have been in Vietnam when in fact he never left the country.

There are political candidates all over the country that claim being "era" veterans of one war and another. Not even in the area of actual conflict. And some of the political office seekers that were actual "veterans" in a war zone were a long way from combat. Not that it really matters in either case....unless they want people to get the idea that they were some kind of hero to further their political ambitions.........which mostly they seem to want to do.

I was on another site with a veterans forum and it seems there is another layer of poser too. Some guys that were support troops forty years ago in Vietnam have now become "combat veterans" on the basis of having been in a war zone. They are now experts in how combat soldiers fought, mostly from the experience of having been on bunker guard in some big base camp at one time or other......and the remembered fear of having heard some random incoming a time or two. In their imagination they have gone from remf to combat soldier and don't even realize they are imagining things. And don't try to tell them any different either.

I note how many people-like the one from Connecticutt-don't realize how well documented awards are in the US military. There was the disgraceful case in 1996 of the then Chief of Naval Operations Jeremy Boorda committing suicide when he was exposed as a fraud and a poseur, wearing Vs for Valor he was not entitled to and I was surprised at how many of John Kerry's fellow swift boat veterans spoke out against him 35 years later.
Yes, it does seem like 90% of those who served in Vietnam were "Green Berets", Rangers, Long Range Reconaissance Patrols (LRRPs), snipers, Marine Recon, SEALs, etc. You never seem to meet anyone who was a clerk, a cook, a mechanic, a radar operator, even a medic or an artilleryman.
On the other hand I am glad that service in Vietnam is now seen as a manly and noble thing.

Better brace yourselves - Korea looks like it's back on the war stage................http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_p ... 170019.stm

Yes, it does seem like 90% of those who served in Vietnam were "Green Berets", Rangers, Long Range Reconaissance Patrols (LRRPs), snipers, Marine Recon, SEALs, etc. You never seem to meet anyone who was a clerk, a cook, a mechanic, a radar operator, even a medic or an artilleryman.

That's been true for a long time.....but now days guys that were truck drivers and S4 clerks don't mind owning up to that job status but now have added a new Rambo persona when telling about it. It's like time brings the battle field closer to some the further their actual history gets carried in time.

...........there is also the pointless clutter of ribbon and badges that are worn buy some in the military.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... edals.html

They really are a joke!

He's a four star general, Duncan. What did you expect? All four star generals have a lot of medals and tags for all the schools they went to as they were punching their ticket....Airborne... Ranger, etc. The higher up they go the more medals they get and the more important the medals get.....it's that way in every army isn't it?

Niner wrote:He's a four star general, Duncan. What did you expect? All four star generals have a lot of medals and tags for all the schools they went to as they were punching their ticket....Airborne... Ranger, etc. The higher up they go the more medals they get and the more important the medals get.....it's that way in every army isn't it?

NO!

You remind me of a couple of pictures I have hanging in my computer-gun room.