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Posing as a military veteran has been around
probably as long as there have been wars. There are, no doubt, a variety
of reasons for it - not the least of them issues of manhood and
citizenship. Those concepts are particularly closely related in American
mythology/ideology. My own observation - unsupported by any
methodical research, I admit - is that wars that are in some way a
"defining moment" tend to produce a larger number of imposters. For
instance, the U.S. Civil War. Having said that, there are imposters
of veterans for wars that don't capture the public imagination in a major way as
well - for instance the Korean War. And, not all imposters are
men. While I've always known that women also falsify their history of
service I've just recently learned that Joan of Arc had a very successful
imposter. Then there are those who simply want material
gain - VA benefits, better jobs.......
As for Joseph Ellis - he served honorably as an
instructor at USMA, but chose to dishonor that service by fabricating not only a
personal history of combat, but by laying it out for his students as part of the
history of the Vietnam War. In this instance the imposter was also
posing as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. A hugely successful ,
highly respected man who was one of many who "hold their manhoods cheap whiles
any speaks that fought with us......."
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: WANNABE HUNTERS
RonaldS842@aol.com wrote:
".........are you implying that the only thing that stops many of us from
being phony is the fear of exposure? "
Ron;
NO, I'm not
implying anything other than it's easier today than it was in the
40's
& 50's..........there certainly were some wannabee's from those years -
I just don't think not so many.
And I guess there are some in
the liberal crowd that might feel and want us
all to feel compassion for
these wannabee's (oh, they just want to reach out
and touch someone, they
have needs too, you know!) ..........personally, all
I have is CONTEMPT
for them.
Like you, and frankly, like MOST real
veterans, we DON'T talk about who
and what we did in the
service......particularly those who were in actual
combat.........which
for me is a dead give-a-way when I hear some jamoke
blowing his horn about
killing gooks barehanded, winning the war
singlehandedly, being on special
missions to assassinate Ho Chi Minh but they
can't talk about it, etc,
etc.............................it just screams
"WANNABEE" !!!!
When I see some guys "personal" web-page" and it's full of
stories of his heroism and exploits on "secret" missions, that sets off my
alarm bells, too.
As far as the Agency monitoring
all our email for certain "key" words, it
was the FBI that does that under
the code name "Carnivore" more recently
re-named something like DSC2001 or
some innocuous bilge like that.... I
wouldn't worry about it.
Considering the tremendous amount of internet
traffic, the
bureau can only "pick&choose" whose email they want to read!
Here's an interesting site if you're interested..... Computerworld |
Carnivore Coverage
TONY
NEWCOMB- (SOA-570L) (SFA-450L) (AFIO-5746L) (POVA#168)
State Outreach Coordinator, VETERANS LEADERSHIP PROGRAM of
ILLINOIS
"The only easy day was yesterday" - Special Ops -
"You have never lived
until you
have almost died. For those that have fought
for it, life has a special
flavor the
protected will never know."
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