Military posers and wannabes

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depicts...

8 stands for H, the 8th letter of the alphabet and 1 for A.
Most HAs have 81 Tatted somewhere visible on their body as a sort of clandestine ID in that the average citizen won't know what it means but one of the bretheren will.
Biker:)
 
Hoo boy... Where do I begin...

I was at a bar with a friend of mine. This friend is a sociable kinda guy and knows an amazing number of people. Can't go anywhere in town where someone doesn't know him.

So, we're there and this guy comes up. Starts up a converstaion, talks about how he was in 'Nam, and how he was the only one left from his unit.

So my friend uh-huhs for a bit and then says "Listen, buddy, my father is active in [local vet organization], he personally knows guys from that unit. You're full of **** and if you don't leave, I will call the bouncer over (and he's a real vet) and he'll toss you out." Shoulda seen him run... :evil:

And then, there was a fat guy at a local range. (Why do these people always weigh 300 pounds?) Sitting next to a minigun in the range lobby he pats it and says "You know, I trained on one of these. I was a door gunner on a Huey..."
 
(Chuckling) Yeah, I noticed the ex-Navy SEALS are all overweight fat slobs.
I'm like, man, talk about letting yourself go huh?
Be wary of guys who are very willing to talk about their exploits of derring do. Most likely posers.
The men who just did it and got on with life, now there are some REAL hombres.
Funny thing. I've never discussed things much with my own family come to think of it. As far as my mother was concerned I just looked handsome in my uniform.:rolleyes:
I guess they're just glad I got back in one piece.
 
In the early 80's, when I was a squad leader in the 82d, I had this one soldier who was going to terminate jump status because of back problems, while at the same time telling us he was going to the sf Q course.:confused:
 
I love watching you real guys take care of posers. I was at a gun show with my daughter when she was about 2. I was looking (at the time I was only familiar with ARs and 1911s) when I noticed an M1A. I picked it up and commented "nice M14." The owner corrected me (musta thought I was a poser, too). Then some fella in a brand new BDU jacket steps in and starts telling us about his time in "the Nam." Well, my dad and two brothers were 20 year men, so I know "the look" of a GI. This guy didn't have it. When I rolled my eyes, the guy gets weird and starts staring into the distance and says "you dad knows NOTHING about 'the Nam!'"

Ok, I'm thinking this guy is nuts. I asked him, "are you talking to my daughter? If so, you're right. I was frickin 6 years old when it ended. HOWEVER, if you're taking to me, bubba, my dad was there. Two tours in Recon."

Booth owner, who had "the look" steps in and does what you guys do with posers. Guy walked away in a huff. Then the owner says to me, "Dad was Recon, huh?" Now my turn to be embarrassed. I said, well, kinda. He was a camera technician on Recon F4Cs in the Air Force." Guy says to me, "Son, if he was there, he was *there*. No need to lie about what he did there." I never have since. :eek:
 
I'd caution against putting too much stock in web sites claiming to uncover "posers" and frauds. I've had dealings with one of them and have seen nothing but smoke, mirrors, insinuations and lies in support of a vendetta that they seem to have.

It being the High Road, I won't go into detail in an open forum (you're free to PM or e-mail me, however) but remember that NONE of these web sites have any official status with the US government. While some of them seem to take their hobby (and a hobby it is) seriously, their endeavors have officially been denounced as something of an irritant as the DOJ says that they have better things to do than prosecute persons for their fantasies.
 
RD-0334, EW-1711, EW-1781, 7120, 6120. But mostly REMF.

In 1979 I had a guy work for me when I was a CPO. He had joined in '74 and was sporting a Vietnam Service ribbon with 3 stars and Vietnam Campaign ribbon. I went to personnel and pulled his service record and discovered he'd typed the awards onto his page 4, very sloppily at that with white-out and bad alignment. He even included the "Expert Pistol Shooter"(sic) ribbon. I had the Personnelman redact his record and set the kid straight. Or so I thought.

In 1986 I reported to NTTC Corry in Pensacola as DivO for CTM"A" school. First day on the job I am walking down the passageway and run into Petty Officer "Poser", he's in his dress whites, and the first thing he does is slap his hand over his ribbons and say, "Hello, Mr. Flashman." I pulled his service record again and saw he had re-awarded himself his "missing" ribbons. I had the the CTMCS fix the problem. That and a few other problems(trading passing test scores for sex with the female students) only got him a reduction in paygrade and and early transfer back to the crummiest ship with an open billet.

He's probably out their somewhere right now perched on a bar stool at the VFW telling how he mined Haiphong Harbor in '73, K-Bar in his teeth doing the backstroke. Who knows? He might be in Afghanistan training the locals in Krav Maga martial arts.:barf:
 
A buddy and I were at a party one time, and some guy was there with a cheezy british accent talking about how he was SAS and a wet work operator.

what he didn't notice apparently was the fact that he had gone to high school with my buddy 10 years prior.

to shut him up my buddy went back to the car, pulled out an enfield threw it to the guy and said 'ok skippy, field strip it'

guy couldn't even get the bolt out.
 
Had a guy working for me for a while, I heard from my nephew that he had a lot of guns and was bragging about being in SEA and doing all sorts of ghoulish things. I was surprised at this, as his birth date on his license was 1963.


Now i am not skinny but i can move as needed. There is a local big box with a HUGE guy who is the gun manager who tells all and sundry about his exploits as a "shooter" in grenada and DS1. In front of his boss and a few others some guy who had the short hair cut high and tight ripped him apart.
He got fired for falsifyiing his resume.


I used to live across the alley from a little swedish american guy every one called granpa ken, Even the mailman knew him that way, super nice guy, always out in the alley washing his car or watering his yard. I had a plow on my truck and would clean up his driveway when it snowed just being nice. There was a guy I knew who had a M2 and the tripod had broken a weld on the rear footpad. I had it in the truck and when he walked out to say thanks for plowing he saw it and said "what in the hell do you have that for.....G*********N piece of F********g junk" Now this really got my attention. He never swore ever. hardly ever raised his voice except when the neighbors dog would not shut up. I said I was going to fix the broken weld. Turned out he was a gunner on PNG in the south pacific and had hauled either the tripod or the M2 all over that place. He took me in his house and started to show me pictures and letters and stuff and it turned out he was a regular war hero of the highest kind, Silver Star, purple heart, bronze star. He had a few pics of himself carrying that M2 and it seemed bigger than he did, I would have put him at 5' 6'' 130 tops. and he had the thing on his shoulder with some sort of pad tied to it. (I should say I think it was a M2 it was a .50 browning water cooled. That I know)

Last pics he showed me was his arm all wrapped up from burns when he craddled teh gun to move it and the pad was missing. He also showed me a pic of his legs after he was relieved when he was sick. His legs looked someone had let a dog gnaw on them for a long time. Said that was from the skin never drying out under the boots .


When I hear people talking about being in the service I thnk about him humping that 50 cal or the guy who lived next door to him, a little jewish guy who had a stab wound in his arm from a Japanese bayonet on tarawa who said he was carrying the radio and a 45, so he pulled the 45 out and shot the "little b****** from his balls to his brains". "just soldiers" was all they said. Just heros to me.
 
A buddy and I were at a party one time, and some guy was there with a cheezy british accent talking about how he was SAS and a wet work operator.

what he didn't notice apparently was the fact that he had gone to high school with my buddy 10 years prior.

to shut him up my buddy went back to the car, pulled out an enfield threw it to the guy and said 'ok skippy, field strip it'

guy couldn't even get the bolt out.
Click to expand...

I wish I was there to witness that buffoon make himself look like a complete and utter dork in front of the other people,with a few ex-SAS soilders there.I would have selected,Andy MacNab,Chris Ryan and Eddie Stone,for this particular assignment, where they could, have witnessed that idiots statement and (on my recommendations.) put him through his paces-by making him undertake the real SAS selection process and would ask the ex-SAS soilders to have given him a horrible time-especially in the interrigation section,where he would get beaten up by the mock-interrogators.One of Eddies favourite past-times-interrogation.:evil:

Or how about making him play an American Football game-where he could play against the,SAS(including Australia and New Zealand) or the Green Beret Commandos,the Navy Seals,the British Maroon Berets(Paratroopers.),Marine Commandos or the SBS.Or even make him participate in a boxing and bare-nuckle fighting competition against any of those listed.

Also a potential SAS and SBS candidate has to know how to strip a,SA80,SLR and Enfield No4 rifle.These guns are used for selection training,for new potential recruits.
 
The SAS uses Enfields?

No British soldier in the forty something age bracket that I am in that I know has not had his hands on one.

A pal of mine was SAS and afterwards flying squad commander in N. IR. hunting IRA types, used an enfield as a sniper rifle in NAM.
He said nothing was more accurate at the time. HIS opinion (although I do agree)
Peter was a card and in the right settings the stories that came out of this English gentleman.......
 
Actually the SAS use all sorts of weapons

648E: The SAS stopped using the Lee Enfield N04 and 5 model rifles in the mid 1950s-when the SLR L1A1 replaced these rifles.However after that period the NO4 rifle was used as a selection piece along with older-generation webbing and haversacks-until the SLR retired from active service-when the SA80 came along,in 1985/1986.Sometimes Enfields are used for training and ceremonial purposes as well and for military-club recreational shooting.

The only time the Enfield was used ,after the SLR replaced the N04s,was in a sniping role as a sniper rifle for the SAS and regular army-chambered in 7.62 Nato.The L42A1 it became,I think.Later on however the SAS started to use the Steyr SSG69,Sako and Tikka rifles,because they were considered better than the Enfields

In the mid to late 1960s the British,Australian and New Zealand SAS -regiments,started to acquire the M16 assault-rifles and were impressed at their potential as a Jungle rifle-by watching images of US soilders fighting in the dense Vietnamese Jungles and flat-plains.

The M16 saw active service in Borneo,Oman and was used by the Australian SAS regiment in Veitnam.

Today the standard-issue assault-rifle is the M16A2 rifle and the SAS also use other AR-15 weapons.
 
In the early 80's, when I was a squad leader in the 82d, I had this one soldier who was going to terminate jump status because of back problems, while at the same time telling us he was going to the sf Q course
Click to expand...

He was going to take the "Q" by correspondence course, no doubt. BTW, what reg't were you in?

The little Swedish guy story reminded me of this little Kniepe in West Berlin called "Der FalschrimJaeger." My bros and I were walking down Unter den Eichen Str. and we got the hankering for some adult refreshment. We went down a side street and found Der Falschrimjaeger. As soon as we walked in we realized we'd found our new favorite watering hole. Pictures of German drops from '40 and '41; pictures of Russia and France. There was this old guy that always tended bar. Reserved but friendly, the way most Germans are, he always brought us our beer and had a friendly word when we came in.

We were looking at one picture of a group of troopers. They dirty, grimy and most wore a dressing of some sort. We were wondering where the photo was from. The old man looked up from the bar and just said, "Maelame Flughafen, Kreta." It turned out he was the owner and all the pictures were ones he had from the war. One time we came in and he motioned for us to come over. He pulled out a case and showed us all his badges and awards from the war. Pretty cool. We didn't realize until later what a risk he was taking showing us those badges, since Nazi symbology is outlawed in W. Germany. Great guy, great place.

Mike
 
I worked with a guy briefly in North Carolina who claimed to be a Viet Nam vet. I didn't question him about it, he was an appropriate age, and I treated him with the deference and respect that any vet is due.
Then he started telling stories. He apparently carried a .50 caliber machinegun on patrols, no tripod. Wincing at the unlikeliness of that, I inquired as to how he handled the full-auto recoil of the Ma Deuce.

Unfazed, he explained that he always butted it up against a tree when he fired it.:rolleyes:


This same guy illustrated the weakness of the M-1 carbine by telling of shooting at wet sheets on a clothesline with one. Apparently the bullets were caught by the loosely hanging fabric and slid to the ground beneath.:confused:
 
Used to work for a guy who claimed to be either a genuine Air Commando or Army Special Forces in Vietnam, he had trouble keeping his story straight.

He did spend some time in Thailand as a missile maintenance tech, and was suprised we were able to get a copy of his DD214.:evil:

For some reason folks who have never served seem a bit let down when I tell them I served in the Air Force, fixing radios. Guess they were hoping for some exciting stories, instead of "There I was, minding my own business, when I heard an explosion! Another airman in my shop completed the circuit in a 2000V power supply and there were chunks of diodes from the rectifier everywhere...";)

Yep, puts 'em to sleep everytime.:D
 
He enlisted in the Navy. He didn't have to go through flight training because he already knew how to fly.
Click to expand...

Interestingly enough, back in WWII, my dad enlisted in the Navy at age 17.5 after graduating from high school. He actually did have his pilot's license already which he had earned by doing odd jobs at the local airport. The Navy had a special commissioning program (the 90 day wonders) for civilian pilots. They went to a 90 day officer's basic, and then went to flight school. If I recall correctly, if you already had soloed and had your pilot's license, you were put in some sort of advanced standing for basic flight school, but still had to take the regular advanced flight school at the same pace as everyone else. He went on to fly Corsairs off the Enterprise as part of a night-fighter squadron starting in early 1945.

It has been many years since my Dad talked about this, so any errors in the above are due to my faulty recall.
 
Well here is the problem,concerning special forces selection

After reading very-somewhat amusing-accounts from all of you posters,(As well as writing about my own experiances.),I will say that there is a huge problem with wannabes everywhere.Now these people think that it is about blowing door-hinges off with hatton-rounds and lobbing stun-grenades in,then killing a terrorist with an Mp5 smg.Or by doing a " Rambo":barf: in the Jungle with an M16,Minimi or a Gpmg.Or even copying other Hollywood movies,by imatating Chuck Norris, -Arnie,Van-Damme or even Steven Segal,because they the "heroes" cooly killed the bad guys.

Well it is and it isn't.But before one can even get close to the action,one has to be absolutely suited and committed at,100%,before they are allowed to even wear the coverted
badged-beret,uniforms,etc.The real special-forces assignments are somewhat unpleasant tasks at the best of times and are more daunting and both physically;mentally challenging,than the tasks regular forces have to face-on a daily basis

This is why selection processes are used,to separate those elite soilders,sailors;and airmen from those who haven't got
the "special ability" to be of any use to the special forces regiments.

The stories about the "fat guys", who claimed that they were in the Navy Seals,makes me laugh,because the armed-forces insill fitness-regimes into a person-especially for elite units,like the Navy Seals.Now I know that a person could get fat,from leaving the forces and some do,but special-forces also instills, mental toughness into a person,making them somewhat harder inside.Most ex-special-forces guys don't openly brag about their operations openly,in a happy-tone-they either write books,get into private-security or law-enforcement,or into other types of civillian jobs.

Most of them openly critisize those stupid books written by "supposed experts" and refer to them as "Walter-mitty or "Micky Mouse" books.

Examples of such behaviour was seen on the British reality tv programme,SAS:are you tough enough?,-where a contestant was being shouted at, by one of the SAS instructors for mentioning a "supposed experts" accounts of the SAS,when, it was discovered that this "expert" never served in the regiment or in any other known special forces regiment-and the material that was stated in their book-was not what the SAS did,nor what any other special-forces unit did,for that matter.
 
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Interestingly enough, back in WWII, my dad enlisted in the Navy at age 17.5 after graduating from high school. He actually did have his pilot's license already which he had earned by doing odd jobs at the local airport. The Navy had a special commissioning program (the 90 day wonders) for civilian pilots. They went to a 90 day officer's basic, and then went to flight school. If I recall correctly, if you already had soloed and had your pilot's license, you were put in some sort of advanced standing for basic flight school, but still had to take the regular advanced flight school at the same pace as everyone else. He went on to fly Corsairs off the Enterprise as part of a night-fighter squadron starting in early 1945.
Click to expand...
I already had my private pilot's license when I reported to NAS Saufley Field for Primary Flight Training. As a result, the flight syllabus for me in the T-34B was shortened. After that, Basic Jet in the T2 and Advanced Jet in the TF-9J was the same as it was for those student naval aviators who had no prior flight experience.

The official Navy line with regards to prior flight experience was that the advantage in flight grades soon faded to nothing by the time all students were in the Basic Jet syllabus.
 
And then, there was a fat guy at a local range. (Why do these people always weigh 300 pounds?) Sitting next to a minigun in the range lobby he pats it and says "You know, I trained on one of these. I was a door gunner on a Huey..."
Click to expand...
"... minigun in the range lobby..."

The Burnsville Pistol Range, perhaps? :)
 
Knew one who was probably genuine once. Marine not in active service, built like a bulldozer, nice guy, didn't say much about what he'd done. But one day he was talking about being stationed "over in one of those Asian countries... oh, yeah... Thailand."

I asked him what he'd done in Thailand, as the Vietnam War didn't officially extend that far west, AFAIK.

Silence...

Still wonder what was up.


- NF
 
I was a cable ape in signal

Very briefly, in the seventies. This guy in my platoon was an E2, on weekends he would dress up with that braid that I think Airborne was wearing at the time
and wear spec 4 rank!
I was the opposite, I could wait to get into civies.

A guy I knew in the 80's was claiming to be a Navy Seal, only he didn't know port, bow, stern or aft and had no idea what a dd214 was!
 
This thread seems as good as any to say THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE!

I would call myself a "wouldn't-wannabe", but I sure as shootin admire
anyone who has made the sacrifice, even if it pi$$es them off sometimes...:eek:

-seer-

p.s. I'll apologize now for wearing unmatched camo in public.:p
 
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