# Debunking a phony "Marine Veteran." **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873 "2010-12-03T23:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/101 "2010-12-06T22:43:26Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > One person and one person only came to…uh, **Zaob** ’s defense in the thread. The entire Twilight: Breaking Dawn crew of regulars was against him and on the side of Usher, who has apparently been running a game on these women for a long time. I’d wager that most of them are so enthralled by his stories of adventure and culinary delights for the same reason they’re so enthralled by _Twilight_ - bad judgment. > > With people like this guy, stories about special-forces military service and law enforcement are usually just the tip of the iceberg, and that under the surface is a lot of credit card fraud, identity theft, assorted scams, and broken hearts. Uh… with Twilight: Breaking Dawn wouldn’t he be running a game on _young girls_ rather than women, since afaik that fanbase is almost exclusively 10 to 15 year old girls? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/102 "2010-12-06T22:53:56Z")
Well, that series is popular here with teenage boys, teenage girls, and adults of both genders. As to why the IMDB board poster is getting defended for his lies, perhaps it’s because his defenders want his stories to be true. They’ve become emotionally invested in the myth and, as one of those defenders put it, the ersatz Marine “has presented himself as a gentleman,” completely ignoring the simple fact that it’s not gentlemanly behavior to hoodwink people. “zaob” has put forth an analysis of the veracity of ju’s claims on those boards and if some folk want to believe ju’s lies, then they’ll continue to believe them. A better question to ask, imho, is: “Does Marriott give Veteran’s preference for hiring?” Maybe another good question is: “Did ‘ju’ falsify his employment application?” But that’s outside the purview of imdb, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/103 "2010-12-07T00:07:35Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/104 "2010-12-07T00:12:43Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > One of the first indications that you’re dealing with a bullshitter is when they start off by saying they were a sniper/special forces/SEAL/black ops etc… Sure some small percentage of them may actually be telling the truth but 99% are lying. I’ve been in the AF for 16 years and if I had a dollar for every old Vietnam vet that told me he was special forces I’d be a millionaire. Nearly every Vietnam vet I have encountered in bars or at social gatherings was a sniper or green beret. Conversely, the people who actually have served in a special operations or covert intelligence activity (and I’ve known a small handful of legitimate operators) usually downplay their service in casual conversation with random strangers along the lines of, “I was a logistics clerk in Honolulu during the war,” or “I spent 'Nam baking cookies in Germany.” Not only is it not cool from a security standpoint to go blathering about one’s service in covert and often extralegal activities in the employ of Uncle Sam, but it also attracts an element of combat fetishist gadflies and Rambo wannabe goobers who annoy the living piss out of people who have actually put themselves out in harm’s way. Real FAGs (“former action guys”) do like to relive the glory days and tell the occasional fishing story, but they do it with other operators who have been there and done that, not random fanboys on the Internet. Genuine operators who have used their reputation as former operators to publish unlikely or embellished personal accounts, like Richard Marcinko, Eric L. Haney, and Andy McNab (who is at least smart enough to use a _nom de plume_) have been pretty roundly criticized in the special operations community. All that being said, I’m not sure why the o.p. is on such a vigorous campaign to discredit the person in question. His story, such as it is, has obvious errors, discontinuities, and an unlikely manner of storytelling. If he were doing this as a means of attempting to acquire a job or run for public office I’d be all for skewering him on a spit and feeding the remains to the dog. But as it is, he appears to be one of the many lonely, pathetic underachievers who seeks to validate himself by mixing in some details he half-understood on a History channel documentary on the Angolan civil war with the Time-Life Century of Warfare volume on Vietnam that he picked up at a rummage sale and hoping that anonymous people out in AOLand will be really impressed with his Just So Stories. Of course there are other people who are wowed by such blatherings; as confidence men from the dawn of time have said, “There’s a mark born every minute, and one to trim 'em.” But as long as the loser isn’t taking donations or otherwise grifting old ladies out of their Social Security checks, it’s generally better to leave such people to their private fantasy world. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Fell\_through\_the\_Ice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9adbd/32.png) [@Fell\_through\_the\_Ice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fell_through_the_Ice)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/105 "2010-12-07T00:23:08Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I’m not sure why the o.p. is on such a vigorous campaign to discredit the person in question. To “discredit” implies that there is some actual credibility that could be lost. 😉 This is an obvious of a person falsely claiming military service, and that is a slap in the face to real veterans. I agree that such behavior cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/106 "2010-12-07T01:13:58Z")
> [@Mr.Duality](#): > > Uh… with Twilight: Breaking Dawn wouldn’t he be running a game on _young girls_ rather than women, since afaik that fanbase is almost exclusively 10 to 15 year old girls? Sadly, you’re mistaken. Meet the [Twimoms](http://www.twilightmoms.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/107 "2010-12-07T01:45:59Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Sadly, you’re mistaken. Meet the [Twimoms](http://www.twilightmoms.com/). Do a google image search for ‘Twilight Moms’ and especially note the Demotivation-style pic. ---
**Author:** ![Woeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Woeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woeg)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873/108 "2010-12-08T18:51:51Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Conversely, the people who actually have served in a special operations or covert intelligence activity (and I’ve known a small handful of legitimate operators) usually downplay their service in casual conversation with random strangers along the lines of, “I was a logistics clerk in Honolulu during the war,” or “I spent 'Nam baking cookies in Germany.” This. My step-dad and a few of my “uncles” (his service buddies) were UDT in Vietnam. Every single one of them was as tight-lipped as one could be about their service - they’d talk amongst themselves about their service, but NEVER to strangers and only rarely, briefly, to family. I’ve since gotten to know a number of other people that I knew served in Special Forces for one branch or another. Every single one of them is the same way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-a-phony-marine-veteran/562873.md?page=5)