I assure you, Marines tend to call themselves Marines. At least in my experience.
I don’t really see the point of trying to argue with him about it, though.
Wow, it was there 45 minutes ago.
Yup, page not found.
Google: usherhouse “tigers and smores”
Then check out the cached copy.
Y’all are in for a treat…this guy’s not only a Marine badass supersoldier and LAPD crimebuster, he’s also the Hemingway of the jungle, stalking water buffalos and tigers through the bush and making love to beautiful women in huts…oh yeah and he’s an executive chef too. Bet he can cook up a mean dinosaur steak.
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.
I dont think SEALs were called SEALS back then ammiright?
I don’t think it’s a comprehensive list, but
Or paste the URL into Google and prepend it with “cache:”
He’s being accused of fraud on the IMDb message boards and is defending himself. You can find these posts through Google; just search for “I celebrated my 17th birthday in the Marines.” with quotes.
The Angola conflict was not some little footnote police action, it was a full blown war and was particularly controversial because of the involvement of South Africa, along with inputs from Zimbabwe - there was a lot of ‘deniable’ action.
I’m amazed he did not mention anything about the Cuban involvement, they were acting as USSR proxy and it was a major reporting point, in fact, you can’t really mention anything about serving time there without mentioning the Cubans, you’ll probably recall the USSR was supporting Cuba’s energy requirements as payment.
To be training the officers and staff of other countries would certainly require someone at Sergeant or upwards, and the chances of them being under 25 are simply impossible, even then at 25 they would be one of the junior training staff, you’d expect much more service time and most likley they would have been a trainer of US forces prior to that - you don’t send an inexperienced trainer to another country - it would reflect quite badly on your own standards.
If this person is supposed to have seved in the armed forces, its dead easy, ask him for his service number, or specific dates where his unit was, this will be in his service record and he will definately have a copy of it and shoud be able to quote directly - service personnel do not tend to lose their service record documents
By the way, medals are all numbered, let him quote his number on his medals. The number is on there, because you don’t actually own the medals and they have to be traceable - it means they can be accurately verified and thieves can be readily caught out, as can imposters.He should also be able to quote the cite on his medal certificates.
Oh, by the way, where did he do his basic training?What was the weather like, and can he find anyone on the vets association websites he served with?Every single vet can find someone who was at someplace they were at the same time.
What date exactly did he join, what date did he achieve every promotion, and what specialist courses did he do, and where? What are the names of the instructors running those course, these are things you do not forget.
oooo he got a BS in anthropology as well as being uber chef …
and what the hell is it with calling montainyards ‘yards’? I do not ever remember hearing them called ‘yards’ … and I had more than enough contact with vietnam vet friends of my dad visiting and talking around me about friends and events that happened.
Didn’t they call them ‘yards’ in The Green Berets with John Wayne?
At any rate, after reading his follow up answer to his friend, I went back to read his original. I’m thinking that we’re perhaps misjudging him. His stuff reads sort of like Mark Twain’s Private History of a Campaign That Failed. I think that the guy is actually being witty, and we are thinking that he is trying to present as a real veteran. His response seems to be in the Joe Friday mode, and, he does mention LA, and his narrative seems so faraway-look-in-his-eye-that-can-only-be-meaningful-to-somebody-who’s-been-there that I think he’s not being a crook, he’s having a go at us.
Just a thought.
best wishes,
hh
But those appear to be true. If he isn’t lying he was born in 1957-8. His LinkedIn profile says he graduated from Loyola in 1999 and he says he was 41. He posts on the Marriott chef’s blog under his real name. Maybe someone can evaluate 20 rivets, sounds OK to me. And at the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor there is another Usher from Waukesha, Wisconsin listed, so I am interested to see how this all pans out.
I notice that he states this,
Seems unlikely that anyone under 40 would describe this item in this way, you’d call it an earpiece.
Maybe it is time to report the man: http://reportstolenvalor.org/
We called them earphones (vs headphones) back then. I would maybe call it an earbud now, just so those damned kids on my lawn would know what I was talking about.
Nothing about the guy’s story makes any sense. He would not have accomplished any of these things at the age he did. He clearly doesn’t know what snipers do, how they’re chosen, or for that matter the fact that “sniper/scout” as a job description is like saying “barber/barista” or “network tech/truck driver.” There is no “Test” for being able to “predict” sociopath behaviour, and if there was it would make no sense for such a person to be assigned to Gang Crimes, as most gang members are not sociopaths, and his description of what he did has nothing to do with predicting sociopathic behaviour. Furthermore, there is no large law enforcement agency in the history of the world in which a 21-year-old would become a supercop and travelling lecturer. If one thing is true of the police force it’s that to advance you need to grind out the shit jobs. Becoming a hotshot by the age of 35 would be impressive career advancement; by 30 would be amazing.
The entire thing is just obvious BS. I’ve known people who did amazing things and the stories never sound like this.
I cannot believe anyone would beleive such transparent bullshit. The guy has a psychological problem.
For quite some time now, the US military has been using Social Security Numbers instead of Service Numbers. Your suggestion of other questions to ask are very good, though, really would pinpoint the absurdities of the tales this “man” is telling. The OP might even have a little bit of fun by mentioning the Stolen Valor Act to said “man.”
This is incredibly similar to a guy I met on a dating site last June; claimed to be a Marine sniper who is now an executive with Motorola, but went to cooking school “just because” and more. I was almost completely smitten, having talked to the guy for four and five hours a day for almost a week. The stories were almost feasible (my Dad was a Marine so I knew enough of the lingo, but not specifics).
It took me several days to figure out the guy was a complete narcissistic fraud when a few things he said didn’t sit right with me (telling me he collects '78 Lafitte Rothschild – only a wine snob would know that if you are going to collect LR, the '82s are much better) but it begs the question, “why do people do this?”
The guy I dealt with spent HOURS with me, developing this story and after I found him listed on “Don’t Date Him Girl - dot-com” did I realize he had been using the same story with DOZENS of women for years.