Possibly Thailand? Doing some, er, undercover operations in Patpong? 
Not exactly the same thing, but in Bangkok the Fire Department is manned by police-application rejects. It was in the news 15 years ago that one fireman died in the line of duty. His family was shocked, as he had been so ashamed of being rejected by the police that he had told them he was just an office worker somewhere.
I was a door gunner on the space shuttle. I can’t talk about it.
Seems to me a person not allowed to discuss his military service is going to flat-out lie about it. That is, he’ll claim to have been a file clerk who spent his entire career stateside and never fired a weapon except in basic.
Make sex to me, brute!
Guy sounds full of crap. If he was really involved in something so fantastically secret that he wasn’t even supposed to say he was in the military, he would have been given a cover story. Like, he would have said he worked for the Treasury Department and given you a reference with a 202 area code who would confirm everything and you’d be none the wiser.
OTOH, some people who have to keep certain parts of their jobs secret (for military, intelligence or just plain corporate secrecy reasons) sometimes find it easier just to say “I can’t talk about my job” rather than worry about accidentally saying something improper.
This guy saluted the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance (rather than holding his hand over his heart). Yet, when the veterans were asked to stand up for recognition at this same function, he remained seated.
Very strange to me.
Bullshit, I was in charge of gunnery for 11 shuttle missions and trained damn near every gunner that saw orbit…I don’t remember you.
Wait, I remember you were a loader on the R waist gun, but that was only for one mission.
POSER
I think everyone else has pretty much covered it but…
I was in the Navy in submarines. Occasionally I’d meet guys whose sub had done some covert missions directed against the Soviets. They couldn’t talk about that parti cular deployment but they could talk about other deployments that didn’t involve secret stuff.
So yeah, it’s fishy that the guy doesn’t talk about the rest of his service.
I work with a bunch of ex military guys and of course we don’t talk about all the guys we killed. Most of us of course weren’t involved in killing at all. But we can talk for hours, about basket jobs in the Philipines, or how cheap Korean hookers were or about the yoeman who picked a fight with a SEAL and then jumped in the bay before he was picked up by the MPs.
(snicker) Shuttle Door Gunners.
They keep you pansies away from the real spacecraft.
Somebody on this board (sometime in the last decade…) said that if you totaled up all the guys who hang around bars and claim they were in Special Ops, they’d outnumber the civilians two-to-one.
Monty, you have my apology. I did look at in that manner.
Ah but you forget about the real space cowboys who rode spy satellites in the 70’s. The Russians had an actual gun mounted in theirs. These were classified jobs. If memory serves me the first black astronaut died in this program.
No worries, Snnipe.
Back to the issue of the alleged “claimant”: Wouldn’t it be kind of silly to be telling all and sundry at work that he was in the military albeit unable to talk about it (besides being self-contradictory)? After all, someone in the “chain of command” will be aware of (a) the dude’s braggadocio and (b) the dude’s official statement to the employer that he did not serve.
In general, any Ranger’s I’ve known were larger than life confident, but really decent guys. The Green Berets I’ve known (far fewer) could easily have been mistaken for extremely fit file clerks for their mild and respectful bearing, but there was something woven into that demeanor that screamed, “Do not fuck with this!” Really interesting people.
I was in the Marines. Oh, not the regular marines, the space marines. Yeah, I’d be a goner if it weren’t for my trusty stimpack. What, don’t believe me? There are a whole series of games out about my division. Oh sure they had to change a few details to keep the public from panicking, but believe you me, I was there.
You want a piece of me, boy?
I’ve noticed that you, specifically, seem to be put off by my starting of these threads. I imagine that since you are from France, you just don’t really understand how big of a problem this is in America. Since I like you, I’ll try to explain.
Here in America, there is a plague of people lying about military service. America regards its troops very highly, and very publicly, honoring them in all kinds of ways, big and small. Therefore, being part of the military gives people instant credibility among civilians. A service member or veteran will have people thanking him for his service, buying him drinks, women will be impressed, etc.
Combine this with a pop culture of movies and video games that are absolutely obsessed with war, and specifically with super-elite types like commandos, snipers, spies, etc, and the result is that lots of people will try to lie about military service to impress people. Whether this is for a specific goal, like a karate instructor trying to attract students or a guy at a bar trying to get laid, or just for the general gratification of having everyone around you view you with awe and respect, it has become a really common tactic among men (and it’s almost always men) who are desperate to project an image of being badasses.
And these lying bastards are everywhere.
I view this as a really dishonorable thing because the real military badasses earn their titles by putting their lives on the line day in and day out. They earn the genuine respect of other people through their service. For someone to lie about it, he’s trying to claim the glory without having made any of the sacrifices.
I happen to be very particular about who I do and don’t respect. When someone tells me about their military service, I usually take them at their word if their story sounds genuine to me. But if it doesn’t, I want to ask about it (here on this forum, among other places). Because that could spell the difference between me respecting someone and losing all respect for them.
You spacies sure talk big (and I know how those green-haired Venusian honeys go goo-goo over your synthetic muscles), but I’m sure you remember the time we nerds in the Hyper Rangers saved your asses in the asteroid belt. And anyway, those Venusian lasses will have no time for you after I’ve taken them on a ride to the seventh dimension.
You pussies wouldn’t have lasted one second if it wasn’t for guys like me clearing the way with our siege tanks.