RADTENN, in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=610713&page=2
When skepticism was expressed at the long list of rambo-esque super-duper military skills he claims to have, his response was to cut-and-paste the wikipedia description of an M-16, then proclaim that that proved he was, for real, a rambo-type vet.
I have a friend in the Marines who’s calling bs on him, just wondering what the humble opinion is of actual doper vets on this guy’s claims.
There’s no such thing as an ‘M-50 machine gun’ so that raises a red flag.
Do we really have to go this far? We know Radtenn has issues. We all know he’ll NEVER admit he lied to anything. He won’t even give all the reasons he was evicted.
This makes you look petty and vindicative. This was the kind of behavior I was talking about in the are you rude thread. Do you need to be right that bad?
Just so you know, I dislike Radtenn, but this behavior and post stalking (not limited to OP’s behavior) is disgusting.
Moved to The BBQ Pit from IMHO.
Huh, really? Well, that doesn’t look good.
BTW, the posts in question begin at post count 88 in that thread.
Actually, it’s vindictive, not “vindicative”. 
Well, if you feel good in kicking in a dog that’s already down it’s say a lot about you.
You obviously weren’t cleared to know about the M-50. You learn about it in advanced anti-enemy, Krav-Maga, field-torturing training. Only behind-the-lines, Overlord-Class, Paramilitary Assets are enacted in its use.
If you allow for a certain degree of inflating the basics, it’s not at all unreasonable…** but most of the things he describes are the most fundamental of military training.** There’s nothig Rambo-esque about it. To break it down he claims:
“Expertise” with a number of weapons, including a number of automatic weapons, grenades, and rocket launchers. (The M-50 certainly does exist, by the way, though it’s a WW2-era weapon.) There is nothing at all remarkable about this. Any soldier will learn proficiency with a number of weapons. I myself trained with the C-7 (Canadian M-16 variant), C-9 (Canadian SAW variant,) FNC1, FNC2, the SMG, GPMG, M-72 rocket launcher, grenades and various other implements of destruction, and I was a frickin’ reservist.
“Explosives.” See above. Explosives training is not remarkable at all.
“Calling down fire on our own position and surviving.” This doesn’t make any sense on the face of it. The ability to summon artillery fire is certainly a skill, but one is not “expert” in calling in artillery fire on one’s own position. It’s been done, but does not constitute a recognized expertise. Perhaps RADTENN is simply saying he was trained in summoning artillery missions and is adding some bravado as to his willingness to call it in on himself.
“Penatrating behind enemy lines with maybe 2 other men and myself” can simply be interpreted as being trained in the science of camouflage and concealment and how to move in a stealthy manner. Again, this is routine military training.
“Hand to hand combat” is sometimes routine training and sometimes not. If it’s not you can always take tae kwon do classes in a dojo at a strip mall. So, again, no biggie.
“How to survive if captured: POW” is, again, just a military course routinely handed out in combat trades.
So, on the whole, what RADTENN claims is actually a shorter list than I could claim from having been in the Canadian reserves for six years. And trust me: I am no supersoldier. During my military career, I was largely noted for being a wiseass who was good at giving Powerpoint presentations, singing extremely profane and comical versions of “Roxanne” in the locker room, and for being the guy responsible for the unit’s mascot being a plastic pink flamingo. But my list of military proficiencies exceeds RADTENN’s by a mile if I put just a little positive spin on it.
After slogging through a page and a half of that crap, I have concluded that his combat expertise is matched only by his legal acumen.
Obviously his training description is not accurate. Is he a complete fraud? Impossible to say, FWIW based on my gut based on his posts I think he was in the military but I’ll go no further than that.
As a CO I unfortunately remember many individual soldiers who are probably in bars all over the country saying stuff like RADTENN said–some of them combat veterans.
Most people aren’t like that, but the ones that are, the ones who probably have some pre-existing mental problem that may have been exacerbated by military service will not become upstanding and honest people just because they were in the military.
Probably even more common than the people who never served a day in uniform are the people who served a few years or less and who in retellings were Staff Sergeants by age 19 and operating deep behind enemy lines solo with the barest essentials. I’ve met many people since I retired who I can tell based on the specific claims they make they are real veterans and also real frauds about the details of their service. For a person inclined to such claims the fact that they can very much substantiate their service and maybe even that they were genuine combat veterans empowers them to make grandiose claims–because no one would dare doubt the grandiose claims openly when certain facts are beyond doubt.
Why I myself was made a full bird Colonel the day after I entered the military and once killed over 300 Taliban with nothing more than a toothpick and a winning smile!
Just send $29.95 to me and I’ll give you all the details how you too can be a super stud super soldier!
Piffle. They gave you kids toothpicks? When I was Irish Stomp-Dancing Tojo back in WWII, I’d have killed for a toothpick.
That’s pretty typical in the U.S. too. As an officer I had tons of training in various things that don’t mean shit as to what I actually did during 20+ years of service in an era in which America fought only one major war (Gulf War I.) Many officers have graduated from many different schools within the military because it is seen as necessary to advance.
There are people who most would consider REMFs who have graduated from Ranger School and etc, because it is good for their career. It is a misconception that going through Ranger School means you served as a Ranger in the 75th Ranger Regiment. You do not even have to have a combat MOS to go to Ranger School; and in fact many officers go into Ranger School after BOLC to bolster their careers–and most never actually serve in a Ranger Regiment or have any interest in actually being part of actual special forces. The same is true for many other schools out there, for example just because you went to Sniper School doesn’t mean you were Carlos Hathcock.
Ok, this is pretty interesting.
What about his quoting of wiki to “prove” that my Marine friend and I are “liars”? Why would a bonafide vet post such a thing?
Because he’s incoherent and could be mentally unstable. It’s very obvious to me he barely knows how to communicate on the internet and if you combine that with potential mental instability I think there is a lot of grave misunderstandings on both ends.
FWIW he does not really come off as a typical “Stolen Valor” type person to me, and I’ve encountered many in my life. I’m not even 100% certain he wasn’t employing some degree of weird sarcasm, again because it is very obvious this is probably his first time communicating with strangers on the internet. He’s like someone from 1995.
There is the real military and then there is the idealized military. While I very much respect the work of people involved with Stolen Valor sometimes on the internet I notice they tend to only accept the existence of the Idealized Military. In the real military that I served in if someone was a habitual liar and a braggart and possibly also afflicted with some form of mental instability then just because they later served in combat does not mean those prior problems went away, and their combat experience would pass through those behaviors just like everything else and it would end up being lied about and bragged about.
I am talking about outliers here, not an epidemic. But “truth-stretchers” were common enough in the military that, while I won’t often say this because I do not like speaking too negatively about the military, I am often surprised when other persons who were in the military make claims that “no true veteran would..” Actually, lots of true veterans would lie about what happened to them in combat. Now, most of them wouldn’t, because most people aren’t habitual liars that continue to lie even in the face of direct contradiction. I think for most normal people the response to combat is a desire to not talk about it extensively, but human beings aren’t equations that have known results.
I just read both of those threads regarding RADTENN’s problem. Do you really want to ground your pitting in the implication that a normal vet would not act so? Because, to me, he doesn’t seem quite normal, veteran or not, and that’s something his posts established long before the posts you question began. Even if his story is somewhat muddled, he seems sincere to me.
I served as an enlisted in the US Navy (6 years) in the 80’s, and I still make errors when posting info in GQ. (Just did one tonight on bugle calls.) Doesn’t mean I didn’t serve, it means I need to slow down and pay the fuck attention to what the hell I’m typing.
Just to clarify: I did not pit RADTENN. The mods moved it here. I was just asking opinion, which is why I posted it in IMHO. Not questioning the mods at all, just pointing out this fact.
I’ve been a Canadian reservist for going on 22 years and the extent of my weapons training is annual range days with the C7, intermittent grenade-tossing (and arty-sims, thunderflashes and whatnot) and very rarely getting to fire a C9 and C6. I’ve never launched a grenade. We don’t get a lot of exotic weapons training in signals.
Though I did get instruction on how to take down a sentry and cut his throat. That was a fun afternoon, way back in 1997.
As an incidental note, I played a part in the project to destroy all the East Sector FN-C1s that had been in storage since 1990. Damn shame. I would have gladly purchased one if they’d let me.