Military Stolen Valor - Get the glory, admiration and grift. It's just an Amazon uniform order away.

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Lt. Col. Hassle is stollen valor. Rumor is he never even served.
View attachment 5536180

You've got some wires crossed. I served with Sgt. Hassle at the Battle of Ram Ranch. The things Frank did that day saved lives but left him deeply troubled. These events lead him to pursue his career in mental health and he'd very much like to move on with his life and continue helping others. Please respect his wishes.

 

[Johnny Salami]

I'm a Europoor, so apologies if this question is dumb

Why doesn't the US government just provide some pass or certificate as proof? For those who served. This way no one can impersonate them, as you'd need a valid cert or pass or license. Would solve this issue, or atleast help. A company could simply not give the benifits, if the person doesn't show their pass.

Want job privileges or something? Show valid proof.

As others have said, the DD214 serves as proof of any deployments but most drivers license and IDs have yiir veteran status, but not what branch you served in or deployments

There's also Veteran ID cards you can get from the VA but no one cares. I've been using a military ID from 2011 to snag free food from the USO with no complaints.

How easy are they to make a fake? Does anyone know if there are equivalents of fake Veteran IDs you can use for those purposes (instead of buying beer)?

You need to show your DD214 when renewing your license. But most benefits are some military discount at some stores. And the last time I flew I used my veteran status to get in before the first class people making sitting down much faster

"If you have the time to waste chasing down larpers for playing dress up, then you peaked in high school the military and you need to move on with your life. Unless you retired from the military, or you were a high-ranking officer, or you've done some really righteous shit, your military time should NOT be the highest point in your life

Honestly. I stopped hanging out with an old war buddy because on Veterans day I wanted to go to BWs for some wings but instead he wanted to go look for stolen Valor people. Like bro, fucking take a chill pill. It's 10 free wings

Sometimes I wonder if the government had any hand in promoting Chris Kyle's book and movie to try and get more impressionable young men to consider the military, like how they work with the studios behind CoD and Battlefield as means of getting people interested in warfare.

The faggot who wrote the book on killing Bin Landen should be arrested for talking about classified shit, but the government knows that it's good propaganda and actively encourages it.

 

[Justtocheck]

The faggot who wrote the book on killing Bin Landen should be arrested for talking about classified shit, but the government knows that it's good propaganda and actively encourages it.

Yeah, Matt Bisonette. He's mentioned in the other thread. He seems like a A-class scumbag.

 

[Spunt]

Having said it was rare in the UK, a good one popped up today:

Source/Archive

Nick Adderley: Doubts over chief constable's navy record​

By Matt Precey
BBC News, Northamptonshire

A police chief constable who claimed he was a Royal Navy officer never achieved that rank, the BBC has learned.

Spoiler: Full Article Text

Nick Adderley is currently suspended from Northamptonshire Police amid an investigation into his conduct over the wearing of military medals. A panel for his police job was also told he spent 10 years in the service - but sources said he was enlisted for less than two.

Mr Adderley could not be reached for comment.

The Northamptonshire Police and Crime Panel was presented with a biography of Mr Adderley at a hearing to confirm his appointment to the top job in July 2018.
It stated that he had served in the Royal Navy for 10 years prior to joining the police in 1992. However, Wirral Council has disclosed a magistrates' court record, showing he was the registered licensee for The Hooton Arms pub in Eastham between 1 June and 18 July 1990. A source has corroborated the 57-year-old's time as a pub landlord during this period, and said "he had spoken about it quite openly".

The BBC has also been told Mr Adderley served in the Royal Navy for less than two years after starting training as a rating in 1984 and that he left because he wasn't suited for life in the service.

The Sun newspaper previously revealed that Mr Adderley had worn a Falklands War campaign medal despite him being 15 years old when the conflict took place in 1982. A complaint was then made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) by a member of the public accusing him of misrepresenting his military service. References to his spending a decade in the Royal Navy were also noted in press reports during his previous roles at Staffordshire and Cheshire Constabularies - as well as in a book.

Pete Higgins, 56, who joined up alongside Mr Adderley in 1984, has called on his former colleague to account for the apparent discrepancies in his career history and the controversy over the medals. He said "common decency" required him to come forward and explain what had happened. "We were basic trainees and joined up as seamen," he said. "Myself and Nick decided to become Royal Navy gunners and we moved to HMS Cambridge to carry out that training."

A video showed Mr Adderley describing himself as a senior leader in the Royal Navy during a speech - and a photograph from Remembrance Day in 2019 depicted him wearing a naval officer's cap.

However Mr Adderley's name did not appear in a search of the official record of military promotions, the London Gazette, nor does it appear on the unofficial Navy List website which provides historic details of officers who have served.

"There are so many inconsistencies there," Mr Higgins said.

A Northamptonshire Police press release from last February stated the chief constable was a Falklands War veteran and that he had served 10 years in the Royal Navy. It has since been taken down but remains archived on the internet. Mr Adderley had previously said he "looks forward" to responding to the IOPC inquiry over his use of medals.


Northamptonshire Police said it could not comment.

---

A Chief Constable is the rough equivalent of a County Sherriff in the States, though they are not elected (there's a political Police Commissioner role that is) and most English Counties are much bigger than American ones. Basically this guy was the most senior Police officer for about 750,000 people.

Here's a picture of the guy at some official function about a year ago. Note the medal on the left:



This is a Falklands War campaign medal:



This guy would have been 15 when the Falklands war happened. Also he was never an officer and dropped out of the Navy at the earliest opportunity, never rising above Rating, which is the Royal Navy's lowest rank.

Oops.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

This guy would have been 15 when the Falklands war happened. Also he was never an officer and dropped out of the Navy at the earliest opportunity, never rising above Rating, which is the Royal Navy's lowest rank.

These are always the wildest to me. If it's some retard just grabbing shit off ebay, sure. But how do you actually get into the military and not know your stack is gonna get scrutinized instantly?

 

[TATE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!!]

your military time should NOT be the highest point in your life

 

[Spunt]

These are always the wildest to me. If it's some retard just grabbing shit off ebay, sure. But how do you actually get into the military and not know your stack is gonna get scrutinized instantly?

I think it goes back to what I said about stolen valor being rare here, because you gain less from doing it. So when people do actually do it, people tend to take them at their word for longer. This guy got away with this for a long time, he was claiming 10 years' service in the Navy in 1992 when he signed up as a police officer, even though he was 25 at the time and that was literally impossible (17 is the minimum age here for signing up to the armed forces, and even if he had signed up in 1982 he would still have been in basic training when the war happened). I think when brazenness meets incompetence you can get away with a lot, particularly here where asking probing questions can be considered rude.

 

[Apteryx Retardi]

Nah, it's not American at all. Lying about your service for local admiration has always been a thing. The main issue is that in America, there's an infestation of scammers and grifters who take advantage of the immense pool of money dedicated to veterans to do actual fraud for LOTS of money. Sarah Cavanaugh got a quarter of a million bucks. Those amounts just aren't there in other countries. But worldwide, there's never been a shortage of clowns who buy a uniform and then lie to everyone with their "war stories".

Hell, it's not even a military thing. A dude was known for going in medical scrubs to different food places near hospitals and "forgetting his wallet in the ICU" and then people would either pay for him or take him at his word he'd come back and pay. Of course, he wasn't medical personnel. And now that I think about it, it must also happen with firemen and police a lot.

There's a ton of "police impersonator" videos on YouTube, and we have one cow here Jeremy Dewitte, the funeral escort and sex offender, who is pretty famous for that.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/jeremy-charles-dewitte.78820/

Late to party but... It's uncommon in Yurop because most of it (both East and West) has up to recently had (or still has) draft. Meaning, a large part of male populace has done a year or two stint, most of them in the boring, unexiting roles that the majority of military is composed of. Considered more akin to jail time, or having to work 3rd shift at McD's for a year. The seastories told are not about le epic combat exploits, but teenage shenanigans like brewing pruno in repurposed fire extinguishers, sneaking hookers into barracks, or rolling an APC while drunk.

 

[The Grognard]

Late to party but... It's uncommon in Yurop because most of it (both East and West) has up to recently had (or still has) draft. Meaning, a large part of male populace has done a year or two stint, most of them in the boring, unexiting roles that the majority of military is composed of. Considered more akin to jail time, or having to work 3rd shift at McD's for a year. The seastories told are not about le epic combat exploits, but teenage shenanigans like brewing pruno in repurposed fire extinguishers, sneaking hookers into barracks, or rolling an APC while drunk.

There's still room for peculiar rumors like how if you get 4700 meters on a Cooper test, you get the week-end off for excellent fitness or the mysterious ability to do the forest camp week without taking a single shit.

 

[Instant_Pot_User]

teenage shenanigans

Is that why the Suomi Shitposting Corps are so powerful?

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

Is that why the Suomi Shitposting Corps are so powerful?

As someone who's been in a volunteer military and had a good deal of conversations with guys who did mandatory service all over Europe and East Asia.. No, that's just Finns. I don't know why they're like that. There's a reason they're over represented in NHL goalies.

 

[Generic Anime Girl]

Bumping this thread out of pity and interest

I work a job that mainly deals with customer service, and my customer base sometimes consists of old people demanding veterans discounts. As someone who knows jack shit, how can I tell what's stolen valor and what isn't?

 

[The Foxtrot]

Bumping this thread out of pity and interest

I work a job that mainly deals with customer service, and my customer base sometimes consists of old people demanding veterans discounts. As someone who knows jack shit, how can I tell what's stolen valor and what isn't?

If they applied for it, their driver's license will have something on it that will either show them as "VETERAN" or "DISABLED VETERAN". If they also applied for it, their vehicle tags will have "DV" for Disabled Veteran on them, too.

Mind you, you have to go to the DMV and show your DD214 for this, and it's just like applying for a replacement/duplicate.

Otherwise, don't bother listening to them since you don't have any other surefire ways of verifying and I doubt they'd be willing to dig up a DD214 just to get a veteran discount.

 

[Cyberpunk Panatela]

As far as I personally see and understand the Stolen Valor is a mostly american thing. Some countries have direct laws against it. Some treat it as fraud. And in some countries being caught doing that might bring you the health problems, streaming from people ambushing and beating you.
Honestly I'm surprised USA doesn't simply treat it as fraud. The very definition of fraud is to lie to get something.

The original focus of the US Stolen Valor Act was far more broad - it criminalised the wearing or claiming of any unearned military decoration or title for any purpose whatsoever.

This was overturned by the Supreme Court as infringing on freedom of speech.

The amended version limited prosecution to those who perform this activity for gain.

This law wasn't the first shot at curtailing this kind of activity in the US:

Spoiler: Medal of Honor sperging

In the late 1800s it was noticed that there had been a lot of bullshit awards of Congressional Medals of Honor, many of these having been awarded solely on the basis of the recipient's own word and for extremely vague "acts of bravery".

This problem was dealt with by removing all unsubstantiated Medal of Honor awards from the roll, creating other awards for noteworthy bravery, and passing the Medal of Honor Act of 1916 which stipulated strict criteria for nominations and awards thereof.

A new version of the medal was also commissioned and patented (By a Brigadier Gillespie, if memory serves me right). This patent was ceded to the US Secretary of War, and I think it is for an indefinite duration. This was to cut off the flood of knock-offs that were being sold.

Other countries have tried to combat this problem too. Many do go the fraud route, but there have been some peculiar methods used, often affecting brave men rather than bullshitters.

Great Britain's High Command came to the opinion that "too many" Victoria Crosses were being handed out during the First World War. These were not chancers telling lies, but genuine acts of valour, most commonly by those who took great risks to rescue heavily injured comrades.

Their solution: Order a temporary moratorium on awarding further VCs to men who rescued their wounded mates and give the men at the front line a stern dressing down telling them that a soldier's duty was to fight and nothing else.

This was downright psychotic, in my opinion.

South Africa used to prosecute this under a ridiculous law prohibiting the wearing of any unearned insignia or decoration whatsoever (this included shit like Old School Ties, not just medals), and also forbidding any South African citizen from accepting foreign decorations without first getting the permission of the Director-General of Foreign Affairs.

This law was passed after a prominent member of an opposition party, Dr. de Villiers Graaff, accepted a knighthood in Britain. This really angered the ruling National Party, mainly because they thought their leader should have got it - and they promptly pushed out this law.

The only good this law ever did was cut short some prominent fake soldiers' grifts. (Sorry, I don't consider going after some loser wearing Masonic regalia he made himself as a great service to society).

Summary: Stolen Valour has been around for a long time in many places, although the phrase itself is an Americanism. Occasionally a heavy-handed "solution" in this field has been worse than the perceived problem.

Edited on 2 Jan '24 to add:

@Etrian Autistry wrote:

The only thing more cringe than dying for Israel are people who LARP their willingness to die for Israel

Who the hell does this? More importantly, how and why? (Seeing as the IDF is a conscript army, and I greatly doubt that any conscientious objector would later lie about joining it).

Something strange about IDF veterans is their tendency to engage in boasting about their deeds, unit, etc. after their discharge. (Generally, veterans of other countries' armies are rather tight-lipped about what they did in the military - loudmouths are almost invariably liars, especially those with the "Special Forces/Military Intelligence" talk.)

Can you or anyone else shed some light on this?

 

[Justtocheck]

Great Britain's High Command came to the opinion that "too many" Victoria Crosses were being handed out during the First World War. These were not chancers telling lies, but genuine acts of valour, most commonly by those who took great risks to rescue heavily injured comrades.

Their solution: Order a temporary moratorium on awarding further VCs to men who rescued their wounded mates and give the men at the front line a stern dressing down telling them that a soldier's duty was to fight and nothing else.

This was downright psychotic, in my opinion.

Actually, I (very regrettably might add) have to agree with this line of reasoning of the Br*toids. There was a huge problem in militaries, that in the middle of the fight when one of the men was wounded, it was a big emotional event, and people who were in the battle and actually fighting would stop to tend for the wounded, potentially risking the whole unit. The rationale was "win first the battle, then attend the wounded" so that by finishing the fight earlier, there would be many less wounded and more lives would be saved.

 

[74164978231]

I had an uncle whom I never met who was drafted in the late 60s and spent a few years hanging out on a naval base in Texas. He called himself a Vietnam vet for the rest of his life and would imply that he had seen combat. He was a real fiend for veterans' bennies, apparently.

I know someone just like that. Was in the Navy and never set foot on Vietnamese soil or received any hostile fire from any Vietnamese combatant but the guy sure as hell lets you know he is a Vietnam vet. You would think the guy was knee deep in mud and shit emptying mags from how he talks.

 

[The Grognard]

I know someone just like that. Was in the Navy and never set foot on Vietnamese soil or received any hostile fire from any Vietnamese combatant but the guy sure as hell lets you know he is a Vietnam vet. You would think the guy was knee deep in mud and shit emptying mags from how he talks.

That actually is one of the great indicators of which vets talk up their careers. They make a big deal about how they were a tough military man, omitting that they spend the time stacking boxes in a warehouse or filing paperwork at the office of said warehouse. Maybe they once mad-maxed a truck or started doing landmine curling, because there wasn't anything else to do at the moment.

 

[OutInTheRain]

The seastories told are not about le epic combat exploits, but teenage shenanigans like brewing pruno in repurposed fire extinguishers, sneaking hookers into barracks, or rolling an APC while drunk.

That's like 90% of the military experience. Especially in your twenties, you're packed in a small barracks with a bunch of feral twenty-somethings, so you do feral twenty-something shit.

But back on topic, the one I see the most is people like our constable above, wearing medals for wars they were never in. There was an MP LCol who got caught wearing several medals for deployments she never went on. Another common trick in Canuckistan is to insert into theatre for 28 days total, so you can get a campaign star. Acting like you did something, but really you spent 4 weeks covering for a couple people on leave.

 

[Not a bee]

Bumping this thread out of pity and interest

I work a job that mainly deals with customer service, and my customer base sometimes consists of old people demanding veterans discounts. As someone who knows jack shit, how can I tell what's stolen valor and what isn't?

I used to work retail that gave military discounts too and we had to recently stop because too many asshats faked the IDs, so if actual vets wanted their discounts they had to go through an online process.
I would ask what rank/regiment they were in, and see if they get defensive or not. For me anyway cuz I am not military it is kinda hard to call someone out but if you are military you can spot if someone is bullshitting or not right away.

 

[74164978231]

Another common trick in Canuckistan is to insert into theatre for 28 days total, so you can get a campaign star. Acting like you did something, but really you spent 4 weeks covering for a couple people on leave.

Common in the US too. Even more hilarious is how they defined what geographic locations qualified for awards/benefits.

I remember flying home on R&R from Iraq and sitting next to some Major. Guy was stationed in Qatar and all he did was make power point presentations and make sure the conference rooms had fresh hot coffee. Guy got a combat pay and a campaign medal. Compared to me who went on 300 or so missions, went two weeks+ without a shower sleeping in a tent.