Guest Article: Stolen Valor, Part 1: “What it is”

Wesley Wilson – who comments here as “Enigma4you” – has asked me to post this article on his behalf if I “felt it has merit”.

Yeah, Wesley, it has merit – it’s damned good.  I’ve told Wesley I think that he should ask Jonn for an account, and post occasional articles as his time and circumstances permit.

Without further ado, here’s Wesley’s article. I think you’ll like it.

. . .

Stolen Valor
Part 1:  What it is
by Wesley Wilson 

Stolen Valor has been around since the first person felt envy. I think it comes from a need to feel larger than you are.  I have little doubt that in every society it has been a constant problem. I can see in my mind’s eye a Roman Soldier coming home only to find someone who never left pretending he had, taking from the real soldier part of his glory. Fast forward a few hundred years, and it is a Crusader facing the same problem.  A few more centuries pass and it’s a Revolutionary War soldier or sailor, then a Civil War soldier and so on.

In many ways, it would have been easier to deal with in those times. The soldier calls the thief out. He either admits his lies or does battle. We don’t have that option now. We are more civilized. We depend on laws to do the will of the public, yet we have to leave the enforcement of those laws to our elected officials and those appointed to enforce them. The problem there is many times they see this as a victimless crime. After all it’s only someone playing dress up or telling stories, everyone knows they are lies right? Unfortunately that’s not the case. A good lie told often enough become the truth, the truth is seen as the lie. This is a tactic politicians have used forever.  All that is needed is a series of mildly plausible events, strung into a fortress of lies. Then you get someone else to swear that those lies are the truth. We see this method used all the time.

We all know in our hearts what Stolen Valor is. We see its effects. We are not talking about someone wearing the uniform as a costume. We are not talking about sea stories or fishing stories among friends. We are talking about someone who decides to take on the persona of a warrior or someone who actually was in the service who makes people believe that he or she earned honors that were not theirs. These things cause real loss and real injury to our society as a whole.

I remember being a kid in fifth grade. My class needed a First Aid instructor. My father, who was stationed in Raleigh at the Army Reserve Center, was able to teach those classes. When he came into my class wearing his uniform in 1978, I was proud. He was something that most of those kids had never seen. His uniform got him that instant respect from the kids and the teachers.  That same year my oldest brother was in the Navy. When he came home my Mom and Dad both made him wear his uniform to church. The same church he had gone to for years. Sitting in the same pew with the same people, but all of the sudden he was someone. Grown men were treating him as an equal. The minister came to shake his hand after services. Girls who would not have given him the time of day a few months before were now making sure he was going to be entertained while home on leave.  A few years after that It was me in my Dress Blues getting the same treatment. I realized then that my parents were as proud to be with me then, as I had been to be with my Father in the Fifth Grade. All I had done was graduate boot camp and finish a couple of schools.

A couple of decades pass and it’s my own son, in his Dress Blues at Great Lakes, and I am searching for him in a crowd of other new sailors right after he graduated. I find him and all I could do was hug him and tell how proud I was of him. He goes to his A School (AD) and when he comes home the first time, his Mom has him in uniform in church.

I can’t count the number of times I have given a man or woman in uniform a thank you for their service. I know it’s awkward for them, but I feel like they need to know. I buy meals or drinks. We all do. It’s the right thing to do. The problem is the people who wear that uniform who have not earned it. They get the respect, the adoration and praise. They get to pretend to be something special. When my friend’s son had to fly in uniform, he got the upgrade to first class. My son broke down on his way home last Christmas. I called a truck stop about 20 miles from where he was to get the number for a taxi that would go get him. The guy in the garage at the truck stop went and picked my Son up, took him back to the truck stop, and fed him a meal while he waited the three hours it took for me to get there. It is simply how we treat our service members.

Simply putting on the uniform for the valor thief is not enough. They invent an elaborate story. They give themselves high rank. They give themselves awards of Valor. They make themselves SEALS, Rangers or Special Forces. They claim to have done more single-handedly than any ten men could do as a group. They take the attention away from the real vet, the real soldier, sailor and airman or, God forbid, they steal the honor of the family that can display a Gold Star. They make whatever they do all about them.

They steal the services of the government. They tell the lie so loud and so often to anyone that will listen that they start to get the recognition they want, and the lie grows. They steal hunting trips, cars, whatever they can from real wounded vets. They get seats on foundations to advise returning vets. They use their made up PTSD, TBI, etc . . . , to give advice to the guys that are really hurt or suffering. They make up stories about what they did to stop having nightmares and tell them to the guys that really have them. They cause real and sometimes irreparable damage.

Yet in the eyes of the law in all but the most egregious cases, it is a victimless crime. There were 661 POWs returned from Vietnam. Over 100 have since died. The VA list has close to 1000 people as living Vietnam POWs. There are 21 Living POWs from the first Gulf War. The VA list has 288.

But stolen valor is victim-less . . .

Category: Military issues, Reality Check, Veterans Issues