How to be a good phony soldier

Hack.Stone wrote in the comments how there should be a written document to explain to phonies how to act after they’ve been busted. So, I’ve taken it upon myself, as we gear up for our annual tournament of Stolen Valor, to explain that process to the uninitiated.

First, don’t deny military records. If the records say that you spent 6 weeks in service, don’t try to tell us otherwise. If we’re wrong, provide proof to the contrary. We’ve all been in the military, we’ve all got our DD214s and we know that you have to review your DD214, we know that if your records say you served for six weeks, you have to verify that. Prove us wrong.

Don’t tell us that you’re wearing something to “honor” your father, your brother, your neighbor’s parakeet. If you’re wearing a Ranger Tab, a CIB, an SF Tab, people who see you wearing it are going to believe that you’re saying that you earned it. There is no honor in wearing militaria that you didn’t earn. And your deceased father probably isn’t honored by his gay, hippie son wearing his medals at an anti-war protest.

We don’t believe that your ex-girlfriend or ex-wife hacked your Facebook account. You can always delete the offending photo out of your Wall. We know how that works. And usually, it’s your ex-girlfriend or your ex-wife who told us that you’re rockin’ the lie in the first place. And they probably provided us with your DD214.

You shouldn’t come on TAH and complain that people are picking on you. You wore your phony shit because of your ego. You sent it out to the world so far that we heard your lies, so we’re going to give you the fame that you craved when you put that shit on.

When we use your photos that you posted on Facebook, we’re not “stealing” your “copyrighted” material. There’s a thing in the law called “fair use”, according to FindLaw;

Under the Copyright Act, the fair use of copyrighted material without permission is allowed when used for the following purposes: Criticism, Comment, News reporting, Teaching, includes making copies for use in the classroom, Scholarship and research, Parody

So, you see, if you posted a picture of yourself on Facebook wearing a Medal of Honor, we have the right to use it to prove your false claims.

Even though what you’re doing is not illegal, it’s immoral. In their decision to overturn the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, the Supreme Court, in the case of US v. Alvarez (.pdf), gave us a warrant to hunt you down and bring you to the justice of public opinion when they wrote;

The Government …has not shown, and cannot show, why counterspeech, such as the ridicule respondent received online and in the press, would not suffice to achieve its interest.

Justice Kennedy continues in US v. Alvarez;

The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simpletruth.

[…]

Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse.

[…]

The American people do not need the assistance of a government prosecution to express their high regard for the special place that military heroes hold in our tradition. Only a weak society needs government protection or intervention before it pursues its resolve to preserve the truth. Truth needs neither handcuffs nor a badge for its vindication.

We’re not violating your first amendment protections, mostly because only the government can do that, since the Bill of Rights was written to protect us from the government, not from each other.

Don’t send your wife, girlfriend, partner to the blog to defend you. It only makes you look like the giant pussy you are, hiding behind those skirts of your love interest. In the end, we’re going to win, and you will have to explain to the person to whom you lied why you’re surrendering. And it makes them look gullible and stupid. It’s not their fight; it’s not their place to extract you from the morass that you’ve created for yourself.

We also know that your identity wasn’t stolen when we have pictures of you wearing a uniform, unless the identity thief also stole your face. If we check to see if you’ve filed a police report on the theft of your identity and you haven’t, it makes you look less than truthful.

Yes, we’ve had people dug up after they died because they lied about their service to get a spot in a veterans’ cemetery when they weren’t authorized. So the family’s last memory of their dearly departed was as a lying POS. We’ve also had headstones altered when their Stolen Valor made it to that venue. Come clean with your family before you pass.

Once you’re busted, you should stop pretending. Once you’re on our radar, we’re still watching, and when you put that shit back on your clothes, we’re going to catch you again, more quickly and then we have to go through all of that shit again. So just stop it. We can make arrangements with someone who lives near you willing to take possession of your phony finery to satisfy our own mistrust of your claims to stop being a lying POS.

If you’re emailing or commenting to threaten us with legal repercussions, you’ll be better off first getting a competent attorney of your own and being honest with them because you’re only going to be further humiliated if you do it in the public forum. To save you some typing, charging us with libel or slander is charging us with making false statements. So unless you’re prepared to prove that our statements about you are false in court, please refrain from using those terms.

Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code (47 USC § 230)  says that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to limit the reach of Section 230 to “traditional” Internet service providers, instead, treating many diverse entities as “interactive computer service providers.”  The comments, posts written by guest bloggers, tips sent by email, and information provided to us through an RSS feed are all considered information provided by another content provider. We can not be held liable for defamatory statements contained therein.

You should also refrain from death and/or physical threats. We’ve watched as folks who made threats to us frog-marched out of the courtroom while we giggled uncontrollably.

We’re not ever taking down our posts about you unless you can prove that we made a mistake. We’re pretty good at identifying forged DD214s, too. Even if we were so inclined, there’s a thing called an “internet cache” over which we have no control. The post that we wrote about you will remain on the internet forever. So begging us to take it down would have no effect even if we felt mercy for you. But that’s not likely anyway. So don’t ask.

The best way to avoid the wrath of public opinion is to not start in the first place. We’re going to catch you eventually, so you’ll always be looking over your shoulder. If you served, be proud that you did what few Americans would, if you didn’t serve, but you want to wear that which others have given their lives and their youth to earn, go sign on the line. Three years of honorary military service is going to be a lot easier than hiding from the pitchfork brigade for a lifetime.

Category: Phony soldiers