Fake Warriors; a book review
Last night I read in one sitting Mark and Erika Holzer’s book “Fake Warriors“. They’re one of the few people who didn’t send me a copy of their book to review, so I figured that it would be pretty good. There were a number of stories of phonies that I hadn’t read about before, but then, I’m relatively new to the whole fake warrior scene.
Henry Mark Holzer was an Army veteran whose service was immediately following the Korean War after the initial portion of his college career. He went on to become a lawyer and an author. That’s how he approaches the issue – from the perspective of an academic and a lawyer. He’s careful to not name many of the phonies that he talks about in the book, which to me defeats the whole purpose of exposing phony soldiers, but, then he probably spends less time in court proceedings related to the issue than I do.
The book begins with the story behind the picture on the cover of the book – a stank-ass hippie hugging the Vietnam Wall. The picture was on the Associated Press news wire in 1996. Of course, the person in the picture was not a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War as he claimed to the photographer. Although there was much wrong with the uniform that he’s wearing which would identify a phony, the fact that he tried to become the center of attention also throws up red flags.
Dr. Holtzer runs through a list of reasons that people pretend to have military service, but as we’ve seen here countless times, most of the reasons revolve around bad behavior. We’ve seen phonies who beat their spouses, who default on child support, who have a history of sexual assault. We’ve seen phonies who use their service as an excuse for their crimes, at least one used his phony service to mitigate his murder conviction.
I recommend Dr Holtzer’s book to those who are fairly new to the doings in the Fake Warrior community. He runs through the Supreme Court decision in US vs. Alvarez, in which the 2005 Stolen Valor Act was overturned. He also writes about the process of filing for Freedom of Information Act requests from the National Personnel Records Center. He also lists POWs of the Vietnam era in their various categories as well as the Medal of Honor recipients from Vietnam through the War on Terror, so it’s a good book to have in your library for reference and the stories that he includes are riveting, at least they were for me. As I said, I read the 342 page book in one sitting.
Category: Book Review
Just ordered this book along with Doug Sterner’s book “Restoring Valor” and B. G. Burkett’s “Stolen Valor” (Amazon has them together for $50.57).
I see two basic reasons for so called fake or stolen valor. A mental disorder or they are homeless street people. I see the later all the time here in San Antonio. Neither one really bothers me that much. The street people standing on the street corner (sometimes in uniform) are trying to earn money for booze and cigarettes.
Let me add the category “Just Plain Criminal” to your list Jim. No mental issues or homeless claims, but just those lowlife scammers taking advantage of people’s willingness to support their Servicemembers.
Living here in Slammintonio also, you know what a target rich environment we have here.
You live here in SA? Audie Murphy is always looking for volunteers to help out with our hospitalized veterans. I spend weekend’s with our VA CLC (Hospice, Extended Care).
Yep, every homeless person who stands at stoplights in my town is a “homeless veteran” some of which have the equivalent or nicer phone than I do. They also get picked up everyday at the end of their shift and taken home by someone who orchestrates them to the best locations at the best times.
If you ever try to give them food, most of the time its “no thanks, just money please.”
If vets weren’t so popular and if there weren’t so many veteran issues in the news, they wouldn’t be “vets”. I’d also bet that in certain cities (San Francisco is a good example) they don’t use the homeless veteran sign.
The problem with the mental disorder type is that, I’d wager only a very small percentage of them cannot control their cravings to be fake veterans.
San Antonio seems to attract some bold fakers for some reason. Remember back in the 90’s the Vietnam Veterans’ Museum in downtown SA run by a supposed Vietnam vet? I spent about ten minutes in there before walking out in disgust that the so-called Vietnam vet curator obviously had no clue about anything Vietnamese or anything about ground combat. And he was asking for donations to “support” his museum.
He was finally shut down and run out of SA but it took a while because civilian visitors and the media saw nothing at all wrong with his phony museum. And therein, as all who read here know, lies the biggest obstacle to exposing and punishing these turds, civilian ignorance of things military.
Damn, phony museums seem to be a thing in San Antonio. They closed down a phony State Trooper Museum a few years ago but not before they scammed a few million dollars from the gullible.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Highway-patrol-museum-finished-3822323.php
Some of it is criminal, just to see what they can get away with, but some of it is not. It is the need to fantasize oneself into a convincingly heroic role, either to get attention and sympathy or rip off some naive soul.
People will flock to movies like Star Wars, Star Trek and Ironman, insisting that it’s only entertainment.
Those whose lives are drowning in the sheer boredom of a drab, useless existence secretly want the struggle that exists in these fictitious environments.
They dress like Elves and hobbits, like Starfleet personnel and Imperial stormtroopers, and get themselves up in period costumes for Renaissance Faires. They become re-enactors at Civil War meets and Roman Army get-togethers. They go to a great deal of trouble to become authentically attired Greek and Roman soldiers, Scots clansmen and Vikings.
They can give you detailed information about what they represent, which battles they fought in WWI and WWII, and where they were. They will even try to convince you that they served somewhere important in the last 65 years: Korea, Beirut, Vietnam, the Baltics, the Middle East.
They encroach on the service of current veterans and active duty military who BTDT, when they either never deployed, had less than meritorious service, or in fact, never, ever served.
They adopt the clothing, equipment and personae of long-deceased courtiers and deceased/living warriors of some kind – any kind, in fact – because deep in their cramped, insipid souls, their lives suck like a Hoover vacuum, and they know it.
Well put, Ex-PH2… as the Brits like to call them, they are Walter Mitty’s; unhappy with what life has given them (and unwilling to change it on their own) they act out their fantasies, and hurt people in the process.
But some have successfully gamed the system, especially in politics, like Sen. Blumenthal and Sen. Fauxahontas, who represent, in ol’ Poe’s opinion, just another pair of Democrats trying to spit shine a turd.
Ditto John Kerry.
It seems that Americans love fake people. Actors, politicians, people who dress like women and call themselves Caitlin…
WTF!!!
I’m gonna take gentle issue with lumping historic re-enactors in with that general characterization.
Some may well be as you say, but some are simply history buffs with no deeper motives, methinks.
Oh, Zero, I had to generalize. Re-enactors are frequently infiltrated by people who want to mix space opera with history, and get the history wrong.
Last Sunday I was in Gettysburg. I was walking along Cemetery Ridge when I came up to some guys in Union uniforms explaining and firing a cannon. I know almost nothing about Civil War cannons and had not seen that before so I stopped and watched.
When the exhibition was over, I looked at the equipment and talked to the guys running the gun. Most of them were in their 50s or 60s but there were a couple of younger men. They all knew their subject. We talked powder type and charge (1 pound of 2FA black powder in an aluminum foil package), cannon design (bronze, iron, parrot, steel, rifles, etc), safety, projectiles (shot, shell, case shell), fusing and trimming, operation, and organization. They told me about a shop in town where they sold shells and the rifling was visible on the lead band around the shell. They told me about a competition held annually in Grayling Michigan where people shoot black-powder cannons for accuracy – this year it was in July.
During the presentation the gentleman pointed to a barn and said that it was about 1,000 yards away. There was a white-painted door on that barn about 1 yard wide. He said that this gun could put a 10-pound shell through that door almost every time. He commented that they hadn’t tried it – they thought that the farmer wouldn’t understand.
As I was about to leave, one of the guys thanked me for stopping to see their show and for keeping the knowledge of Gettysburg alive. I suppose that maybe he wanted tourists to keep coming back but it seemed sincere and understated to me.
I did Civil War Reenacting as well. I for the most part enjoyed it, but the reenacting community has a disportionate amount of loons in it.
I really did a lot of self improvement as far as my knowledge of the topic. For ecvvery hour I spent actually on the field I spent about 30 reading up on the subject.
I used to be a WWII reenactor, but the passion died out a few years after joining the Army. The best times I had were interacting with WWII vets of both sides. A group of us that did a Memorial Day reenactment on Fort Knox received a behind-the-ropes tour of the Patton Museum too, including a few warehouses they keep full of equipment and vehicles.
It was my experience that most of the reenactors fell into one of a few groups: wannabes/gonnabes like myself (when I started I was waiting for a waiver to join the military); reservists/Guardsmen who itched for something less mundane than shuffling papers a couple of days a month; retired military personnel who missed their “glory days”; or people who were unable to join the military. Most are avid history buffs and some are “stitch Nazis”–the extreme opposite of “Farbs”.
The units and individuals that seem “off” usually are. Naturally, the swastika and other Nazi symbols are displayed to some extent, but voicing Nazi sentiments is strictly forbidden. Even so, it seemed that some Waffen-SS units were comprised of guys that would fit at a Neo-Nazi meeting, while some of the stuff I used to read on the Red Army Yahoo Group sounded like a Che Guevara accolyte was typing.
The “loons”, at least in the WWII reenacting community, are definitely there. Sometimes the reenactors are phonies honing their skills. Sometimes, the reenactors themselves are taken in by phony veterans. We had an honorary officer of our unit who claimed to have been an Infantryman in WWII. We later found out that he had served, but as a mechanic behind the lines…
I’m inclined to agree with PH2. I find most troubling those who have an enviable career, be in four years or thirty, and feel the need to add medals/insignias/etc. to which they are not qualified. I don’t understand these people. Most of the others are little more than wannabees. Yes, some have a mental issue to cause their behavior. I recall the man who passed within the previous year or so, who had perhaps fifty/sixty medals/wings/insignias/etc. IMHO he clearly had mental issues. But to tarnish an otherwise enviable career? THAT I have more trouble with.
“They dress like Elves and hobbits, like Starfleet personnel and Imperial stormtroopers, and get themselves up in period costumes for Renaissance Faires. They become re-enactors at Civil War meets and Roman Army get-togethers. They go to a great deal of trouble to become authentically attired Greek and Roman soldiers, Scots clansmen and Vikings.”
PH2, you are a wordsmith.
By the way, I should point out that Mark Holzer was helpful to me getting my early writings about John Kerry and the Swiftboat Vets distributed around the Internet when I was a neophyte Web writer.
Thanks professor and good luck on your new book.
Hey PT: Gotta ask – did you make it to the Kerry Lied Rally in DC in ’04? We’ve probably discussed it already, but it was a fun event and my first foray into DC.
Nope, Zero, we were having elderly health issues in my wife’s family at the time. I seem to recall that I wrote something that one of the participants read to the crowd. Can’t be sure since it was almost a decade ago.
Fakes these days can often be a money maker. Take the Elvis impersonators for example. We have one by the name of Jerome Jackson in this area and he does not come cheap.
Maybe some enterprising individual needs to create another sanctioned gig called Military Imposters. Join the M. I. union, get a membership and free patch, and a uniform of your choice. Not to forget a litany of B. S. stories from your imagined, but now sanctioned, days fighting wars. Get a city license to panhandle and there you go. One day you’ll be in the Book of Imposters. Next, comes recognition on TAH. There’s always sympathetic folks willing to help a good story teller. You don’t have to be crazy, just trying to earn a living by playing make believe. After all, who are you hurting, you POS!
Finished “Restoring Valor” last week. Saw that Jonn got mentioned in the book, as well as in the “Thanks to…” page at the end.
Bought both editions. Excellent book and I like to support the cause being a non vet. One of the things I hate most about these phonies is I catch myself sometimes looking side eye at a vet because of them. I’ve never served a day in my life and I feel horrible when I do it. Assholes.
Jp76er, I served and I still wonder when I see, for instance, a Ranger tab decal in a truck window. Don’t feel bad about keeping an eye out for the fakers. I qualify for a VN veteran license plate her in MN, but I would never dream of getting one cuz I did my tour in S. Korea. Others in the same boat – not so much. My father-in-law served during the Korean war and he sports the Korean vet plate. SOB never left the states.
OC
Back on Sept 8th, I lost a warrior. Peter P. Mohan. He was my team leader in B Co 2/505 when the Afghan war was new, and I was 5 years out of the Army “reacclimating” to Army stuff. He helped ME…his “boss”…..to re-learn or learn new stuff….and he passed away this past week. He was the “real deal”….and I feel like a wimp next to him and all my brothers I served with.
Just once I’d like to see a fake veteran who claimed to be a 71L (admin spec) who got their CAB because a rocket landed 190 of the within 200 meters away. (Aw, man, the PowerPoint, it never stopped… )
I hope he included a picture of the False Commander Phil Monkress (CEO All-Points Logistics) and his trifecta of phony claims.
Prof. Holzer was a great mentor to me in writing an article about Military Awards, and I was pleased to assist him in a small way in his book, Fake Warriors, which he indicates in his “Acknowledgements.” My article was based on a Navy Seal Officer who wanted to challenge a Navy Cross given to another Seal, AND the MOH given to a U.S. Senator. The person who put my story on a web site I never heard of, and without my permission, is erroneously shown as the writer in the URL. Accidentally or intentionally, he misinterpreted my article and it was popularly used to attack another Senator who was running for President when my article was published on that site: FreeRepublic.com. It can be read by searching that website and my last name. Here’s the full title:
•MILITARY AWARDS: EARNED OR NOT, WAS THE CRITERIA MET? 2/7/2004 7:02:03 PM · by PhilDragoo · 65 replies · 7,038+ views Fake Warriors.com ^ | Thursday, February 05, 2004 | Gerald F. Merna, 1st Lt, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired)