Monday, November 4, 2013
Overheard recently from a young Afghanistan vet:
"I hear a lot of soldiers say it really pisses them off when they hear about guys who've never even been in the military claim they've been to war. I think it's called stolen valor or something. Personally, I couldn't care less. I lie to girls all the time in order to get laid. If some idiot wants to claim he's had my stupid job in order to get laid, go right ahead. It doesn't bother me in the least."
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15 comments:
Loads of sociopaths lie about this: http://www.lovefraud.com/beware-the-sociopath/how-to-spot-a-con/is-he-or-she-military/
- Gethin
Gethin --
I've always been under the impression that a lot of sociopaths falsely claim to have been in Special Operations. With most of these guys, it's not enough to just lie about having been in, say, the infantry. They have to say they were Navy Seals, or Marine Force Recon, or the like. I think a lot of sociopaths also falsely claim to have been in the CIA.
I don't get lying about having been part of an elite organisation such as the CIA or MI5. I think if I were in such an organisation then keeping the secret would, in my opinion, be a crucial part of the package - even after retirement. If the intelligence service ever recruited me then I think I'd enjoy telling people "I'm a civil servant" or "I work for the local government" and letting them imagine me as a boring office worker. Part of the thrill would be to keep everything secret. Then again, I'm not the type who sees much value in trying to impress people - I'm happy to let them think of me as being a bit dull. Sociopaths, on the other hand, thrive off the admiration they get, even when they haven't done anything to deserve it. So "CIA agents" who tell the whole world about it set off pretty loud alarm bells.
- Gethin
Gethin --
I was going to answer the first part of your comment but then I saw tat you answered it yourself.
I have to admit, if I'd ever been James Bond, I'd want people to know it; I hope I'd be discreet enough not to disclose it, but at a certain level, I can certainly understand the hankering for glory.
Steven Seagal, the American actor, is infamous of shaving claimed to have been in the CIA, which he obviously never was. That claim does seem to be in keeping with the rest of his personality.
PS -- Given that actual CIA operatives are sworn to secrecy for the rest of their lives, anyone saying that he was in the CIA is basically admitting that he was not.
Espionage wouldn't be as glamorous as anything seen in the James Bond films; it would be more like Wiesler's job in 'The Lives of Others'. If you check out MI5's recruitment webpage, you'll see that they're calling for linguists and IT specialists, which suggests that their work centres around monitoring phone calls and hacking into email accounts. The only time you'd ever have anything as exciting as James Bond would be in MI6 (the secret service missions abroad - I don't know much about the CIA, so I use this as an example). I read a book about an MI6 officer in Northern Ireland who had to infiltrate the IRA, really putting his own life at risk. The IRA shot him after they found out (they worked it out because their plans kept getting sabotaged whenever the spy was involved) and he only survived because his neighbours heard the gunshot. If you were doing something that risky, you wouldn't want to tell anyone because there would be too much at stake (the phrase "loose lips sink ships" comes into mind).
Anon -- (Gethin?) --
I get the impression the CIA is the same way. Lots of the kinds of stuff the NSA has gotten publicity for recently. I think even the majority of CIA jobs abroad involve a sort of generalized intelligence-gathering that involves no infiltration, i.e., what is the mood of the populace, how does the economy seem to be doing, how restrictive is the government, how ugh corruption is there, etc. That still leaves room for a few James Bonds, but most of the missions we might associate with him in the movies are actually carried out by military special operations units these days (killing Osama, rescuing hostages, etc.).
Yeah, it's Gethin - forgot to sign my name. I've used the CIA World Factbook quite a few times and I did wonder whether they got the information for it from first hand research. I wonder how they gather data for North Korea? Do you reckon they actually have agents in the country (maybe posing as UN officials) or do you think they just gather intelligence whilst stationed in the South?
Gethin --
Your guess is as good as mine. If the CIA does have agents stationed inside, I'd have to imagine it's not exactly considered a plum assignment.
I can imagine that the CIA has agents in every country except, possibly, North Korea (we can only guess about that). I was in Austria a while ago and met an American guy who was a permanent resident there. When I asked him what he did he gave me a very vague answer ("I work in development") and then changed the subject, so I wondered if he was CIA/DEA. He most probably wasn't, but it still sounds the type of vague answer an actual spy would give.
Gethin (?) --
I would imagine that a CIA guy would have a better cover story though. I've known two guys who I were pretty sure were CIA, and both had completely credible cover stories, in fact jobs they actually worked at.
Why did you suspect that they were CIA agents?
Anon --
Long story in each case, and it would actually be indiscreet of me to say, so forgive me, but I'm going to remain mum.
If you know me personally, send me an email and I'll partially explain one of them.
I'm a USMC vet, married to a USMC vet, and our grown son is currently an active-duty Marine.
I have a small disability rating and thus have full V.A. privileges. I spend a fair amount of time at V.A. facilities. I'm also that woman who chats with, well - ANYBODY - so I have met and known hundreds of vets in my after-the-service lifetime. Okay, so there are my 'credentials' for what I'm about to say. Read on.
The fact is most veterans will simply allow you to think they were in or very close to combat - IF they don't implicitly say so. Lying by omission, as it were. Are they "sociopaths?" *lol* Emphatically NO! Most of these guys have been decent people, decent citizens. They worked, took care of their families, paid their mortgages. Average people, most often. So why would they lie about having been in combat, or allow others to believe they were? Simple, really. Because, gentlemen, combat is where the "guts and glory" are. That's the meat of the thing. That's THE mission. The fact is, almost no one gets an MOH for counting helmets in supply or running a classified comm circuit (as I did) or wiring a combat jet (as my husband did) . . . unless they happen to be over-run by the enemy and put in the position to be a REAL hero - which is rare, rare, rare. The fact is this: for every one man in a direct combat role, there are at least 10-12 others doing work that supports him. Support personnel are cooks, supply, motor t, comm, combat engineers, armory personnel, admin pukes, logistics, JAGS, medical personnel, even military photographers and journalists, and on and on.
When a you ask a vet of a certain age if they were "in Vietnam", most of the time they'll say yes - even if they were stationed in Germany or way back "in the rear with the gear." Frankly, I find this mostly innocuous lie about having been in combat understandable. Nowadays, complete strangers go up to vets and thank them for their service. They refer to all of us as "heros." And you know something? It makes me uncomfortable. Sorry, it just does. When I've had the chance to engage in a real conversation with strangers about this, I inform them that not everyone joins the service for high falutin' reasons such as God, mom, and country. Many people join to get out of their small towns, leave behind some bad personal situations, or because other options (like higher education opportunities) just aren't feasible. Some military personnel aren't nice people, either. There are rapists, family abusers, potential murderers just looking for a reason. There are shit-bags and dirt-bags who hate being in and do the worst possible job they can get away with. There are malingerers and lazy bums who do anything to get out of field exercises and unpleasant duties. There are unprincipled assholes whose SRBs (Service Record Books) look perfect and yet I wouldn't let them water my houseplants! No, ladies and gentlemen, not every vet is a "hero."
Vets know that it's extremely difficult to find out details about someone's military record. If they allow you to think they were "in the shit" (combat), it's usually a white lie. You can find out the truth if you ask the right questions, though. I'm NOT talking about, say, someone running for office who tells a journalist they won this and that award, fought in Fallujah, saved a bunch of their buddies from certain death, or whatever. Those guys ARE complete ASSHOLES and maybe actual sociopaths. Their socio-political ambition gets in the way of their ethics, obviously, and when they're found out they deserve every bit of public humiliation and censure that comes down on their head. I'm talking about your everyday veteran, all right? They aren't "sociopaths" - rather they're just a bit ashamed they didn't do a job they consider more important than, say, folding uniforms. That's all.
USMC Vet --
That was a great comment. Balanced, thoughtful, and well-informed. I just showed it to my son and he laughed and said that the majority of combat stories from actual veterans are, if not lies, at least exaggerated. Still, anyone who puts himself in that situation deserves a lot of credit for having taken the risk of being in an even riskier situation than he found himself in.
The people I think are often sociopaths, by the way, are the people who never served and who made up their stories of glorious service out of whole cloth. That's an entirely different type of dishonesty than allowing a misimpression to stand, which involves no active lying. Of course, as you point out, there are some bad apples in the military, too, as there are everywhere.
Thank you for your comment.
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