Stolen Valor

     The other day I ran into a man leaving a restaurant as I was entering.  He was accompanied by a woman and they were both dressed up for the usually very casual Arizona.  The woman's attire didn't really grab my attention, she was in a modest dress but wearing heels, and had some jewelry on her....nothing unusual.  The man's attire, however, caught my attention because he was in full U.S. Army dress uniform.  What was unusual about his appearance was not so much that he was in army dress uniform, but that he had all the ribbons, badges and insignias on his uniform that were totally inappropriate.  Suffice it to say that anyone who has served in the military, especially in the army, would have recognized immediately that everything about the uniform and all of the ribbons and badges that he wore were wrong, improperly arranged and improbable.  He was obviously a phony, and his pompous demeanor as he departed, throwing a casual hand salute to the hostess at the entry, made him appear that much more ludicrous!
     This encounter reminded me of an incident a few years ago that was reported in national news.  The sitting president of the American Legion at that time was discovered to be a phony!  He had claimed that he was a Marine Corps veteran and a decorated veteran of  Vietnam War.  However, it was discovered that he had actually never served in the Marine Corps or any other branch of the service!  This was a major embarrassment for the American Legion, a national organization of veterans of the U.S. military, and it may have been one of the factors that brought about the passing of the Stolen Valor Act of 2013.  It seems that there have been a rash of impersonators, phonies who claimed military service when in fact the vast majority of these pretenders had never served or had been discharged from the military for reasons other than honorable.  Perhaps because we have been involved in two (Afghanistan and Iraq) wars for over 15 years, and now are bogged down in a third (Syria), there are more nut cases running around pretending to be war heroes today, or so it seems, Stolen Valor Act notwithstanding!
     But, the phonies, the pretenders, were always around, probably going back to the cavemen era!  One of the better known cases, although not exactly a complete phony, but still a phony, involved a U.S. Senator back in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin who served in the U.S. Senate from 1947 until 1957 was a true flim-flam man, a con man of the best tradition!  But then again, most politicians are nothing but con men!  McCarthy was best known for his "Red" or "Commie" scare that he created in 1950s.  He claimed that various people in the government as well as in the private sector were nothing more than agents of the Communist International, the Comintern, the Soviet apparatus for spreading communism throughout the world.  McCarthy launched a witch hunt that destroyed the lives of countless people that he accused of being a "commie."  He was responsible for ruining the lives and careers of many, both in government and in private sector, particularly in Hollywood.  His Senate Hearings were nothing but a witch hunt.
     McCarthy was riding high, and he was possibly the most feared Senator on the hill in his prime.  But then a reporter dug into his background and discovered some things.  McCarthy, who served in the Marine Corps during World War Two in the Pacific, as an Intelligence Briefing Officer for a bomber squadron, claimed that he had flown on 32 harrowing combat missions and had been wounded and performed heroic deeds to earn a medal for valor along with a Purple Heart for wounds received in combat. But, the truth was that he had broken his leg aboard a ship in a drunken brawl when the ship crossed the equator, a traditional celebration that sailors hold!  He had also tagged along as an observer on 12 occasions on bombing missions and on one of those missions the plane he was on was shot at by the Japanese.  McCarthy not only write up a commendation for himself for valor, but somehow incorporated his drunken brawl on a ship with a combat flight on a bomber and got a Purple Heart as well. He also claimed that his comrades-in-arms had given him a nickname of "Tail Gunner Joe" out of respect.  During World War Two, a tail gunner on a bomber was considered to be in the most dangerous job of all bomber crew members, very vulnerable, exposed to enemy fire.  Turns out, he gave that nickname to himself!  Naturally, before the truth about his war experience was discovered, he was treated as somewhat of a war hero.  But the when the truth was revealed and combined with his made up accusations against innocent people, he fell from grace very quickly.
     Joe McCarthy did serve in the Marine Corps during the war.  But he was not a combat Marine and he certainly did not fly 32 combat missions and receive those awards that he managed to somehow secure through his own citation writing!  His claim to have been a war hero was definitely wrong.  He lied and cheated to get those awards.  So, he too is guilty of Stolen Valor, although he was indeed a veteran.