[Ronin]

In my experience, veterans themselves are some of the worst. Anyone with a military ID card can walk into any base uniform shop and walk out with a bunch of ribbons and any special qualification badges.

There was a Chief at my last command who wore the Combat V on his Bronze Star until he got called on it. That was the same reason Boorda shot himself.

I take reasonable pride in my 13 years of Naval Service, but God knows I didn’t do anything heroic or earth-shaking in that time.

As for the civvie pukes who claim to be SEALs and snipers. They always get caught eventually. I have more pity for them than anything else. Especially given the huge numbers of actual combat vets out there these days who can spot a phony in a heartbeat.

[colorado tanker]

It's always SEALS or Special Forces. Never heard of an impostor claiming to have served in the Quartermaster Corps. :-))

[Joe 6-pack]

"Anyone with a military ID card can walk into any base uniform shop and walk out with a bunch of ribbons and any special qualification badges."

In the Army we called them "PX Rangers".

[Riley]

Years ago I worked at a place that sold, amongst other things, military collectibles. Some of the jokers who walked in claiming to 'want to put their old uniform back together' had to be 'helped' to identify their old rank insignia. They had no idea what units they belonged to- and bouncing a little jargon off of them to probe their authenticity elicited the expected embarrassed blank stare. One dude claimed to have been a sniper working the Ho Chi Minh trail- FROM SAIGON. Not 'based out of', but firing position IN SAIGON. I couldn't resist asking if he was using a scoped railroad gun.
The owner said 'just smile and take their money'.

Turned out the owner had significantly inflated his own service claims as well, so I see why he held that position.

[A.A. Cunningham]

There was a Chief at my last command who wore the Combat V on his Bronze Star until he got called on it. That was the same reason Boorda shot himself.

A myth perpetuated by the unknowing. Boorda quit wearing the Combat V device on his Navy Commendation Medal and Navy Achievement Medal, not the Bronze Star, over a year prior to shooting himself. Also, Boorda was being treated by a private physician for depression, unbeknownst to his superiors which was a violation of Naval regulations, at the time he killed himself. Claiming that you definitively know why Boorda shot himself makes you look just as foolish as those idiots in the liberal dominated mass media.

[infowarrior]

I take reasonable pride in my 13 years of Naval Service, but God knows I didn’t do anything heroic or earth-shaking in that time.

Same here, although my service was a year longer, and in the Army. Closest I ever came to *heroism* is that I might have helped save a few lives during one tour of duty where I had the opportunity to infrequently fly kidneys destined for transplant from the place I was station to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The rest? Just doing my job, as best I could...

the infowarrior