Heros are as Heros do - or something like that

This post comes on the tail of an email I received earlier this week about a guy who has retired from the service and had to go out of his way to be listed with "Wounded Warrior" status. His 'disability' wasn't originally listed as "combat related" so he fought to get it over-turned ... and won. He's participated in Wounded Warrior events etc.

All very well and good. Until the email. The email casts this persons' claims in some doubt. Did he really go through all the stuff he said he went through? Were his injuries really combat-related or were they problems he's had for a while? Is it really PTSD, or is he just an attention-seeker?

"Wait," you say, "people don't do that."

Aye, verily and sadly, they do. Back in the late '90s when I was editing a newspaper in Alaska, I had a conversation with a gentleman who worked in our building and he told me his story of his time in Vietnam. It was quite the conversation to be sure, and when it was over, I had the complete story of how he had earned the Medal of Honor.

Fantastic. It was a great story. It was near Veterans' Day and we could have this bono-fide hero come out and tell his tale etc etc etc.

But it wasn't true. About a week after the story ran, I got a call from an organization in D.C. They asked me some questions: "Let me guess," the guy said, "He was sent forward as part of a small team - but a team outside his unit" check.  "He was involved in a firefight and he was the only one left alive." Check. "His records mysteriously disappeared in a fire at an Army storage facility" Check. "He's lying to you. We have a list of everyone who has ever been awarded the Medal of Honor, and this guy's not on the list. And he's not the first to lie about it."

Wow. That sucked. This guy flat out lied to me. He sure seemed to believe what he was saying, but other than him being in the Army and maybe being in Vietnam, the rest was about as fake as a campaign speech.

So, now here we are, more than a decade and a couple wars later, and people are still pulling this stuff?  Granted, I don't know that the Wounded Warrior guy is lying - maybe he's not. But I've heard from some people who were there at the same time as the guy, and the story they remember is significantly different.

If the guy IS lying, I think he's utter scum trying to grab a little, I don't know, glory?, for himself while men and women who really have lost limbs, eyes, motor function etc., are doing what they can to get by and have no desire to say "look at me, aren't I a hero".  Still, the real dirt-bags in this fetid little tale are the people who must have written letters on this guy's behalf.

I've read his story and it just doesn't sound 'right'. It sounds like something everyone in the country would have been talking about for at least a little while had it happened like he described it. The brazeness of his story - if untrue - is shocking. I'm not going to link to this story because I don't think it should get any more plan than is warranted - which if not true, is none - but it's hard to disprove something like this unless a bunch of people who were there come forward to set the record straight. It certainly wouldn't be a task to take lightly and it wouldn't be something that could be done quickly and without significant emotional distress for all involved - so what would you do?

But how do the powers that be tell if he (or anyone else for that matter) is telling the truth? That's the question. You don't want to not take people at their word, but you also don't want to put the hero designation on someone who is an outright liar - that's just a slap in the face to those who have earned the honorific.

I've got no answers, just a bit of bile at the back of my throat. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know. (And, no, I wasn't there and I don't know the guy).

On a slightly lighter but still semi-related note... I opened a book last night that I hadn't opened in a while and an old airline ticket fell out which is unremarkable except for the notes I had written on it.

It happened on a flight from Atlanta to Newport News, Virginia on Aug 24 (probably 2005) in Seat 7C. I was sitting next to an elderly man and we got to chatting about where we were heading etc., and it turns out this guy, R.W. Rubley was a WWII veteran on his way to a reunion. Mr. Rubley was a truck driver with the 95th Quartermaster Company, driving routes on the Red Ball Express - a logistics operation that opened roads in newly occupied Europe and allowed only RBE vehicles access in order to quickly get needed supplies to the front lines. 

Rubley was driving a truck loaded with Coke, shaving cream, and chocolate among other things, when he was waved down by a soldier on the side of the road. He stopped and after he answered the question "what are you carrying", the soldier approached his truck. In Rubley's own words, "I was shaking, what the hell do I do now? So, [this soldier] tells me that I'm to go to tell Colonel so-and-so to take the contents of this truck and shove it up his ass and fill it up with fuel and bring it back."

That was how a 20-year old soldier in 1945 came to meet Gen. George S. Patton. 

And people who pretend to be heroes should all have to sit with some real ones for a while to learn what integrity, honor and self-respect really mean.