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Fake veteran called out by actual soldier may face federal charges

I'm guessing here (pure speculation) but since the guy was in full fatigues, asking for an ID wouldn't have been needed. The only people who really would have seen through the costume (in this case that what it was since he is not in the military) was someone who also wore the uniform and could identify the slight mistakes. Unless the clerk working in the store was also a recent vet, I wouldn't expect they'd question him.

Good point.
 
I'm guessing here (pure speculation) but since the guy was in full fatigues, asking for an ID wouldn't have been needed. The only people who really would have seen through the costume (in this case that what it was since he is not in the military) was someone who also wore the uniform and could identify the slight mistakes. Unless the clerk working in the store was also a recent vet, I wouldn't expect they'd question him.

Your ID card is a part of your uniform. You're required to have it, along with all your other required accoutrements.
 
This further leads me to believe that the US Army, Air Force, and Navy need to cease their practice of allowing soldiers/airmen/sailors to wear utilities off base.

A little background on this. In case you guys didn't know, Marines are not allowed to wear utilities off base except to and from base and to special events that are approved by Headquarters Marine Corps. Examples of unauthorized wearing would be stopping for gas on the way home, stopping at McDonald's and going in, etc. Authorized wearing would be Fleet Week in NYC or a static display at a military appreciation event. Marines can also go through a drive through in cammies but not a Sonic (the vehicle stops). Don't ask me why, I didn't make the rules.

The reasons the other branches should cease this is that the service uniforms are A) Harder to fake. Utilities are pretty easy to fake. You can throw them on, look at a picture online of someone else wearing them to try and get it close, and off you go. B) Is more expensive. There are a lot of gadgets, ribbons, etc you have to buy for a dress uniform and they can get pricey. Also, you aren't going to find many serviceable service uniforms at a Army Navy surplus. C) It is easy to look like crap in a service uniform if you don't know what you're doing. Everything from the allowable distance between the bottom of your trousers to the heel of the shoe to double creases to length of the belt end are things a real service member would know. Some of us get a few of those things wrong sure. But not egregiously and not all together. If it is out of regulations, it's usually only barely out. D) Personally, I think the other branches look like crap out there in utilities. They aren't made to be presented to the public. They are made for utility type work ie conducting maintenance on trucks, training, etc.

When my husband was in the Army, there was a policy of no BDUs in public. He complains every time we see soldiers wearing their BDUs, when they are shopping, etc. He swears that they do just it to get attention. :lol: He has also wondered aloud, several times, when this policy changed.
 
Your ID card is a part of your uniform. You're required to have it, along with all your other required accoutrements.

a 17 year old clerk at Old Navy isn't going to know this.
 
When my husband was in the Army, there was a policy of no BDUs in public. He complains every time we see soldiers wearing their BDUs, when they are shopping, etc. He swears that they do just it to get attention. :lol: He has also wondered aloud, several times, when this policy changed.
I've been told that the policy didn't change, only the enforcement of it. Pisses me off as well. The Army has a lot of things to fix due to the surge of people they got from the War on Terror. Those guys took anyone with a heartbeat for about 5 years there.
 
The first dead giveaway was that fat tub of **** isn't a serving ranger.
 
Your ID card is a part of your uniform. You're required to have it, along with all your other required accoutrements.

Agreed, but I doubt a civilian working on Black Friday would know that, or would probably feel disrespectful asking for it. An actual soldier would have no issue showing it though...
 
The first dead giveaway was that fat tub of **** isn't a serving ranger.

:lamo

That and look at his mannerism - he sounds fake doesn't he?
 
:lamo

That and look at his mannerism - he sounds fake doesn't he?

A real soldiwr wouldn't have played 20 questions with the guy...lol!

It would have been like: "**** you. Who the **** are you? Mind your own ****ing business. I'll kick your ****ing ass...let me put my Dillard's bag down"
 
I've been told that the policy didn't change, only the enforcement of it. Pisses me off as well. The Army has a lot of things to fix due to the surge of people they got from the War on Terror. Those guys took anyone with a heartbeat for about 5 years there.

Yup, and they are often treated like royalty now. I wonder if this would piss me off so much if my husband hadn't had to go through what he did.
 
So?........

Agreed, but I doubt a civilian working on Black Friday would know that, or would probably feel disrespectful asking for it. An actual soldier would have no issue showing it though...

Thank you, Ockham, for answering him.

Although I'm not quite sure why it needed to be answered by either of us. Thought it was pretty self-explanatory. :shrug:
 
Kind of makes me think about the level of privilege soldiers have in our culture's iconography, and how impersonating that is some kind of sacrilege.

We shouldn't venerate all soldiers. Some people use the military to get through college, and they get nice cushy jobs in the military -- no self-sacrifice required. I don't really view those people with the same level of esteem as someone who fought in a war zone and saw their friends die. But they seem to receive a sort of carte blanche kind of pride, regardless of what they did.

People shouldn't impersonate someone in the military, anymore than they should impersonate a cop or someone in government. On the other hand, I don't think upper class people who get high ranks in the military and basically do nothing should get my respect either.

As a retired Navy man, I strongly agree that we've taken the almost-worship of military vets too far. Yes, those who are truly disabled - and especially those who are combat-wounded - should have some privileges...but not ALL veterans. After all, most retired military will agree that their service was more of a privilege than a soul-crushing burden.
 
This further leads me to believe that the US Army, Air Force, and Navy need to cease their practice of allowing soldiers/airmen/sailors to wear utilities off base.

A little background on this. In case you guys didn't know, Marines are not allowed to wear utilities off base except to and from base and to special events that are approved by Headquarters Marine Corps. Examples of unauthorized wearing would be stopping for gas on the way home, stopping at McDonald's and going in, etc. Authorized wearing would be Fleet Week in NYC or a static display at a military appreciation event. Marines can also go through a drive through in cammies but not a Sonic (the vehicle stops). Don't ask me why, I didn't make the rules.

The reasons the other branches should cease this is that the service uniforms are A) Harder to fake. Utilities are pretty easy to fake. You can throw them on, look at a picture online of someone else wearing them to try and get it close, and off you go. B) Is more expensive. There are a lot of gadgets, ribbons, etc you have to buy for a dress uniform and they can get pricey. Also, you aren't going to find many serviceable service uniforms at a Army Navy surplus. C) It is easy to look like crap in a service uniform if you don't know what you're doing. Everything from the allowable distance between the bottom of your trousers to the heel of the shoe to double creases to length of the belt end are things a real service member would know. Some of us get a few of those things wrong sure. But not egregiously and not all together. If it is out of regulations, it's usually only barely out. D) Personally, I think the other branches look like crap out there in utilities. They aren't made to be presented to the public. They are made for utility type work ie conducting maintenance on trucks, training, etc.

That's not a bad suggestion.

And while it would certainly be easier to spot a uniform violation on a man or woman wearing a service uniform, 3 CIBs on fatigues would be hard to miss. :roll:

Once when traveling on TDY orders on commercial air from Offutt AFB to Barksdale AFB with a friend from my squadron I noticed that he was wearing his badge on his service uniform. Back then we were required to wear a service uniform to travel commercial transportation. I asked him why he was wearing it and he said that he had forgotten to take it off and "@#$% it anyway".

We had been in the terminal walking around and waiting on our flight for less than 20 minutes when a guy (civilian clothes) came up and asked if my friend was escorting me, was I his prisoner? The guy badged us, OSI, and told my friend that if he wasn't on duty that he needed to take off his badge. My badge was in my AWOL bag. I was cool...and laughing my ass off.
 
As a retired Navy man, I strongly agree that we've taken the almost-worship of military vets too far. Yes, those who are truly disabled - and especially those who are combat-wounded - should have some privileges...but not ALL veterans. After all, most retired military will agree that their service was more of a privilege than a soul-crushing burden.

I don't think we've taken it too far. That someone can lie about who they are is protected but, they cannot profit from the lie. In this case, it remains to be seen if this Sean Yetman did profit. To me, someone like this diminishes the service and sacrifice many have made and will continue to make. If Sean wants to wear the uniform he should volunteer like everyone else has for the past 40 years. I would think no matter the outcome, the public shaming by an actual veteran may be adequate and serve as a warning to other wannabes. Frankly, I like that our military is revered instead of despised.
 
Read more and video @: Fake veteran called out by actual soldier may face federal charges

Saw this video earlier this week. Its really disgusting that people impersonate soldiers to get some sort of personal ego trip or some sort of deal. I'm glad that he got called out for his disgusting acts and I hope that if he did indeed break a law be persecuted for it. [/FONT][/COLOR]

I don't think we should prosecute him - instead, I think that anyone who does that should be immediately drafted and sent forthwith to the crappiest duty stations on the planet (as long as it's a place where they can't endanger the real military personnel). Their rank would be E-0 (one step below E-1), and they would wear a big-assed crap-brown medal that everyone would recognize as being worn by someone who impersonated the military. Sure, give 'em the opportunity to advance...but they'd still have to wear that crap-brown medal.

Put him on a ship with me, and he'd learn just how crappy life can be...and then let the Marines have him, and he can find out just how good he had it on board the ship....

Yeah, I'm a far-left progressive...but when it comes to military impersonators, yeah, there's more than a few of my fellow military retirees here who despise those impersonators just as much (or even more) than I do.
 
I don't think we've taken it too far. That someone can lie about who they are is protected but, they cannot profit from the lie. In this case, it remains to be seen if this Sean Yetman did profit. To me, someone like this diminishes the service and sacrifice many have made and will continue to make. If Sean wants to wear the uniform he should volunteer like everyone else has for the past 40 years. I would think no matter the outcome, the public shaming by an actual veteran may be adequate and serve as a warning to other wannabes. Frankly, I like that our military is revered instead of despised.

Revered is good...but only up to a certain point. Taken too far, and it's detrimental to the society as a whole.
 
I will ask you again, seeing as how you ignored my question the first time.

Did you serve?

I'm sorry but I couldn't help but laugh reading the first sentence -- sounds like my wife, hands on her hips and everything. :mrgreen:
 
I'm sorry but I couldn't help but laugh reading the first sentence -- sounds like my wife, hands on her hips and everything. :mrgreen:

Well, I almost had my hands on my hips asking. :lol: Fat lot of good it did, though, as NW never answered me.
 
But that doesn't belittle the fact that they served. Just because somebody is a mental patient doesn't mean that they don't deserve respect. Remember that a lot of people developed mental health issues as a result of their service. And 5 figures could be as little as 10K a year, which is around minimum wage. :)



OK. I will say this. I am the wife of a Vietnam-era Vet. Nobody knows the frustration of this more than I do. People coming back today are thrown parades, given free houses, free cars, and made out to be heroes, even if they never left the motor pool or the mess hall. Todays soldiers come back heroes and have possibly never even seen combat. Vietnam vets came back and were spat on. My husband had to remove his uniform when he disembarked his plane, along with all the other soldiers, because his company commander didn't want them to be spat on, or called baby killers.

Big difference in the way they were treated, and it stinks. You see homeless vets now? I'd bet 80% or higher are Vietnam vets.

The issue I have is this -- people shouldn't talk about things they don't understand. If they've never served, they don't have the right to complain about the military. Put on a uniform, walk a mile in a soldier's boots, or be the wife or the child of a soldier, and then they can talk. Otherwise, they can STFU.

I wore the uniform from 1970 to 1974 and was never spat on or called a baby killer. That doesn't mean it never happened but I don't believe it was that wide spread.
I think the number who were spat on probably equals the number of military members now days who get free houses and free cars.

You seem to have a ax to grind about our current military members for some reason. Yes, in some ways they may have things better than us who served during the Vietnam era as I am certain I had it better than those who served in WW1.
So what?
 
When my husband was in the Army, there was a policy of no BDUs in public. He complains every time we see soldiers wearing their BDUs, when they are shopping, etc. He swears that they do just it to get attention. :lol: He has also wondered aloud, several times, when this policy changed.

I was Army and that was a local policy that is usually used in areas where service members have been targeted, such as Hawaii. We had that policy in Hawaii but didn't in Denver.
 
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Read more and video @: Fake veteran called out by actual soldier may face federal charges

Saw this video earlier this week. Its really disgusting that people impersonate soldiers to get some sort of personal ego trip or some sort of deal. I'm glad that he got called out for his disgusting acts and I hope that if he did indeed break a law be persecuted for it.
As a Vet, it is wrong and I still couldn't care less. It isn't a criminal act.
It is not like he is falsely receiving Veteran benefits from the Gov.

And no, at the time of the video (learning differently later) the guy didn't prove that he wasn't a vet, only that he may be misrepresenting his actual awards.
For all we knew at that point is he could have been a disabled Veteran that lost his ability to think rationally in some areas, and as such, engages in embellishment of his actual achievements.
Frankly, if that had been the case I would be more pissed off at the guy taking the video.



And to all you crying over this: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
 
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Thank you, Ockham, for answering him.

Although I'm not quite sure why it needed to be answered by either of us. Thought it was pretty self-explanatory. :shrug:

Ockam was cordial enough to explain what he meant. I expect that from, but not so much from other folks. ;-)
 
As a Vet, it is wrong and I still couldn't care less. It isn't a criminal act.
It is not like he is falsely receiving Veteran benefits from the Gov.

And no, at the time of the video (learning differently later) the guy didn't prove that he wasn't a vet, only that he may be misrepresenting his actual awards.
For all we knew at that point is he could have been a disabled Veteran that lost his ability to think rationally in some areas, and as such, engages in embellishment of his actual achievements.
Frankly, if that had been the case I would be more pissed off at the guy taking the video.

And to all you crying over this: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I'm not crying...but I am disgusted. According to USA Today, there is no record of Yetman ever serving. (Also according to this newspaper, nobody has been prosecuted yet under the 2013 law. Perhaps Yetman will be the first.)

Yetman isn't man enough to have served in law enforcement or the military, but he certainly has invested time in his invented narrative of service. Imitating is one thing; posing--misrepresenting oneself, possibly for financial gain, is another.
 
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