There Has to Be Two Sides to Every IssueBut this is a
tad ridiculous. Talking about phony SEALs and other wannabes, the WSJ reports:
Challenges to the authenticity of a medal -- or to the event that led to the award -- can have devastating consequences. Adm. Jeremy Boorda committed suicide in 1996 after Newsweek magazine inquired about two combat decorations that were allegedly unearned.
For that reason, among others, some civilians find the zeal to unmask fake honorees disquieting; these critics compare the Web-site operators to vigilantes and wonder what all the fuss is about.
Even Pam Roach, a Washington state senator who in March 2004 spearheaded a new law that makes it a crime to profit by falsely claiming to be a military veteran, has some reservations about the Web sites. "Determining if someone served in the military is easy, but what's in the middle -- the medals and the honors -- is tough to prove," she says.Actually, they are not all that tough to prove, as we learned during the presidential campaign last year. With all the controversy over Kerry's Purple Hearts, and Silver and Bronze Star, nobody questioned the fact that he had received the awards.
Boorda's case is not even close to what most of the article is about--people who falsely claim to have been stud military types, like Rangers, or SEALs or even worse, people who pretend to have been POWs. Many of these types use their supposed credibility as elite soldiers to talk against the US military.
Ward Churchill and
Micah Wright are just the most recent examples.
