Stolen Valor and InfantryFacts.com Is A Lie

Ah, the ever present internet has created another false prophet.  This post addresses the statements by InfantryFacts.com - his stolen valor of our service members and degradation of us measly little military wives.  I am not just a house wife though.  I'm a well spoken mother, military wife (twice over, including first one being infantry), daughter, granddaughter (twice over) and niece.  Though I wasn't able to join the military myself for medical reasons, I think with my surroundings I must bleed little American flags.  Even if we ran with his "I'm Infantry", he had to have been in the service at least a decade ago before all this started, then he had to re-enlist, against his conscience to have any semblance of current service members tribulations.  How does that make sense?  In fact, I have a pretty good idea who of who the actual creator is in Twitterland and have constantly had a problem with the lies and assertions from there too.  It's all ripped from conspiracy headlines, sometimes damn near verbatim from places like Above Top Secret.  Because it's becoming a pattern, I want to address it.

More after the jump

Courtesy www.nationaltransportllc.com

I was alerted to an original tweet of his by a friend retweeting one of his on Twitter.  She bears no responsibility in this, she's a decent person, but I took issue with what was being said, not with her but the original writer who also shares his Twitter handle with a website he's created.  The problem is, he has called it Infantry Facts when it's painfully obvious not only is it full of unsourced opinions, but it's also blatant lies.  He also made fun of me for taking issue with his "version of facts".  Go ahead and make fun of me, I have always freely admitted I have a HUGE problem with people like him mocking our military members, their struggles and their realities.  I've also freely admitted I have my own problems with the military system.  I also found it extremely laughable this person attacked our President, the war and only once in the conversation did he provide a single source.  From 2003.  Now, call my silly, but if someone is so against the war, why would they sign up and continue to serve?

This faceless "fact spreader" then called my husband's integrity into question, that he must be lying to me about his service.  This is all based on the fact that I called out his lies - so he moved to *me* as the liar, then my husband.  He also attacked military wives with the assertion we are stupid to military life.  Any respecting service member doesn't attack the home front.  Our men and women have it hard, but I've heard countless times that they believe those back home have it worse, especially those with children.  I'm not there and he's not here so I cannot compare.  I do know that in one deployment, I suffered silently with a very difficult pregnancy and by the time he got home, I was in a wheelchair.  I know that another deployment, I not only was hospitalized myself taken by ambulance, but both kids were extremely ill and I dealt with my son and his first inpatient visit (later determined to be bipolar disorder).  I dealt with all this on my own, including the daily grind, all the social and school work for the kids, doctors appointments for everyone, medication adjustments and the teared, prying eyes of children asking where Daddy is so often it breaks your heart to hear the words.  It's not easy on him to be gone, it's not easy on me to be gone.  But I know that in no way, shape or form would any service member attack "stupid military wives" or our family members "lying war stories".

 

Though I should freely admit, I've talked at length with my family about their war stories, my husband isn't one of them.  At the time, I told him I didn't want to know and now that he is out, I don't care to hear since my father is still going back and forth, fresh from Afghanistan a couple months ago and will be going again soon.  I've talked about everything from Vietnam to Kosovo to Bosnia.  I refuse to talk about Afghanistan or Iraq.  So I appreciate the little jab however far off base.

The site itself is full of anecdotes out of the movies.  Some real Full Metal Jacket Hollywood drama.  Now, I'm supposed to "trust" this person, as he assumes everyone should, just because he says he's a military person.  I'd venture, but tone and by sheer amount of experience in not only everyday interactions, but my own research on the Stolen Valor law (as of this moment, still ruled unconstitutional) that this is a very bitter man, who most likely wanted to get into the military and was rejected, or possibly made it into basic and was "that guy" that complained about everything being too hard.

The assertions of the military lying on everything from basic to enlistment numbers are astounding.  Some claims are well known from the pages of headlines, the rest is "oh I have an inside guy who knows a guy" that completely contradicts, well - everything.  Again, this doesn't make sense, if someone is so ill at the thought of all things military (it's beginning to sound more like a foreigner honestly, but I can't prove that, so I'll present it as thought) why would they enlist and continue to re-enlist?  So either way, this guy is a dingbat.  He either has the experience (and was stupid for staying in) or doesn't have it (and is lying).  I could just as easily write a skydiving site, claim to be an expert by ripping some headlines and a couple of pamphlets - but are you going to let me take you on a jump?

The choice to join the military should NOT be taken lightly.  But it also shouldn't be based on some websites that went from "facts" to "opinions" back to "facts" after putting the questioner on block.  It's not easy, no one claims it is.  It's not always a blast, no one claims it is.  It's not fancy suits and the officer's club.  No one claims it is.  It's tough, dirty, hard work in ANY job field.

After all this, upon the challenge of him, he now changes his comments to my going after his opinion.  Gee, but I thought it was Infantry FACTS? Silly me!  So when I tweeted this and actually laughed out loud and with my Twitter followers, he still did not reproduce his "sources" that he kept rambling on and on about.  Now, I challenged his positions, yet - I was supposed to prove him wrong?  I didn't make the assertions and this tactic is extremely common of someone writing from the peripherals who doesn't truly have any information or proof.  I've encountered it frequently (I can't help but get in the middle of a good political debate).  It became the same when I challenged a man's tweet on atheism and science. (Article forthcoming.)  His comments were not of his source, didn't pertain to his source, so it became opinion.  I don't mind opinions at all.  It's when it becomes this persons mission to pass it off as fact.

I've constantly and consistently debated all sorts of topics, both visible in my history on Twitter (still available) and on internet forums.  I've disagreed quite vehemently with a couple of my friends.  In the end, after both stating our cases, without attacking each other but attacking our facts and opinions, we agreed to disagree and moved on with an e-beer.  That's what intelligent people do, attack the facts, not the people.  When you need to attack the person over every little thing, it shows proof of deception.  I think it's interesting that he attacks me, but then (the following is directly in order) talks about being rubber to being talked about.

That makes a whole lot of sense... so is he assuming his little antics on addressing me hurt?

However, after attacking me, my husband, my intelligence and making baseless demands (of which he was apparently excused from), he blocked me because he couldn't provide any information or truth to his comments.  I'm sure he'll appreciate website updating (and blogging) from someplace oppressive because of people like him so annoyed at the government and every single thing in the world stop enlisting based on lies and stop defending him.  If things don't add up when someone claims to be military, or you read it and it sounds like something out of Saving Private Ryan, it's almost always Stolen Valor.