Vigilantes Unmask Hundreds Of Fake Veterans
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- An online group of vigilantes who investigate army service records say they've unmasked more than 300 people who have exaggerated or entirely fabricated military service and honours: trib.al/xQzrhWD
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1:59 If he didn't get his green beret then he didn't pass the commando course. Didn't pass the commando course? Not a Royal Marine Commando, simple
That Beret is a recruit Beret.
@@johnmellor932 I didn't need that explained, I'm already well aware. The point is he was claiming to be a royal marine, he even said so himself in the interview. But my point is he never completed the commando course, and never received a green beret. Therefore, he was never, at any point even through training a royal marine commando...
@@jamesw9873 wrong.
@@stevenobrien557 How so?
I’m American and I heard him make his case but it just sounded like a bunch of bullshit. I’m a US Army Veteran and we hear the same thing from wanna be military people who didn’t make it past basic training. A bunch of quitters.
I just don’t get why they think they can get away with it
Or why they'd want too. How sad is your life to have to impersonate a veteran.
Matsimus I don’t see what harm they are doing.... If they were gearing up to go into combat, then I may have some issues....
"HE CANT KEEP GETTING AWAAAAY WITH IT!!!!!!"
Matsimus ohhh hey matsimus!!!
Soy boy
If he never passed out of training he was never a soldier
That would depend why he didn't pass out. My mate was medically discharged, he sustained his injury 3 days before passing out of phase 2.... he is a soldier. He isn't a veteran of any conflicts.
Martyn James no.... Still not a soldier. Failed to become a solider maybe, almost a soldier, tried to be one. Not one though.
@@alexanderbrennan7452 he was fully trained so he is a soldier. I am a veteran, if I think he is a soldier, he is.
WackyVeteran Hi there.. Oddly the video has come up in my suggested videos on UA-cam... I was the reporter. The Richard Lee case revolved around the use of the term Royal Marine Officer. I spoke extensively to MoD sources and looked at this in detail, including at pay slips and so fourth. I understand, respect and acknowledge the points your raise entirely. In terms of using the term Royal Marine Officer, he was, according to an RN Commodore definitely a Royal Marine Officer. Unlike RMAS, they commission on day one. It doesn’t mean that people won’t be genuinely aggrieved at the notion of using the title not having been in any conflicts (which I haven’t either btw) particularly as the term was used in marketing... but all that is clear is that in his case, it wasn’t black and white. If people said, he’s bang out of order to trade off it, that would be a valid argument, but I did investigate this very thoroughally using extemely well placed and official sources. He was a Royal Marine Officer... he served for 11 months and was medically discharged, I believe he broke a bone in his leg if memory serves. He didn’t get a Green Beret as he didn’t pass out of the CTC.
@@DdraigGoch84 surely an 'underlying' health problem would've been picked up by your GP before even getting to PSAC stage? If not, then psac would've picked up on it.
but....but...they 'identify' as a veteran so it MUST be true!
dave101t straight the fck up I love this comment lol
Haha exactly..
It has to be a woman veteran, then they have to believed.
Yeh But they don't have the Balls required
Shut up karen jk
If someone pretended to be a medical doctor, without practising, would they be prosecuted?
Yes if they are practising on people, i dont think so if they just go around saying they're a doctor without doing anything
@@albus1190 S#!t Dr Dre is in a lot of trouble.
It’s happening daily in Britain.
I served with the Royal army in the Falklands war , when we flew out on the task force and landed on the islands in Norway , we had to march from there through the Norwegian desert to fight the Spanish who invaded the embassy on the islands. I was recruited by the SAS after they saw how I shot down an Exocet missile with a 9 mill, and the CO of the SAS Lewis Collins gave me a solid gold mess tin with " who dares wins" on it.
Spot on😀 Greetings from the deserts of Norway....
brilliant
😂😂😂😂
Thanks for your service sir.
Quality 😂👍
Stolen Valor is so disrespectful. I'm glad it's a crime in the US.
600 men took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. Nearly half of them were killed. 25 years later over 1,000 turned up for the reunion! So this isn’t anything new. I think it is more amusing than criminal.
That's bullshit
Let someone come in and claim your accomplishments as theirs and we’ll see if it’s funny.
Kevin Goetz
How typical. This person has likely accomplished nothing, lives off state funds, lives with his parents, and sits at a computer all day.
Unintelligent
They must been English, too dumb to know they were dead, the Scottish regiments was in the pub, chatting up the girls on the ease of kilts
"Do they deserve to be humiliated publicly?"
Abso-freaking-lutely, they do. If someone makes the choice to do this, they make the choice to suffer the consequences. I'm not the sort to take my anger at such people out on them in a violent way, or even in a property damaging way. Talking about them publicly serves the purpose just fine **without** the legal consequences. Of course, I'm also an American and a veteran of the US Army, fully loaded with US's baggage about veterans and patriotism. That obviously colors my view.
I do wonder how it would shake out if someone faking it were caught and outed and then publicly apologized. That might be interesting to watch.
Carl Hicks Jr Not going to happen . Posers usually are convinced about their fantasy.
@Ghent Purdue Certainly, we do.
I try very hard to avoid it, but it's hard to escape a certain 'MURCA!' attitude nonsense every now and again.
The British have a similar, if quieter, conceit... that very subtle 'Imperial' attitude they get. The French have their ingrained 'Napoleonic' finicky Gallic pride. I think everybody carries a certain 'national attitude' with them that is an essential [but not necessarily complimentary] part of their character.
It's always a mistake in the uniform that trips them up
The very fact they are wearing uniform sets alarm bells ringing
corpsman pronounced corpse -man is a way to see a liar . check obama.
it's the shaping of the beret or the lack of, that gets me.
As a veteran I am not upset by 'walts', leave them be. I would rather hunt down veterans 'rough sleeping' or in other troubled situations; now they are people worthy of vigilante interest and help.
I spent 10 years in the Royal Engineers (1969-79) and the closest I came to conflict was being shot at a few times during numerous tours of duty in Northern Ireland. I earned my GSM though I can't honestly say I worked hard for it. Not a hero but, definitely more deserving than tossers who have only fought on a PS2 / XBox.
It's an alright pastime, but I'm not claiming ex service status for being the old Call of Duty, let ALONE putting a uniform on for it!! I'll leave that for the dossers who claim they're professionals and dont need phase 1 training
CHIMO!✌️🇨🇦
For someone who suffers from a severe case of imposter syndrome (look it up if your not familiar with it) and PTSD, I get people who come just shy of calling me out on stolen valor because of my uncomfortable and shaky demeanor when talking about my service. Some of the vets asking me havent done anything outside wearing the uniform. From this experience, I have found that most of the vets who call out stolen valor and our vindictive about it are insecure bully's. I reach a boiling point where my insecurity and inhibition get thrown out the window and I start calling these same guys out only to find that most of them were POGS or grunts that never served in combat
Some of the stolen valor people are swindling and blackmailing people though and they deserve to be humiliated and called out.
Lmfao GG at the end
genuine comment
As a British Army veteran myself, I think wearing military uniform is fine, people wear it for work etc & people have done it for generations, what I do have an issue with is some of those impersonating a veteran or serving member, by wearing medals they haven’t earned. This is where the law needs to be changed. It makes a mockery of those who didn’t come home and those who’s lives were changed forever due to war. It has got to the point now, where genuine veterans are having to prove themselves rather than the fake ones. It happens every Remembrance Day & shouldn’t.
I have issue with people impersonating higher ranking ncos and commissioned officers as a way to harass and extort military servicemembers.
It's illegal to impersonate law enforcement, it needs to be more illegal to impersonate military, they do that to scam people and especially scam the VA out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yes I agree.
Difference between wearing a uniform and pretending to be a Veteran is what makes one thing ok and the other bad.
In America we call this ''stolen valor''.
In England it is stolen valour!
Yes sir we do indeed. POSers is a word seen among we Vets who see these guys posing as Veterans, with an emphasis on the first POS.
It's called the same thing here too.
I worked with a guy who claimed he was a reservist for 10 years, as a sergeant. The questions he asked me made me wonder how these guys were being trained. Then it hit me, a phony who bought his uniforms online and at Army Navy stores.
"Do these people need to be publicly humiliated?" YES, THEY BLOODY WELL DO ! ! !
"But do these people really deserve to be humiliated, so publicly?"...
Yes...yes they do...
Bring back the stocks!!!
This happens everywhere - we've been dealing with this crap since Vietnam. There are still people getting around claiming to be things they weren't. The legal definition of fraud is 'gaining a benefit by deception'. The term in Australia is 'Valour Thieves'. Sadly they are everywhere.
In the U.K. it is "Fraud by misrepresentation; (Section 1 of the Fraud Act) and is a punishable offence.
Yes they deserve to be humiliated big time
The problem is that a lot of the people who pretend to be ex-military have some pretty complex mental health issues, to say nothing of their delusion, perhaps those exposing them might be better spending their time campaigning for proper funding of NHS Mental Health services. I don't think that public humiliation of someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis will do anything to help them, possibly quite the opposite.
To ALL of us WHO DID serve, to see and hear somebody pretend they did, is an insult to the memory of the heroes who gave all, and their families! As far as I am concerned, it should be treated the same as any other form of theft by deceit!
The greatest marvel of Victorian engineering is the balcony at Princes Gate South Kensington. It held the weight of over 300 SAS troopers...I was there, I'm the one in the balaclava.
I was just about to make a joke about this fellas eyes pointing in difference directions then he bowls up with a guide dog, fair play mate.
This bloke wasn't a marine, it's as simple as that, he never passed out. So in the eyes of those who served, he never possessed what it takes to pass out.
But when these people start dressing up?
Richard served a year. That's a trainee. He hasn't served at all.
And what does this country do for most veterans... absolutely NOTHING... And your worried about a few plonkers showing off....playing soldiers.
Impersonating an officer is illegal… why not impersonation of a soldier the same?
Humiliated in public, hell yes, they most certainly do.
If he didn’t pass out and get his Green beret then he was never Actually a marine commando?!
Yes, they absolutely deserve to be found out as liars. I never served but I respect those that have done, are doing, and will do.
Ref the scrim net I wore in right through the 80's but not on a parade
hey vets of the Battle of the Boyne we're having the reunion at my house this year be here after 11
Cheers from America. Stolen Valor is a crime here.
it's not
@@Michael-yu2yk - It is.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor_Act_of_2013
THOSE BASTERDS! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS FAKE SERVICE?
The penalty for this is actual military service. But your rank and achievements are wiped at the end of the sentence.
Exactly... People are twisted
No, no, NO! The military doesn't need dead weight/liabilities like this waste of oxygen. He's suckin' up air my mom's dog could be breathing.
I dont think the military should take that risk deploying and training people who are mentally ill and maybe straight up sociopaths. They'd be in there for the wrong reason
Charlatans and liars should ALWAYS be exposed and publicly shamed.
how about corpsman pronounced corpse-man ,check barack obama
Right on.lets start with Boris Johnson.
He lied.
In America we elect them to office.
@@lasharshar5127 well we can take pleasure in knowing he caught the covid😂🤣😂
@@organicdudranch or lieutenant pronounced leftenant.
I'm a civilian, never been in the armed forces, never even applied to the armed forces, but even I cannot understand the mentality of these very sad individuals pretending to be something that they're not. It must be so infuriating for genuine veterans who encounter these people.
Hello readers. I met a man today (Sat 16th March 2019 @ 16:00 hrs this afternoon) in Surbiton and he was asking for money. He was on the corner of the street directly opposite the railway station, just up from Nero's Coffee Bar. He was dressed in combats and with a dog at his feet. A Rottweiler pup about a year old. The man had a ring on his left pinky with an SAS emblem on it. This also caught my eye as well as the combats. I genuinely did not have any change on me. As an ex serviceman myself I asked him if he was ex-military. He said yes SAS. I asked him when he served and he said in the '70s. He told me he was destitute. I asked him his name. He would not give his name. I asked him if he was getting any assistance from the Regiment and or MOD. He said the Poppy Appeal was giving him dog food for his dog. Does anyone know this man? Aged about 60 years. Heavily built with a beard. I am not knocking him for if he is ex-job he needs help. If not though he is clearly spinning a yarn and attempting to con all that passes him by with his ploy as an ex-serviceman? Only God knows the truth at this time unless someone adds to this to clarify and or not, either way, though thanks for any advice. Please, I am not judging I am just highlighting. Blessings. James (Ex NCO Irish Guards). Quis Separabit!
by stopping the iraq government from financing more terror attacks or hiding etrrorists on their soil
"the badges were stuck on with glue, rather than sewn on."😂 those lads using wonder web are feeling Good right now.
i was given tee shirts with USMC logos a few years ago, but never wore them out of respect for military vets.
Robert H wearing those ain’t a problem. It’s just when someone try’s claiming benefits that it’s a problem
I served in the SAS . Salvation Army Service got medals for best chicken soup and I was good at making hot dogs ...WTF I never got any medals for killing anyone . It's not fair lol
Stolen Valor is becoming a crime in the US.
Military memory with military. The enact to place with point as any life with effect!
It is a crime..
I fought in Gaul for the 8th Roman Legion
Lord AristoCat I need to see some paperwork to believe that.
in the service at the end of a day army crap came off shorts & t-shirt went on
at 1630 i turned into a civilian with short hair
If I'm not mistaken, he is wearing a Lt. beret badge on the green beret. Wearing combats may not be an offence but inpersonating an officer is indeed a criminal offence.
I served in the adeptus astartes Salamanders chapter with over a millenia of combat experience conquered multiple worlds and killed billions
I'm an old school veteran. Level 14 prestige on COD Black Ops specialising in Search and Destroy combat.
In another life I was a Horse Handler during the American Civil War and had twelve horses shot out from under me. That does not include all the times I was wounded.
If I wear my old slouch hat, I leave off badges and pugaree, as I believe that is the right of serving troops only.
I bought a US Flying suit at an air show many years ago. Put a few basic badges on (no name tags to maintain my respect for the military) and have worn it to fancy dress. Always goes down a treat.
These people haven't earned the right to wear what they wear! I get really angry about this and it should be an offence here in the UK
I was not expecting Phil to be sympathetic respect big phil
Wearing it isn't a crime but claiming service is. It IS THE biggest disgrace however...
The Uniforms Act 1894 states:
(1)It shall not be lawful for any person not serving in Her Majesty’s Military Forces to wear without Her Majesty’s permission the uniform of any of those forces, or any dress having the appearance or bearing any of the regimental or other distinctive marks of any such uniform.
They should be named and shamed
It's discusting
No walter should be allowed to get away with it.
The same thing goes on over here in the USA.
These guys are ridiculous
I dont go hunting out people wearing McDonalds uniforms and question them on their stolen valour
No one claims to be a McDonald's veteran from the battle of chicken nugget .
@@snowflakemelter1172 They should. We lost a lot of men that day. Good men. Clown fearing men.
I was almost in the RAF for exactly 30 seconds to 1 min - I got accepted but then was told I was 1 week too old.
No they do not deserve this treatment. The world is a mean enough place and just rife with any number of sad lost ones. Have a bit of mercy.
Send them to Derry or Belcoo or XMG to do a fully uniformed exhibition of continuity drill. I wouldn't go to one of those places in civvies.
I was a general of a nuclear submarine and flew that submarine in desert storm while in Vietnam
I flew a spaceship at the Battle of Britain
I didn't know this actually existed until my brother in law told me, I served 22 years and started to look into this and fell into a rabbit hole, it's everywhere. I wouldn't wear the King's uniform because I'm no longer a member of the armed forces. I wouldn't wear the beret either but would wear my campaign medals at special events.
If I am a member of an exclusive private club for which I worked hard to earn my membership, it is perfectly within my rights to call out people who pretend they were members but in reality aren’t. This is not vigilante. I don’t hear folks labeling OxBridge or Harvard alumni vigilantes for example when they called out those who pretended they were their graduates
but in reality aren’t. Get that right Sky News.
That is just wrong, they should be at least fined and forced to clean up the rubbish at the nearest military base etc.
how can they clean up the rubbish near the military base if they themselves are rubbish in nature
@@razgriss5882 they can throw themselves in the bin when they picked up all the litter.
The closest I ever came to a SAS badge was in my photography studio, when I photographed a Para soldier, who produced the beige beret, one day.
And he asked for the negatives!
I'm the right age to be a Falklands veteran, but I would never presume to stand beside those men.
That young general is going places
Oliver Stone served in Vietnam and made a film called Platoon - perhaps more servicemen and women should write about their own experiences - a particularly good book is 'Excursion to Hell'.
why did they blur the first guy, there are vids of his face unblurred
The commentator asks a question, should those guilty of Stolen Valor receive such harsh public ridicule?
I think they should receive every bit of the public humiliation and ousting plus 12 weeks in Marine boot camp and SEAR five times in a row. (That's the US Marine boot camp... with NO chance of ever getting in.)
1:16 Oi Mate Look At Me When Your Talking To Me
Of all the things vigilantes could unmask, this is by far the most important.
Since it isn't a crime to be a fake solider. It will be a great idea if anyone was caught being a fake solider. He has to do service in the country for a period of time. A cook would even work
Its quite a common condition, our Royal family have unashamedly been doing this for years.
Tar and feather comes to mind
I was an osprey pilot in Gallipoli and we won
seems like every other guy says he was in special forces, most are lying .
THe oldest trick in the book by these poodles fakers is to claim that what they did was classified. The ones that claim to be Special Forces are easy pickings.
More like special education! 🤪
I can understand veterans being angry about fraudsters. My younger brother is a decorated officer and I know it would anger him.
But vigilantism can also be reckless. I don't think Richard Lee is by any means the worst example - it's not like he had never had anything to do with the Army.
Changing the law in this regard seems reasonable because it isn't just disrespectful to veterans but also misleads well-meaning members of the public
I do not particularly mind the ones that dress in a mish-mash of uniforms. Or that they decorate those uniforms with a wide assortment of medals, ribbons, fourragere all while boasting of impossible deeds that are always top secret. It is clear they are detached from reality. I feel they are more to be pitied than attacked.
Yes, the retards and fantasisers are ill, and deserve pity more than anything. Cause no one believes them.
Some asshats do it to get discounts, or free hunting for vets, or something. That is deliberate fraud, and an offence.
Lying in a bar with fake medals is not illegal in the US, but looked down on. The Supreme Court says it’s free speech. So real vets do some free speech of their own on their lying butts.
Hey, everyone has free speech!
P. S.
No beatings, please, keep it legal.
As long as they aren't scamming people out of money or valuable goods and services, I don't care. But if I see someone claim a purple heart and used that to get me to buy them dinner and I later find out they never even served, I'm going to be pissed.
@@nunyabiznez6381 -- I agree. If they put on a uniform or wave a purple heart or silver star trying to get something for nothing I also get angry.
There's an important principle at stake. Some people build their lives around a lie and gain public office etc though deception. The remedy is simple. Call it out for what it is - fraud. Free speech my hat.
I hate stolen valor, especially as a American civil war vet.
In all seriousness this a joke.
Btw people who do this should be charged with a felony. They know dam well what they are doing.
Why do these people do this?
Since joining the military can cause death than stolen valor should be punishable by death. Makes sense to me....
As a veteran I don’t understand stolen valour. What do they gain and they will get caught when around real veterans. I just don’t understand.
HAPPENS HERE IN AMERICA ALL THE TIME
Am ex service and I don’t show it in public makes me feel ashamed to be proud
If these “Walts” were the last line of defence, then I may have an issue. Or they were gaining some monetary benefits at the expense of a genuine veteran, then I may have a different view. But no they are sad, not bad. These vigilantes are worse, who appoints them as the arbiters of right and wrong...
I'm British army veteran and these Walter mittys make me sick to my stomach, but some the misguided hunters targeted me as I don't speak military jargon bs like full your boots etc. I served in Royal signals and did one tour of Iraq on op telic 3 but was attached to the Queens royal hussars for a while whilst there as they was part of same bde 20 armd based out of paderborn area Germany. Then when I left was left homeless out in streets after being in woods with hexi cooker and poncho etc near Keswick can't complain lovely area of the country then rejoined In The Rifles got to month 5 and snapped my right tibia very frustrating as loved my military service and waited so long to get back in since then been homeless many times and the amount of people at some these places lived at who embellish their service or flat out lie is truly disgusting latest one being cushty the army intelligence officer with wrong colour beret he was wearing the royal marine green one and he gave speech at house of Lords and then met rishi sunak the prime minister thankfully the Walter mittys club exposed this sad saps who was claiming he served in Falklands and had lost comrades etc it really boils my.... People who lie about their service and takes valour away from others like my grandfather who served In Malaya and no longer with us and my pals from training who died or severely injured on tour in 2009 ish
Meant to add, the guy claimed to be in the same places as me at the same time, and yet I couldn't place him. I thought that was very odd. Maybe he was the Walter. Seemed odd to me we were in Blackdown at the same time, and in Germany at the same time.
I am ex SAS, Paratrooper and have had people call me a Walter Mitty, even though I have shown photos and army number 24051180. There should be a roll of ex soldiers visible to the public so soldiers like myself are not insulted.
I was in gernany and a serving SAS trooper was out with us for a few drinks . His party trick was telling anyone who would listen that he was in the SAS and had a good laugh when nobody would belive him
I was the 6000th man on the Iranian embassy balcony
I flew Apache attack helicopters at the Battle of Agincourt.
He can wear the beret but no unit badge. He didn’t make it. For whatever reason.
No, the badge on the beret is correct for marines in Phase 1 and 2 recruit training.
These people need help they have self esteem issue.
There’s an English family of imposters (German heritage) which appear at every remembrance celebration.
They all have honorary military titles, and the most spectacular uniforms and collection of medals.
Reminds me of a previous US commander in chief who dodged the draft for the vietnam war on the pretext that he had bone spurs, another ‘Walter Mitty’ and coincidentally he is also of German heritage.
I am ex RAF Regiment , but non com. Because of that , out of respect , i would never put my uniform back on in public
The walts never learn. Add to list the clown of a chief constable from Northampton police who served for 30 odd years in the police , having lied about his Royal Navy career. Dismissed.
Hope no true veterans get misidentified in the hysteria.
@A has and does happen unfortunately, people need to check facts better before publicly “shaming” them.
I’ve been questioned at Home Depot ( military discount) even after showing my drivers license to the naive cashier . In Ohio it shows as vet after sending copy of DD 214 on application. 🤔🥴
Anyone who lies about doing anything that requires effort and keeps doing it should be exposed. Its pretty insulting to people who make an effort to do anything in life and then some lazy person turns up and goes yeah I do that too.
WE HAVE A GUY WHERE I LIVE , CLAIMS HE WAS SHOT DOWN IN A HELICOPTER IN VIETNAM , SPENT TWO YEARS IN A HOSPITAL , TURNS OUT HE WAS BORN IN 1957 . HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT 13 YEARS OLD.
Misrepresentation of your antecedance is moral wrong.
I think people should spend more time trying to catch paedophiles and sex offenders and drug dealers and Granny bashers and house breakers and moped gangs. Walter mitty's are the least of our problems. I see a lot of great highly trained minds chasing fake servicemen, when they could be doing great things.
Great point fella!
I agree. Let ex-servicemen deal with the walts. (And the above mentioned rest)
if he didn't earn his green beret he isn't a marine i earned my maroon beret and it nearly futin killed me doing so expose these nunts.
Stolen Valor should be punished with service on the frontline as cannonfodder.