"I can't tell you about that"

garandman

garandman

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Why is it that whenever someone says "I can't talk about that" they always turn out to be a pogue? If something classified is going down there is always a cover story and the cover story is always true.

Met a guy who weighed about 300 lbs and had told co-workers he did a lot of "Sneak and peak" operations that "he couldn't talk about" in the Air Force. Looked the guy up on military.com and he was a E3 aircraft refueling technician!

All service is honorable and lord knows you do what you are told. My last job in the Army was a non-TO&E "Assistant S4" and my primary accomplishment was the acquisition of a bunch of used cargo trucks. Not exactly heroic, but necessary to keep the Big Green Machine on track.

Why do these guys pick something so obviously untrue? Fewer than 1% of Army veterans are Ranger qualified but it seems like every 10th vet I meet was a Ranger. Every 3rd Marine was Recon. And the number of SEAL "veterans" is extraordinary given the size of that group.
 
I hate that crap also. I hear guys do it all the time and you can tell they are full of pooh right off the bat. I guy I work with has shipped off to afghanistan (God bless him) but he has been talking smack about the secret operations he is going to go on while training local militia. He is the supply guy for his unit, but he thinks we don't know that.

Just be proud of what you have done. I never deployed over seas or saw any combat, but I never had a vet treat me disrespectfully for it. It's not like you can choose what mission your unit gets.
 
Years ago (about 27) my buddy and I were not long out of the USMC and were heading to Maine to visit young ladies we knew. Of course getting out we immediately grew beards and let our hair grow also. My buddy had a brother at UNH who invited us to a small party at a house he rented off campus.There we met a e-3 in the Army on leave who was telling these women that he was one of three people in the country who could call in a nuke strike.We never let on our background, but we did rag on him bad enough that the brother asked us to leave before we started "an event ".We still laugh about that clown to this day.
 
LOL if I had a dime for evey old guy that told me he was some sort of spec op's of some type. I don't know why they have to come up with those stories, all I can think of is low self esteam, or they felt they had a job that was not exciting to talk about, and have add something. Bottom line it's the "american way", everyone wants to think there some bad ass action hero.
 
Wannabe's simple as that. Pretty much most Vietnam Veterans are "combat" veterans, or at least that's what they say. Truth of the matter maybe 10% of those who went to Vietnam saw combat. The others did what was necessary to keep the machine oiled. It doesn't take a whole lot to figure out those who were in the weeds or those who now pretend/wish/make believe they were. Sad thing is I think a lot of the story tellers actually come to believe their own BS.
 
You wouldnt believe half the stuff I did, I started out in the SEAL's, rolled with michael bien and charlie sheen in their unit for a while but those guys were cowboys so I transfered to Delta. Met chuck norris when our teams did missions together, real nice guy. Got bored with that so transfered to the air force, ended up getting my ass saved by tom cruise shooting down migs over the pacific, he was a douche back then too. But dont tell anybody, that stuff is still classified.
 
Usually the first few words out of their mouths bring red flags. Then again my evil side will come out and it is fun tripping them up. geez I was just a supply pogue who instead of being sent to a motor pool, ended up in an MI unit working with a bunch of electronics geeks.[laugh]
 
el duderino said:
You wouldnt believe half the stuff I did, I started out in the SEAL's, rolled with michael bien and charlie sheen in their unit for a while but those guys were cowboys so I transfered to Delta. Met chuck norris when our teams did missions together, real nice guy. Got bored with that so transfered to the air force, ended up getting my ass saved by tom cruise shooting down migs over the pacific, he was a douche back then too. But dont tell anybody, that stuff is still classified.
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Lol, is your name Swoffard?
 
When I got my security clearance I signed some form that said I wouldn't divulge the stuff I learned for some ridiculous amount of time. 77 years, IIRC.

Good thing I can't remember any of it anyway. [laugh]

It was mostly radar frequencies for my EW rating and boring intel traffic from my collateral duty as the shipboard enlisted intel assistant.

I don't have any HSLD stories though ...

I think people make up stories because military life is 90% or more boring, routine crap and no one wants to hear that stuff.
 
Mr Weebles said:
When I got my security clearance I signed some form that said I wouldn't divulge the stuff I learned for some ridiculous amount of time. 77 years, IIRC.

Good thing I can't remember any of it anyway. [laugh]

It was mostly radar frequencies for my EW rating and boring intel traffic from my collateral duty as the shipboard enlisted intel assistant.

I don't have any HSLD stories though ...

I think people make up stories because military life is 90% or more boring, routine crap and no one wants to hear that stuff.
Click to expand...

I thought is was 100 years or something like that. Could be wrong, but signed something to that effect too.[laugh] I just dealt with electronics parts and could order anything short of a whole new Field Station.[laugh]
 
MrsWildweasel said:
I thought is was 100 years or something like that. Could be wrong, but signed something to that effect too.[laugh] I just dealt with electronics parts and could order anything short of a whole new Field Station.[laugh]
Click to expand...

It could have been 100 years.

I'm 42 and have a bad case of CRS Disease ... Can't Remember Sh*t.
 
Yea I met a guy who told me he was a linguist for the corp and was stationed in Iraq. couldnt speak a lick of Iraqi or whatever they speak over there when I asked him to say something. He just said Oh it was so long ago I forgot all of it. I took 2 years of spanish 10 years ago and got a D but I can still count to 20 and say hello... give me a break guy.
 
Mr Weebles said:
It could have been 100 years.

I'm 42 and have a bad case of CRS Disease ... Can't Remember Sh*t.
Click to expand...

Lol. I'm older than you and have somewhat of that problem too. Lol Works out good for me hubby is worse, and he's younger than me. Lol We figured they made it 100 years cause most likely you'd be dead and couldn't say anything anyways.[laugh]
 
Business said:
Yea I met a guy who told me he was a linguist for the corp and was stationed in Iraq. couldnt speak a lick of Iraqi or whatever they speak over there when I asked him to say something. He just said Oh it was so long ago I forgot all of it. I took 2 years of spanish 10 years ago and got a D but I can still count to 20 and say hello... give me a break guy.
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Shoot I had one year of German and two years of french and I still remember plenty. Lol I got by quite well when I was stationed in Germany.
 
livnreklis said:
I don't know why they have to come up with those stories, all I can think of is low self esteem, or they felt they had a job that was not exciting to talk about, and have add something.
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Yup. Reminds me of the quote from the movie, "Patton":

Patton: Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana."

*
 
One of my bosses who recently retired was a legit spec ops guy in Vietnam. He virtually never mentioned it or any thing that happened over there. He talked about how he was a drunk and a loser who got drafted. He did his time and got out. He down plays everything. I only know about his actual service through his wife. She showed me his pics and his papers. It's my experience that guys that really were in the bush tell it differently than remfs who never left base camp. Posers piss me off but they're everywhere.

A guy I used to work with asked me to look at some papers of his grandfathers. He said they were his discharge papers. He said his grandfather and father were in Vietnam but never talked about their service. He wanted insight into his grandfather because the man lived in Taiwan and he didn't really know him. He brought me a copy of his DD214. This man was a hero and then some. Three tours in Vietnam. Silver Star, 3 bronze stars (2 for valor) and 3 purple hearts. This man was an airborne Ranger. Totally legit. I met this man at a wedding. He retired as a Col. Nicest guy you'd ever meet. He never told his family about the war. Just the way he was.

I fixed guns. I spent years doing all the usual stuff like cleaning the barracks, going to the field, filling sandbags, etc. Nothing exciting. I fixed literally thousands of guns over those years. That's it. I am still proud of my service despite not being HSLD.
 
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I won't lie...we found time to play Playstation when I was in Saudi :)

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As they say most of it is boring. Shit over seas I have caught up on all the prime time movies that had no time to watch at home. Deployment is like prison. You work, eat and workout alot!!! I was a Team leader in a MP Platoon in Iraq. And I am a Convoy Commander, here in Afghanistan. Iraq had it's moments, but 85% percent of the time was patrols, standing watches, cleaning our gear, eatting and working out. Afghanistan is a different animal. We get Intel reports every day of IED, SVBIED's, small arms fire etc. I roll outside the wire alot. But I have not had to fire my weapon once in anger, and we have always been in the right place at the right time, and avoided danger so far. ("knock on wood"). So I have no "cool guy" stuff to brag about, we all have our fingers and toes, were all tired, and ready to get home!!!
 
My experience is that posers will talk a lot of crap to anyone. The guys who really went through hell do not talk about it outside their inner circle. I was fortunate to serve with a very small Marine CI Team (7th CIT) in 79-80. Out of a dozen guys, myself and one Sergeant were the only two without combat experience. The other ten all had at least one tour in Vietnam and a couple of them were also veterans of Korea. Most of them had been in Infantry regiments at the time of their combat experiences, except for our Team Chief, a Master Sergeant who had been Infantry in Korea, but CI in Vietnam. Three of the guys were veterans of Khe Sanh. Being part of such a small, tight team, I was privileged to hear some snippets. Outsiders heard nothing, though.
 
I was never in any branch of the military so I dont care if all you did was scrub toilets you did more than me. That being said I met a guy (and have seen his dd214) who was a Vietnam vet with 20 years, special forces, then took a non military government job after doing military like operations. Special drug units maybe atf. He was telling me all the guys he knows who joined the American Legion or VFW's most of them didnt see a lot of action, because everyone he knew who saw a lot of action doesnt really want to sit around and talk about it.
 
People who have done spook work for real rarely talk about it or even hint at it. The real tools are the ones who go out of their way to get a conversation to the point where they tell you they cannot tell you something because it's classified.
 
The biggest Poser Flag is when they start talking about "Classified" shit![rofl]

I just want to holler at them....."Hey, guess what? If it really was classified, you wouldn't be talking about it!"[rofl][rofl][rofl]
 
I was in the navy from 2/75 to 2/81...never saw any conflict...I was an Avionics Tech and flew in E2 Hawkeyes as an aircrew in-flight tech. When asked if I am a Viet Nam vet I say yes but...I am a Viet Nam era Vet. Heck, I didn't even qualify for the "geedunk" ribbon; in fact the only ribbon I ever got in the six years I was in the Navy was the good conduct ribbon and that was only because I never got caught.

I only say that because there are too many people I know of that are technically VN vets but only "era" vets. Never saw combat or was even in country but go on and on like they were in the middle of the Tet offensive or were tunnel rats. I have an uncle that was a helo pilot in Nam and he flew SAR missions...he rarely talks about it. I surmise it's just too painful for him.
 
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