Antiwar author a fraud

[George Kohler]

Author lied about being a Airborne Ranger. Read it here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60119-2004May1.html

[George Kohler]

Here is his lame confession. http://www.micahwright.com/ranger.htm

[Shison]

There are many more out there...

[George Kohler]

Are you talking about authors, or people claiming to be Rangers?

[Cady Goldfield]

World is full of people who think they have to "Be Someone" in order for their opinion to be heard. Unfortunately, that is often true. But, that is not an excuse for lying.

[Shison]

Are you talking about authors, or people claiming to be Rangers?

I was talking about the people who claim to be involved in some way, shape or form with specops, whether the Green Beenies, Rangers, SeALs, PJ's CTC's, Force Recon, DEA/CIA/FBI/NSA of whatever float's their boat.

It's not as bad here where I live now, but back where I used to live (Yakima/Benton counties, Washington)...

Let's just say that if I had a quarter for every one who claimed "elite" units in the military (Mostly SeAL's for some reason), I could buy the nice house in Idaho instead of the not-so-nice one we're getting... :D

[Jerry Johnson]

Originally posted by Cady Goldfield
World is full of people who think they have to "Be Someone" in order for their opinion to be heard. Unfortunately, that is often true. But, that is not an excuse for lying.


We may disagree, Cady, but, I do believe that credit should be given where it is due.

I concur with your very profound statement. A statement that is the answer.

It is sad in our society that a we only hear those we think are "somebody." Or value as truth words spoken by those we deem as somebody, be it the Pres. or entertainer. We put so much value on language in the form of a written word and who it comes from. Like in European history this was very important i.e. the German author and Monk Luther. In fact, most major religious texts and authors for that matter.

Society has this catch 22 it says that if you write a book it gets published then you are an expert based on what you say. But if your are to be taken seriously ( such as this guy and what he wrote about ) you have to be an expert in the first place to give you credibility to have your opinions published. Being an expert is a term pinned on any lapel We see happening on morning news shows and talk shows, and pop writers.

In this case, I really can't blame the guy for laying in part, he is an expert writer-I am not sure if he is a hack writer- he did get published, so to have people listen to what he had to say he had to fudge the facts. This is the sad part.

Ethically it is wrong. Yet we praise unethical practices in business, as every major corporation got where they are today by-passing ethics.

Let me conclude, it is easy to write someone off as a fraud. But before we do that, we should look at why.

[tellner]

As you say, it's a pity that people act that way. I liked what the guy had done with the old propaganda posters. Very clever, good execution. But I won't be buying a copy. Not after he's fouled his own nest like that.