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Phony SEALS

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Sir Brian:
Did anyone catch this story on the Inside Edition the other night? As much as I would like to vilify these posers I pause to reflect what difference there is between their self-proclaimed and false SEAL status and our very own claims of knightly endeavors, besides their outright lying to folks about their service records.

 ~ Discuss! ~  :)

http://www.insideedition.com/news/6339/are-imposters-posing-as-navy-seals-inside-edition-investigates.aspx

Sir Edward:
Well, clearly there's a big difference since we're not claiming to actually exist in the medieval period. :)  All that aside, honest portrayal certainly has educational value, but there's no honor at all in claiming achievements that never were.

For instance, if he were at a reenactment event and portrayed a SEAL, it would be no big deal. But he dishonors himself, and the SEALs, by claiming to have been one in the real world when he didn't complete the training.

I was reading a while back about the concept of "stolen honor". Apparently it's pretty widespread. Since you can go online and order uniforms and medals, people will buy these things and pretend to have earned them the hard way. I even ran across a website (can't remember the URL) that was dedicated to exposing public acts of stolen honor. One example was embarrassingly over the top. The guy put on just about every high-level medal our country bestows.

But going back to knights... I think as long as we're honest about what we're doing, we're fine. We're not knights via an official knighting in a country that still does that, and we're not medieval knights since we live in the modern age. But we're knights of our organization, and we're portraying historical knights. And if we're taking chivalry seriously, then we're re-awakening the aspect of knighthood that is our cultural heritage, and we can call ourselves knights. We have the added advantage here that since it's a historical re-creation, it's obvious that we didn't spend years as a squire in medieval Europe, so no one is going to be accidentally mislead.

And of course, as I noted above, being knights of our own organization is an important aspect. In a way it adds legitimacy, since any private organization is free to use whatever ranks or titles it wants internally. So if that title is "knight", then no one can dispute that.

We just have to watch out for the rare few people that will think we're being delusional. Not that it would ever happen (*cough*facebook*cough*).

Sir Edward:
I haven't found that website yet that I mentioned. I think they were using the term "stolen valor" rather than "stolen honor"... I'm still looking.

But I found an article about the guy I mentioned who wore a little of everything. There are also articles out there about the constitutionality of the "stolen valor" laws that prohibit people from wearing medals they didn't earn.


http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7261240

Another:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/stolen-valor-challenges-fake-medals-met-criticism/story?id=9779478

Sir William:
As strange as that story is, it is a well-known one (not necessarily the SEAL issue, but people pretending to be something they're not) and will always occur when there's a person who wants to be something more than what they are.

There are diploma mills - for a price they'll workup an entire dummy curriculum and test scores and diploma so you can say you were college educated.  I actually worked for a company, one of their management personnel would actually state that you were to address her as 'Dr.' - it turns out she had something on the president of the company but they got her on a technicality- she lied on her resume.  An HR rep called the school whose diploma she kept on her wall and they had no record of this woman matriculating at ALL...not in their doctorate, MBA or even BA programs, she'd never been a student there.  Crazy, right?  She lied to give herself the legitimacy she felt she lacked and spent an inordinate amount of time pointing out her doctorate (and pointing out how dumb she really was) and not enough on gaining the knowledge that might've covered her rear.

There are a whole slew of sites that cater to WWI and WWII re-enactors and cosplay types...and their medals and uniforms are regulation-accurate; I do not find it surprising that people will collect this stuff and make up stories about how they earned it...I'll bet some of them make those stories up because they fear how people will consider them inane or childish for collecting such things simply for the joy of it.  Some people's lives suck so bad they just make up new ones because it makes them feel better.

As for knighthood...I espouse the tenets of chivalry, I work to make myself a better person daily- I take pride in my arms and armor and strive to make myself better with them...I safeguard the helpless and TRY to do no wrong and if I'm not to be considered a knight because I've not yet been knighted...FINE.

I'll be one in just a week and a half!!!

I'd like to shake Mr. Sterner's hand and thank him for his service in the armed forces and his continued service to his own brethren...going beyond lip service and actually doing something about it.

Sir Brian:
I guess what really piqued me on that particular story was the professional jouster perpetrating at being nothing more than a ‘PX heroes’, which was the term we used when I was in the Army.  :(

As for knighthood, oddly enough I came to the realization when I first started looking into getting armored up and doing a lot of reading and research about knights and chivalry that I have been on the path of chivalry for nearly my entire life and not so much as a conscious decision made years ago that I would follow a path of chivalry.

So in essence I feel that I had been born a knight who eventually grew into his spurs.  :-\

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