"Oh yeah I'm Special Forces"

[capo]

Where's our Rangers at? I just about died laughing at this video. No homo!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHHAAHHHAHHHAHHAHAHQHHAHAHAHKJSDBHKASJJAS

[winnre]

The toughest part about listening to those guys is that if they call you calling their bluff, you have to state your background and then they have the upper hand because, well none of us can beat out their experiences. They will reply with facts like you were regular Army only, or only a E-8. They are better. So now you are whipped, they have more gusto and stand on your shoulders.

What is so amazing is that these folks are so dumb their believe themselves.

[Subotai]

That must be a common theme... I tell everyone I meet that I am a garbageman.

OH GOD! I used to say that to other service personnel. I didn't realize what they may have thought. I guess the jokes on them! LOL!

[winnre]

This thread has a single theme echoed through out:
To this day I still pain when I remember talking to a young married couple (he's 20, she's 19) about how to arrange for their family to come and visit him from the US. He was fine, albeit missing both legs and half an arm with staples running down his torso. She, on the other hand to this day still devastates me, just sat there holding his hand, tears streaming down her face as I and her husband were having a normal mundane conversation.

I recall picnics at CENTCOM where the VA brought out some heroes in very bad shape. Medical science is amazing, but what really puts a lump in my throat is seeing that these torn apart men having loving women right there at their side the entire time. I swear, they are angels on earth. I have no idea how they do it but I thank God for them.

[Dooligan]

My buddy always tells people he flies the planes over the beach with the "Will you marry me" sign...we've got that one down to a science when we go out.

[tacticalcity]

"Those that did do not brag."

My personal experience says that more often than not, this is no longer true. It guess it depends on what you call bragging. Many if not most of my friends will speak freely about their time in special operations and/or supporting units if asked or if it is appropriate or if more than one person present shares that background. They are not likely to just randomly jump on into war stories, but they don't feel a need to hide it either. I highly recommend against calling them liars, if they choose to open up about their past. Odds are they would just shrug and walk away. They have absolutely nothing to prove. However, it is pretty crappy thing to do to call someone a liar about their military service after they risked life and limb for you. Doing so says a lot more about your lack of character, than theirs.

1) They are no longer serving in the military.

2) Sometimes their job requires them to openly discuss their unique training as a member of a special operations team member. These guys are Private Security Contractors, Federal Agents, SWAT Team Members, Firearms Instructors, Martial Arts Instructors and so on. A certain degree of self promotion helps them get ahead in these jobs, so they must on some level talk about their past.

3) Before 9/11 the general public was not very accepting of special operations soldiers. The old Vietnam attitudes were still there. They assumed the worst of them. Considered them "baby-killers". Since 9/11 people are much more enamored with them. Friendships and other personal relationships are not going to halt or turn instantly weird if they open up about their past like they might have before.

4) We're all old now. Half the fun of getting old is telling the old war stories with your buddies. Especially if they might actually be able to understand at least a small portion of what you are trying to share with them.

If I thought about it I am sure I could come up with more examples of when and why these guys choose to be open about their past with myself and their other friends, students and co-workers. None of which qualifies as bragging in my opinion. Just bonding with friends, students, co-workers, etc.

That said, I have noticed that guys who pursue a career completely unrelated to their time in the military are a lot less likely to discuss it unless you are a really close friend. I assume this is because discussing it is not a job requirement.

The old timers in particular tend to be very closed lipped about their service, regardless of what their role was. My grandfather is willing to summarize his role in WWII, but will not discuss it further than that. He was a code breaker and did not see combat, but the attitudes of the day about loose lips sinking ships continues to this day. He is 91 years old. My father won't go into detail about his past at all. I know he was not military, but did serve in Vietnam. Beyond that no one in family will discuss it accept to say that much. My uncle who was a pilot in Vietnam will discuss getting shot down, being rescued by Army Rangers, briefly living with the Montenyard in North Vietnam to escape capture, and later being in on the planning phase of the failed attempt to kill Kadafi. He won't discuss guys he served with, as too many of them died violently. He gets really choked up when he starts to think about the buddies he lost. He only talks about the fun stuff, in generalities and always glorifies the other guys in his stories, never himself. Despite having a very high number of kills against migs (he won't tell people the exact number but I am told it is really impressive) he will not discuss combat or flying other than to say which aircraft he flew. His love for the Rangers has no end.

My generation and younger are typically much more open about it.

The old adage, "those that do do not speak and those that speak do not do" is more of a stereotype than anything else these days. I think it is a generational thing. So be careful who you call a liar. You might end up dishonoring yourself.

[winnre]

I'm pretty surprised at how big the talk for Special Operations is. I was with them 1987 to 1998 and again since 2009. I don't see it anything like the video games or what folks make it out to be. The 11 year separation from them was an intel unit assignment, CENTCOM and a DoS tour. So if you see folks going on and on about SoCom and Psyops, neither of which are spelled that way by the way, call them on it. But if you see folks who act like it is not that big a deal, really from this side it isn't. Kind of a fine line to talk about the fun times without appearing to be a show off, ya know?

[tacticalcity]

I was at an out of town wedding recently were a lot of the guys there were former military and several were special operations from various branches. Some of them still worked in related fields (two were currently Special Agents with the State Departments Diplomatic Security Agency and two were private contractors recently back from Iraq). On the flip side of the coin a lot of they guys there were Hollywood screenwriters, producers, directors and so on. On day four of constantly hanging out with each other the Hollywood types started picking the special operations types brains about how things really work, kind of a "tell me how to get it right in my next project" sort of thing. Nothing sensitive was leaked, but at the same time nothing was taboo. They openly discussed everything from ethics, to bland procedural details, to living with what they were called to do. Differences between how the military does things and how private security contractors do things were discussed in detail as was their resentment of how the media demonizes those on the private side of things. By the time the wedding was over and everyone went home, even the most liberal Hollywood type who started off hating the very idea of special operations or private contractors left with a deep respect for these guys and a better appreciation for what they do. So the conversation was a good thing. The lefties that were there that night might still mistrust the military in general, but they deeply respect the individual soldiers. That's not nothing.

On a side note, I actually deployed with one the guys that was there to Jordan during the early 1990s and didn't know it. We had been friends for years without knowing we had a very brief overlap in our military careers. Of course, what I was doing there was no where near as cool as what he was doing there. I served in a very minor supporting role to his team of Army Rangers along with special operations teams from the other branches of service. The only cool part about my job was getting to see some exotic places and getting to train with and hang out with them. They were definitely the lions and I was definitely the lamb. Still, I am pretty proud of the minor role I played. Wish I could have done more.

I see all of that as a very different thing from some random stranger at bar trying to one up you with his bogus war stories. These guys were true professionals opening up to their friends and to themselves because the people there had a genuine curiosity.

[winnre]

A friend and I met David Duchovny. He introduced himself by saying "I am not an FBI Agent but I play one on TV." My buddy said, "Well, I AM an FBI Agent." Priceless.

[The Sauce]

Well, did it work? Did you get them into the front leaning rest? Don't leave us hanging!

The funny thing is, although they did express interest in 'training' and 'learning better techniques', they didn't sound too enthused with the idea of being undercover in Mexico. Strange, I know.

I eventually caved and told the truth and we all had a good laugh. By "we", I mean my friend and I.

Now I did get to give one-on-one touchy feely gun and safety training to the girls (hold your hands on it like this, put your hips like this...spread your...er anyway), so that was kind of cool. The guys didn't seem to care because I let them shoot some of my toys, too.

I told them about some local gun shops and how to build their own (Cali Legal) EBR's, got rid of some of the gun shop FUD they've picked up along the way. I even told them about CGN, hopefully we'll see them on here sometime.

All in good fun, and ended up (hopefully) bringing some new people into the sport. One of the girls got really into shooting clays, wants to pick up an 870 Wingmaster.

The real funny part was explaining to my gf how I got 3 girls' phone numbers after a day at the range lol.

[socal-shooter]

somebody please please please prove that this guy isnt special forces

he claimed to a friend of mine that he was special forces, i knew he was full of it but didnt know what questions to ask to prove it

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1001274151&ref=ts

i know this guy is a fraud, somebody message him

[ScorpioVI]

When he lists "US ARMY - IRR" as his employer you already know the guy's a major cheesedick.

[rromeo]

When he lists "US ARMY - IRR" as his employer you already know the guy's a major cheesedick.

Individual Ready Reserve?

[socal-shooter]

lol @ cheesedick

[skanless]

So is the OP not special forces? What did i miss?