Vance Accuses Walz of Stolen Valor? This Jarhead Says STFU J.D.!!!

I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears earlier. Peter Theil/Donald Trump pet J.D. Vance stood there in Wisconsin and accused fellow Veteran Tim Walz, the newly minted Democratic VP nominee of Stolen Valor. Like Vance I too served in the Marines, albeit four decades ago. I’d just gotten turned down for Officer Candidate School (right at the time of the Barracks bombing in Beirut) and turned right around and enlisted. Unlike Vance, I volunteered for INFANTRY much to the dismay of the recruiters in nearby Carbondale, IL. Given how well I did on the Naval Air Test (I was set to become a Naval Aviator after OCS and Basic School) the ASVAB was a joke. I had a perfect score and could have picked any M.O.S. I wanted but I chose to be a grunt. Unlike Vance who chose to become the Marine Corps equivalent of a freaking journalist. Yet Vance’s remarks about being ‘in a combat zone’ imply HE went out and actually fought. Just who the hell is HE to be accusing someone of Stolen Valor? Clearly Trump’s influence has made this awful person even worse. Before long, he’ll be painting himself as Archibald Henderson, Smedley Butler, Dan Daly and Chesty Puller all in one!

Vance did in fact spend six months of his four years on active duty in Iraq. But he almost declared earlier he was a “fighting” Marine. No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t a grunt (infantryman) He wasn’t in ANY combat arms M.O.S. (that’s Military Occupational Specialty). He was, according to Military.com who obtained his service record a 4341. Not that any spot in Iraq, even in the Green Zone was totally safe (it’s still not the safest country to be in) Vance was no “ass in the grass” Marine. Technically he might call himself a Combat Correspondent but he never was out there and engaged in actual combat situations taking and returning enemy fire!

You know how I know that? Take a look at that title picture. Like many an enlisted puke I sometimes had officers point to my Good Conduct Medal/ribbon and say they’d trade every other decoration for it.  (to gain more respect from their troops) Not really, like any Marine if they didn’t earn the right to wear the Combat Action Ribbon THAT is the decoration they most coveted. J.D. Vance earned a few decorations but the CAR isn’t one of them!  But he’s making a Trumpian level implication that he WAS out there in combat. So, again I ask just who the f**k is HE to be accusing someone else of Stolen Valor?

Stick with me I beg you. You might assume someone has to be part of a combat arms unit, i.e. infantry, artillery, combat engineer and the like and forward deployed in frequent if not regular combat engagement with the enemy. Well, that’s not the case. Since Vietnam even office pogues or other R.E.M.F.s (rear echelon mother f**kers) can find themselves in a nasty situation. But coming under fire isn’t enough. From Wikepedia here are the criteria for earning a CAR:

For a military member to be awarded a Combat Action Ribbon evidence must establish the member engaged the enemy, was under hostile fire, or was physically attacked by the enemy. The service member must have demonstrated satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in a ground or surface engagement.^[5]

In case you’re wondering that (5) footnote cites the source – the Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual (2019)  If that’s not plain enough a bit later on the Wikipedia entry makes it even more so – and relevant to what I’m writing about with Vance:

A military member does not automatically qualify for the Combat Action Ribbon. The CAR is awarded after the service member’s command takes into consideration the evidence and specified criteria. The evidence must show a service member was engaged in direct combat, not indirect or in an area where combat is occurring; mere presence in a designated combat zone does not qualify a service member for the award.^[5]

Vance is a REMF punk making outrageous implications when he tries to taunt Walz with a comment like when did he ever carry a weapon into a combat zone? HE could have put his money, or more to the point ass where his mouth now is. He COULD have volunteered for Infantry or another Combat Arms M.O.S. He didn’t. He chose to be a writer, a military journalist. Which he’d later talk about as a high calling! But there’s more. One of those prominently cited in the Military.com article I provided a link to (you really should read it – it’s well done) Vance was profiled in Stars and Stripes, another respected outlet that covers military affairs.  I found this part, covering his six month Iraq deployment awfully interesting:

He spent his service working in public affairs, writing about Marines and taking photographs of their work, escorting civilian news reporters and speaking about happenings on base.

In Iraq, he embedded with different units to get a sense of their daily routines and wrote a story about a crew keeping KC-130J tankers in the air. He also waded into unprotected Iraqi territory with a civil affairs unit to meet with locals.

THAT is immediately followed by the “money shot” (sorry folks, can’t get the couch f**ker stuff out of my head. How much longer till there’s a porn parody?):

“I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” Vance wrote of his deployment.

Yet Vance has chosen to go portraying himself as some “Billy Bad-Ass Marine”, wading into hostile country like Rambo went into that town and shot it all to hell! Again, WTF? Just who the hell does he think he is? He volunteered for a job he knew was unlikely to put him in harm’s way. He spent six months deployed to Iraq with the Second Marine AIR Wing because that’s what the Corps ordered him to do. He actually expressed thanks over not really having to do any fighting.

Tim Walz also went where he was ordered to go. Not for four years but over TWENTY years Walz went wherever his orders required him to go/be. Like many of us who lived an active life physically when young as he approached forty I imagine the aches and pains started catching up to him. With over twenty years of service he qualified for a military pension and full benefits (including medical and dental) and moved on to the next stage of life. For the record, in the last couple of years of his service had wanted to move into elective politics. When orders were cut that would deploy his unit to ITALY he decided to pull the plug and concentrate on running for Congress. It was only a couple of months later, after Waltz’s retirement was a done deal (and someone new would take over his role) that the unit’s orders were changed and instead of Italy they went to Iraq.  If there’s any real Marine left in J.D. Vance he’ll have flashbacks to encounters with Sgt. Majors as Walz gives him “that” look should he try to talk this kind of trash face to face in a debate.  As I saw Maryland’s Governor (himself a Veteran) say earlier you don’t rise to the rank of Sgt. Major ‘just because.’ I recall one back at Henderson Hall setting a young officer “straight” (with the Battalion Commander, a full bird Col. looking on and smiling) with “Son, there are two types who get to wear stars showing their rank – Generals and Sgt. Majors!” You bet your ass the officer who’d insulted him stammered out an apology, followed by a request to be dismissed!

Vance is accusing Walz of Stolen Valor and more or less being a draft dodger. Yo J.D., if you want to talk about Chicken Hawks take a look at the ass-wipe who made you his running mate. And now, given the way you’re shooting off YOUR fat mouth implying YOU are a “real” “combat veteran” take a look in the f**king mirror!  I’ll guaran-goddam-tee that you fervently wish you had the right to wear that little colored ribbon shown in the title pic. Soldiers feel the same way about their version, the Combat Infantryman’s badge. I never earned the right. While I enlisted expecting to wind up in Lebanon Reagan had U.S. Forces turn away from the fight and come home. I’d meet Marines who were there including one who was lucky enough not to be in the Barracks at that awful, fateful moment.  Back then, any jarhead grunt I knew and plenty of others were furious we weren’t allowed to head up into the Chouf and kill every last gomer.  I didn’t want to get killed or wounded any more than the next guy. I DID feel a DUTY to avenge my brother Marines and those from other services who died. I’ll go to my grave knowing in my heart that had we been allowed THEN to do what we wanted to do, and needed to be done all that followed, from the overseas attacks, to the garage bomb at the World Trade Center to 9/11 and what followed wouldn’t have been necessary.

So today Vance has me in a white hot rage. Tell you what “stud.” I’m damn near thirty years older than you. Broken down and disabled. Highly prone to falls and big as I am when I hit the floor during a bad one where I can’t break the fall I get dinged up pretty good. However I live in an affluent suburb of Raleigh and NC is a swing state so you’ll surely be here at some point. Come on over to Cary and let’s meet up at the town square which is less than a half mile from my apartment complex. No, I won’t shake your hand. (I don’t want to think what you might have done with it and then not washed it with soap and water afterwards) I’ll toss my cane as far away as I can.  Just the two of us. You still young and strong and me putting effort into keep my balance.

Then I’ll loudly (I can still boom my voice like I’m calling cadence during a formation run) point out so anyone nearby can hear what I volunteered for when I went into the Corps and what YOU volunteered for. I’ll point out you are LYING by implying you’re a combat vet and the proof is there for anyone who wants to check – you didn’t earn the CAR.  You volunteered to be a punk-ass journalist and that’s ALL you were. I’ll call you out for accusing Waltz of Stolen Valor and say “As we’d say in the GRUNTS not only NO, but F**K NO!!!” I’ll call you the CHICKEN HAWK P*SSY you are right there to your face. Let’s see what happens next. That is, if you’ve got the balls to wave off your Secret Service guys and have a go. I know I’m not the only Veteran around here who thinks exactly what I’m thinking right now.  (Maybe if we all chip in and show up with a used couch from the Goodwill store across the way from my apt. complex, will that be enough incentive?)

One last thing. I tried, hard to find your actual rank you held when you left active duty. Corporal/E-4 is NCO rank in the Corps – the equivalent of Sgt. or Petty Officer in the other branches. The most commonly held rank in the Corps for those who serve four years on active duty and get out is LANCE Corporal/E-3. It’s not common but far from rare for Lance Corporals to be called “Corporal” but there actually is a difference and in the Corps it’s a big one. Maybe you did achieve NCO rank (E-4/Corporal) before you got out. If so good for you but why the hell is it seemingly impossible to find out for sure? Could it possibly be you’re lying about your freaking rank? I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that’s exactly what you do when you allow people to write about as “Corporal” instead of correcting them with ‘I was a Lance Corporal.’ As a fellow jarhead I’d like to think I’m dead wrong to wonder about it.  Still…