I went to the site suggested by
Richard Slonike,
Most of these guys listed there are professional con-men hoping to make a living off of conning the government and sympathetic people. As Andy says, "thats there job."
I usually can spot a wannabee when I see: an old fatigue jacket with all kinds of military ranks on the same jacket. Army stripes and Airforce stripes all on one jacket, etc. Usually I pretended to be a gullible interested individual and ask enough questions to get them talking in circles then get them trying to explain everything. I usually end up saying: "Son you have never been in the military have you?" Some will answer they hadn't, and others will go right on digging themselves into a hole.
When I was living in Newport, WA. we had a lady in her sixties that would go sit on the corner of the state line (Newport is really two towns - Oldtown, Idaho and Newport, WA) on the Idaho side of the border is a little "strip mall" with several stores, on the Washington side is a big Safeway Store and a McDonalds. Lots of traffic in the area. Anyway this lady would sit near the stop light and usually on the Washington side of the street holding up a sign stating, "Will work for Food." People would give her twenties, etc. rather than ask an older woman to work. The police did an investigation on her and found out that she lived in Sandpoint, Idaho (28 miles down the road) and had close to $200,000 in a savings account and was living in a nice home. They figured she was pulling in somewhere between $300 to $1000 a day in the summer time with all the tourists traveling through. The police gave her a ride home and told her not to come back to town again!
Fraud is fraud (to me) whether its a wannabee or someone posing to be poor. My difficulty is that I as a compassionate human being I must not allow my concern and care for humanity to be robbed by cynicism (which is easy for all of us). Too much of cynicism can make a skeptic of each of us and make us uncompassionate when we should show compassion. The balance is often hard to maintain when you have jerked around by a wannabee.
Keith
Hey,
When my daughter was in High School she wore my combat boots and fatigue jacket to school, I think they called that grundge. Anyway, my dress uniform is still in the closet. Hat, shirt, tie, pants, ribbons for the medals etc. It gets buried with me!
|