mis-representing military record - unintended consequences
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:50 am
This is a tale of someone who "harmlessly" inflated his military record, and the unfortunate unintended consequences to his loved ones.
Decent enough guy. Loudmouth, mildly racist Cuban. Trump supporter, Obama hater. 4th generation CubanCracker, family came here legally way back when, most of them are still in the Keys and Tampa - they gave up on Miami decades ago. He liked to talk about his military experience in Desert Storm, especially about how crappy the M16A2/M4 platform is and how since he was a squad leader, when he arrived in the Sandbox the first thing he did was break his M4 over his knee, turn it in to the armory, and insist on being issued an M14 which he carried the whole time he was there, tagged a bunch of Tangos, blahblahblah.....
Guy got laid off a couple months ago, but not too concerned - he was working on a couple leads and was pretty sure he would be back working soon. Landlord is a buddy, so rent was manageable. In the meantime, there was unemployment benefits and his girlfriend's medical disability check....
BAM!!! Dude stroked out.
Made it to the ER in time for the magic meds. Saved his ass, but he's now got lingering effects. Slurred speech, can't see well, can't drive, loses focus, stares into space.... Unemployment benefits stop when you aren't employable.....
Girlfriend starts looking for what he has to fall back on. No medical benefits held over from the job that laid him off. 401(k) got drained a while back during the recession and never re-built. So she reaches out to the VA to see what they can do.
Guess what? He was in the Army Reserves during Desert Storm and never left CONUS. He ain't got no VA benefits.
So now it's public assistance, rent voucher, apply for medical disability..... all the same as it would have been if he had never lied about his service.
But it sure was a gut punch to the woman who is by his side through all of this to find out that he had lied all along about the one thing that would have been his safety net, had it been true.
Decent enough guy. Loudmouth, mildly racist Cuban. Trump supporter, Obama hater. 4th generation CubanCracker, family came here legally way back when, most of them are still in the Keys and Tampa - they gave up on Miami decades ago. He liked to talk about his military experience in Desert Storm, especially about how crappy the M16A2/M4 platform is and how since he was a squad leader, when he arrived in the Sandbox the first thing he did was break his M4 over his knee, turn it in to the armory, and insist on being issued an M14 which he carried the whole time he was there, tagged a bunch of Tangos, blahblahblah.....
Guy got laid off a couple months ago, but not too concerned - he was working on a couple leads and was pretty sure he would be back working soon. Landlord is a buddy, so rent was manageable. In the meantime, there was unemployment benefits and his girlfriend's medical disability check....
BAM!!! Dude stroked out.
Made it to the ER in time for the magic meds. Saved his ass, but he's now got lingering effects. Slurred speech, can't see well, can't drive, loses focus, stares into space.... Unemployment benefits stop when you aren't employable.....
Girlfriend starts looking for what he has to fall back on. No medical benefits held over from the job that laid him off. 401(k) got drained a while back during the recession and never re-built. So she reaches out to the VA to see what they can do.
Guess what? He was in the Army Reserves during Desert Storm and never left CONUS. He ain't got no VA benefits.
So now it's public assistance, rent voucher, apply for medical disability..... all the same as it would have been if he had never lied about his service.
But it sure was a gut punch to the woman who is by his side through all of this to find out that he had lied all along about the one thing that would have been his safety net, had it been true.