If something doesn't sound right it probably isn't, I have heard some crazy stuff in the past few years.
One of the people mentioned below has managed to convince a few key people that what he has said is true, when confronted he provided a highly redacted DD-214 that gave only years of service, had schools, ribbons, and discharge type blacked out. It is bad enough that before COVID hit several had talked about hiring a private investigator to do a background check on him.
- Navy guy claimed to have been sent to PA school and then after completing it the USN said he skills as a "rescue swimmer" were too valuable so went back to doing that.
- USMC guy said he saw combat in South America and his squad took fire, and he was wounded. He wanted to join the VFW so asked him for proof and his response was it was all black ops and official his unit never left the states.
- Navy guy deployed on a sub but said it was so long ago he didn't remember which one he was stationed on.
- Army guy that went through SEAL training
- Air Force guy that said after going through preliminary flight training with the USAF said that the USAF was so impressed with his skills that they needed him to stay and teach others to fly as they didn't have enough instructors that were good enough.
- Yet another Air Force guy that met at a VFW recruiting table said that after flight school the AF wanted him to fly C-5/17 something like that and he told them if he couldn't fly F-15's they could just discharge him so they did.