Duty to Correct

Those of you who know me, know that if I am wandering around our facility with a confused look there is probably a good chance that I’m looking for my coffee cup.

That damn thing is always walking away from me.

A while back I was given a really cool French Foreign Legion mug that I sort of lug around with me each day with what seems a perpetually half full cup of luke warm coffee.

This has unintentionally generated a unique backstory for me.

A while back during one of our law enforcement training days I had to jump in and work as an operator on our VirTra 180 system.  This involved me navigating past a bunch of patrol deputies standing in front of our mag refill station to re-charge some of our magazines.

As I was in the process of refilling the mags I was able to over hear a conversation between a few of the deputies.

“That over there is one of the owners.”

“The bald guy?”

“Yeah… I heard he was like some professional hunter in Africa or something, then he went into the French Foreign Legion… something happen though and he came back to the states and got a law degree.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah… I know… his wife, she’s the one that started Artemis, I heard she met him while she was doing some private contractor work in Africa.”

“Awesome”

Wow… I’m much more of a badass than I realized!

(If you have arrived here from our newsletter, continue reading here:)

We tend to create backstories to fit stereotypes.  That is part of the human condition.  We see a heavily tattooed guy in great shape with a zz top beard our first thought is… this guy must be some special forces dude.

Actually, he’s a video game designer… but ok.

We do have quite a few members of the Special Forces community come through here on a regular basis.  Both enlisted and officers.  For the most part… other than being in good shape, you would probably not be able to identify them as special forces operators.

People will invariably throughout our lives misjudge us.  That is inevitable… especially as we become more proficient at our avocations.  Do we have a duty to proactively set the recored straight?

Yes… but only too a point.  If people think that I was a mercenary in Africa I am under no obligation to make it a point to inform every stranger I meet that in fact I only hunted animals in Africa…  not people.

If however someone in conversation with me brings up my “mercenary” past… or my “time with the French Foreign Legion”… or my supposed military service and I purposefully do not correct them, that is lying… or worse, stolen valor.

The other day one of our instructors was working with a young couple on the 300.  It was fairly obvious that the guy was in the process of wooing (or at the very least attempting) to woo the girl.

Craig… one of our newest instructors, and someone with decades of Marine and Law Enforcement experience was working with them.  The guy made a comment about “how things were in Iraq”.

This got Craig excited.

“You served?”

“Ugh.. no… he said sheepishly… I, ugh… I know people who served”.

True,… he may have been trying to offer his female companion the story,… or at least the insinuation that he had been a service member.  Still… when it came time for the rubber to meet the road, he did not promulgate the fiction.

You came close son….. but in the end, nicely done.