FRAUD alert: Former SI writer apparently lied about his Marine exploits

jgmacg - I really am stunned that he didn't serve at all. Maybe he is off the rolls or lists. But it wouldn't have been b/c he was underaged.

The american involvement in the Korean War started mid-1950. He was born in 1930. He would have been 20.

 

Well, poin, sorry if it sounded like I was being argumentative.

I just think when the stakes are so incredibly high, that the reporting has to rise to meet them.

That said, it's a remarkable and terrible story in its way.

Add:

I suppose there's a still slender chance he served under a different name.

But if he didn't, what would possess a man to lie - so elaborately and convincingly - about it for so long? I mean, I understand the daughter's identifying the beginning of the lie with the injuries from the car accident, but is that when it started? Did no one ever call him on it?

 

I looked in the SI vault to see if he ever wrote about his service. I didn't find anything, but I did find a spectacular story written by Putnam on Doyle Brunson winning the 1976 WSOP Texas Hold 'Em.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1091142/1/index.htm

 

Like I said about his writing...

 

Of all the things to lie about, military service, which is probably more closely documented than just about any other life activity, would seem to be about the dumbest.

That said, Putnam was indeed a hell of a writer. Apparently he just didn't know when to quit.

 

I was amazed to learn that there's no real documentation on Purple Hearts. Per Jones, I think they've been tracked meticulously in Afghanistan and Iraq I and II, but prior to that there are just too many recipients to keep a record.

What flaw or defect of character or brain chemistry or shame allows or forces a man to live a lie so deep?

 

Which would have involved using a fake SSN, since one of the stories quoted here says they provided the Marines with name, SSN and DOB.

 

I don't think it's quite that dramatic, j-mac.

Many of us know somebody (or know of somebody, or ourselves) who told a story that embellished the truth a little. Then, they tell it again. ... Over time, the story gets repeated and the truth gets lost. And nobody cares enough to go look it up, but the story sounds neat and gets a good reaction, so it keeps getting told. The people who would know the truth aren't in your life anymore, because that's what happens when you get older, so nobody's around to call you on it.

What starts as a white lie about the injuries on his back ("Oh, those scars? Yeah, I was in the war") might get mixed in with a question about traveling ("Yeah, I've been to Korea a couple times") when asked about something else. Then, the stories get mixed up and someone asks if he served in Korea and he doesn't deny it. So the story gets retold that way. And then ... he starts to believe it himself, because everybody likes to be the subject of a good story. So on a night when he's lost a little inhibition, he tells a convincing story about earning a Purple Heart. People believe it. Later, he tells it again. ... It's not a conscious lie, because even he doesn't realize that he's not telling the truth. He's told the story in his head so much that it becomes the truth.

Until someone looks it up.

Most of us don't do that about something as memorable as a Navy Cross. Maybe it's just about playing ball in high school or a dumb stunt we pulled off in college. While some truths are stranger than fiction, most aren't. Life is pretty mundane, most of the time. But when we tell stories about Springsteen's Glory Days, we don't see our own life's events that way, because they were pretty important to us. So we tell it in a way that makes it sound maybe more important than it was.

And it just snowballs from there.

 

Which is fine for Dominic who works unloading ships down at the dock. Not so fine for a Hall of Fame writer for Sports Illustrated.

 

Agreed.

The question is, when the story's been told for 30 years, how do you stop it? And when?

 

If you waited 30 years, you're stuck. Thirty days, maybe you get away with a giggle and a mea culpa.

It's one thing when Grandpa remembers a Little League bloop single as a home run that knocked over a barn....but in this case, it seems absurd to suggest that Putnam's story wasn't a 'conscious lie' or that "he's told the story in his head so much that it becomes the truth." The man would have to be a sociopath to actually believe such a story if it never happened.

 

Without getting into his head, I can't go that far.

These things happen, all the time. From Dom down at the loading dock telling his buddies about a fish tale to George O'Leary.

Doesn't make it right, of course. But I think we underestimate how easily these types of stories get away from a person. Just so happens this one is about something that can be verified, and it involves a public figure like Putnam.

What he did is not necessarily more right or wrong than Grandpa Ventura's grand slam/bloop single. And it certainly doesn't mean he's some kind of sociopath. He fucked up, plain and simple. And if we could get inside his head, maybe we'd know why.

But I'd give him the benefit of the doubt on the malicious intent of his lie, until proven otherwise.