Retirees get the older style cards that don’t include an embedded chip, but do have a laser holograph of the DoD Seal in the cover plastic, so you can’t fake the lamination, the black-and-white digital photo is printed directly onto the card stock, so you can’t slide in a passport-style photo, and a barcode plus elaborate digital data field on the reverse. I don’t know whether Marine reservists use the Smart Card or not, but I would strongly suspect that an activated Army reservist working from an FOB would have a Smart Card.

Of course, if someone’s never seen a military ID card before, anything could fool them, but the question came up.

As to Thomas not using an Army email address for his posts, that would be wise. Military email is monitored worldwide, and if he is a soldier, the moment his real identity is uncovered, his email would be embargoed for review by his superiors. Then they would start asking him why he never reported the unsatisfactory behavior he has written about. The “see something, say something” concept is universal in the military. If you are aware of unacceptable actions, and fail to report them, you get a place right next to the perpetrator for punishment.

The actual ID cards are pretty elaborate, but I bet you could get one made at your local illegal alien fake ID place that would fool an untrained observer.

That’s doubtful these days, unless the faker somehow has the card blanks with the microchips embedded in them. The old ones (and current retired/dependent ones) were reputed to be easy to fake, to the point where it sometimes wasn’t accepted as ID to get into bars, but that’s not the case now.

Assuming, of course, that TNR knows what to look for, or even the fact that we have a new kind of ID card. Which I doubt.

How easy is it to fake that card at least enough to fool an editor?

Thomas the Wraith on July 25, 2007 at 4:12 PM

Hell, I could make one with a pen and some construction paper that’s good enough to fool an editor–like Franklin Foer–who wants to believe the sh*t I’m shoveling. The actual ID cards are pretty elaborate, but I bet you could get one made at your local illegal alien fake ID place that would fool an untrained observer.

Yea and it wasn’t Lindsey’s coke in her pocket.

peacenprosperity on July 25, 2007 at 8:52 PM

Sorry, those were my pants she was wearing–the old ‘getting dressed in the dark’ thing, you know? (HA!)

If that’s the level of fact-checking that we can expect from TNR, we’re in for a long, hard slog in getting them to admit that they’ve been had.

Bryan, don’t give them that ground. The truth that the articles area a fraud is almost a given. Don’t give them an out to throw up their hands and say, “Oops, we were taken.”
Make them prove that they did not know it was a fraud froom the beginning.

Yea and it wasn’t Lindsey’s coke in her pocket.

Every milblogger who’s looked at these dispatches finds problems with them, yet Foer’s embeds all signed off?

Yeah they all signed off on them, just like all of the typography and handwriting experts signed off on CBS’s copies of Bush’s TANG records.

We need to quite arguing about if he IS a soldier and start debunking what he is saying.

He’s a poseur, in other words, albeit perhaps one with enough experience to make a facially plausible case of combat duty.

Square backed 9mm rounds…heh.

So, one of the data points er … points to “a woman.”
Wow! Glad that was cleared up! Whoa! To think we DOUBTED! The woman in the “chow hall” is in fact a woman! For SURE! Female. For sure. Of the feminine gender. YessirreeBob!
Next week, we will assemble data points to present … a name. A female name. All data point direct us to a name of the fairer sex.
Did the woman have a book in the “chow hall?” To read whilst she sat alone, near the snickering writer and the creeps he claims are his companions who he hangs out with, but far away from everyone else who can’t stand him and his crude associates? “Deathly Hallows” perhaps? Advance frontline battlefield copy one wonders? Did she reveal the plot device – revenge for them making her feel bad?

Re: the update adding the ABC story, I am surprised Foer met Thomas before he left for Iraq, because it brings up so many more questions.

Yeah, Dusty. I too think that’s weird.

We talked to one of the members of his unit to confirm the woman, a female contractor.?

Didn’t the original story claim the author didn’t know if the woman was a contractor or in a military branch?

That quote doesn’t make any sense. Is Foer claiming that they found the woman in question (if so, why not have her step forward to corroborate his account of the “chow hall incident”) or that they found a female contractor at this FOB.

We talked to one of the members of his unit to confirm the woman, a female contractor.

Didn’t the original story claim the author didn’t know if the woman was a contractor or in a military branch?

Hey, no spoilers-I haven’t read “Deathly Hallows” yet.

Regarding Foer’s “data points,” didn’t AP claim to have verified Jamil Hussein’s identity by actually going into the guy’s office and seeing his desk? Which, of course, turned out to be a complete lie. If AP can fudge their sources, why not TNR? After all, the only measure of Truth is whether it fits their far-left, anti-America, anti-Bush narrative. Actual facts are irrelevant. That is why Fox is so terrible at “lying” in their reports-not due to any factual problems, but because they have the gall not to follow the Left’s party line.

Or is it a town in Arizona?

(Somehwere between Grasshopper Junction and Baghdad, AZ.)

Would TNR accept both as true if it fit their template?

“Scott Thomas” is a pseudonym.

Why?

There’s no law against telling the truth.

No way this guy is a soldier. I doubt he’s even a writer. Scott Thomas is most likely a mentally unstable individual who has been hearing stories from a friend or loved one in Iraq. Thomas then regurgiates some of the details of what he has heard and concocts fantastical stories of murder, mayhem, and dog flattening.

Thomas may even be even using the credentials (name, rank serial number, unit, etc.) of the soldier he’s been hearing these stories from.

Mike Honcho on July 25, 2007 at 2:46 PM

By George, I think he’s got it!

Foer said, “I’ve got many, many data points to back that up”

Well, never heard anyone defend their position using the peculiar phrase “data points to back that up.” Was that vetted thru lawyers?

Data … points …? Kinda like “Deathly Hallows” – sounds like it means something but it doesn’t?

How easy is it to fake that card at least enough to fool an editor?

Is there an expiration date on that card?

Yes.

After you leave the Reserve do they take the card from you?

Yes.

Does it indicate where you’ve been stationed or what unit or division you’re in?

No.

Is there an expiration date on that card? After you leave the Reserve do they take the card from you? Does it indicate where you’ve been stationed or what unit or division you’re in? I’m wondering if Foer may have been snowballed by someone who had been in the military but is out now.

I have pleanty of Data points to back that up. Actually, I don’t, but doesn’t that sound really good?
Fact is, I’m a US Marine Reserve Staff Sergeant. My ‘Data point” to prove that is my military issue ID CARD. That’s not a data point, that’s a cold hard fact.

Unless Foer has seen that actual ID, or bothered to see that ID, then Thomas is not nor has ever been a soldier, ad Foer is the most irresponsible “journalist” ever.