Friday, August 2, 2024

Fakers Fake

One extra J.D. Vance detail you may not have heard, which I saw on BlueSky during the RNC:

This image the RNC just showed in a video purporting to be from J.D. Vance's military service is a $33 stock photo:




Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.ilovecitr.us

Someone then pointed out that Vance's role while in the military was as a "combat correspondent" for the Marines... so not quite the kind of job pictured, whether in a stock photo or not. 

According to this USA Today article, he was deployed to Iraq for six months in late 2005:

...he would “attach to different units to get a sense of their daily routine,” escort civilian press, and write stories about individual marines.

As USA Today tells it, his job involved more interacting with the local populace than standing around with a gun at sunset.

Multiple people on the BlueSky thread pointed out that the gun in the photo isn't right for Vance's era, or that even if it is, it doesn't looks right for what the U.S. uses. Here are some other important replies:

A Turkish photographer took the photo, and the soldiers depicted are Turkish soldiers.
Sun of the North @shamsito.bsky.social

The RNC’s complete failure to use the copyright-free, public domain set of pictures provided by the DoD astounds me as much as their repeated use of pictures of a foreign military when talking about “America.”
Tom @alttag.bsky.social

Vance was a public/military affairs corespondent and a corporal. His tour was only six months — did not earn a combat action ribbon so the posing is all a false front which is typical of cowards and hypocrites.
Franklin Souze

One wag also pointed out that you can tell it's not Vance because the guy in the photo has a clearly defined chin.


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