Special Forces Question

[vintageteacups]

Okay - so maybe more details later but do you think it's normal for an ex special forces member to tell you (a stranger but knowing your spouse is military), they were ex SF? Say, if they left 20 years ago?

Doesn't sound very "normal" to me. Generally SF members (serving and ex) speak of their original cap badge and nothing else.

Sounds like a Walter to me, but then I am a cynical wee begger!

Hmm - spoke to DH earlier and he wondered if he was genuine too.

Bit odd though. This person came to my home for an environmental reason (to do with renting out the house) and then saw our pics of wedding etc. Asked about DH and where we were going, where the kids would be going to school etc.

I took it all in and did wonder if he was spinning a line but thinking about it, he did seem very genuine (bit of a father figure in late 50s etc).

I did actually feel a bit uneasy about it but he seemed okay chat about it in very minimal terms. I just thought that if you were, you wouldn't tell anyone, except close family.

I should have asked what cap badge he was.

i once picked up a hitchhiker who claimed to be a marine trying to get back to portsmouth/ plymouth/ somewhere south of me... i was in uniform and he happily started telling me about his job etc (some sort of boarding operations blah) bit weird. he said he claimed to be rn because if he wrote marine on his bit of cardboard no-one had picked him up... he'd had his jacket stolen in a bar with his phone and wallet which had his id card in etc so he was hitching back to work to get an advance of pay etc. he'd got a bloody great bergen. he borrowed my mobile to call the guardroom as he'd spoken to someone or other earlier to let them know.

i didn't tell him my name or dh's name, just mentioned dh was army. he said his cousin was in the reme, but i probably wouldn't know him. told me his name. i said, blimey, i went to his wedding. and dh and i are godparents to their kids. he said he'd missed the wedding because he was in

so i dropped him off at reading services (it was about 4am at this point) and gave him £20 to get some breakfast (he'd been hitching since 10 the previous morning working his way south and hadn't eaten) - told him to give it to his cousin next time he saw him/ send him a cheque.

finished driving home. went to bed. got up the next day and mentioned to dh this weird coincidence. got bollocked for picking up a hitcher etc etc.

saw the friend a month or so later as he brought the family over for sunday lunch. said to him 'oo, have your seen your cousin? did he tell you i gave him a lift, weird eh?' and he looked at me completely blankly. no cousin.

then it clicked. he'd picked up a hitcher. gave him some money for food. and then gave him his business card because it had his work address on, not his home one, and said to the bloke 'send me a cheque when you get sorted, or i'll know you were just a con man'. no cheque.

so there's this weird little chap with lots of war stories hitching round the south of england getting money/ fed by military drivers (who apparently are the only people that pick up hitchers).

apparently they've had to publish on pt 1 orders across the region to be on the lookout for a male hitcher with a bergen (!) who claims to be a marine who's had his wallet nicked and to have lots of warry vessel-boarding stories.... none of the names he has given have been traceable.

there are all sorts of people who for some reason really really want to be military (esp with sf connotations). i have no idea whether your chap was legit or not - but there are some odd folk about.

and i'm not allowed to pick up hitchers any more.

our mate was mortified that this geezer is now using his name to embellish his stories. he must have literally hundreds of business cards that he's memorised though. how clever is that?

I did think tonight that this guy could have lots of different stories and decides each morning with the lads in the office, which one he's going to use as a wind up each day.

well, once he'd seen our wedding pics, that would have been a simple one to pick I guess. I'm so naive. It's a really reputable company he works for and I'm usually quite a good of character and he seemed to be telling the truth.

Good story madwoman - I would never dare to pick up a hitch hiker though. DH would be .

god mad woman what a lucky escape you had.

fwiw a work colleagues DH was 'sneeky beaky' as she puts it - (3 of the 6 in the office are forces families) so catch her drift, however the H has never said a word to us about his previous career (and it took her a good year of working with us to tell us what it is he does now) - he's out now, he know's we're forces of sorts as well, and has known us a few years (tight bunch) so i'd say it's v odd for a SF to say something to a virtual stranger unless he's lying or on some sort of ego trip.

the funniest thing was his face when i stopped the car and opened the door though - it was about 2am and the middle of nowhere (which is why i stopped, i did a drive-by the first time and then felt awful, so went back for him ). he literally couldn't fathom why some woman on her own would stop and pick up a hitcher in the middle of the night. when he called 'the guardroom' on my mobile, he said a woman had picked him up and was going to drop him at reading. then said 'yeah. a woman.'

i think he was probably more concerned that i was a mad axe murderer...

i'd love to know what he was up to though. very very strange. i half expected to find some random journo was putting together an article on hitching for a sunday supplement. i suspect he was just a weirdo though...

I'd say it was very unlikely for anyone ex-SF to tell someone random. Odd that he did but then like madwoman said, some people are desperate to be linked to the Forces in some way.
madwoman what a story! DH and I have a rule that we only pick up hitchers when we're both there. Now that we have 2 large car seats in the back it doesn't happen at all.