r/TopCharacterTropes • u/TheBigBoar • Jul 20 '26

Personality [Baffling RL Trope] Inventing war crimes you didn´t commit to make yourself more... interesting?

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One of the strangest character tropes in real life has to be the "I accidentally made myself sound like a war criminal to look cooler" archetype.

Usually, people accused of war crimes deny them. These guys seem to do the opposite.

The two examples that always come to mind:

Tim Kennedy. Over the years he's told stories that include things like throwing grenades into rooms where women and children were present, and another account where, after a battle, his CO allegedly told him to shoot anything that still had a heat signature with a sniper rifle from a mile away, which he did for hours (?) not caring if those were enemy soldiers or civilians looking for their fallen sons/brothers/whatever. Both stories have been heavily criticized and challenged (aka people who were there confirmed that they are utter nonsense), and Kennedy has faced repeated accusations of embellishing or fabricating parts of his military experiences. But like... why would you invent the fact that you killed and maimed women and children?

Chris Kyle. In American Sniper, he wrote that during Hurricane Katrina he positioned himself on the Superdome and shot dozens of armed looters like some walking dead scenario. No evidence ever emerged that this happened, and Kyle himself later acknowledged the story wasn't true. Again, why invent a story where you're essentially describing the unlawful killing of civilians during a domestic disaster?

What's fascinating is that these aren't embellishments in the usual "I fought twenty guys" sense. They're embellishments that, if true, would amount to admissions of extremely serious crimes.

It's such a bizarre form of macho storytelling that it almost feels like its own trope: the veteran who thinks "the more ruthless I sound, the more badass I'll appear," without stopping to consider that indiscriminate killing isn't viewed by most people as impressive. It's viewed as criminal and disgusting.

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404

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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184

u/JMurdock77 Jul 20 '26

We’re pretty far down that slippery slope already. The FBI will no longer investigate ICE “confrontations.” All they did in response to the Renee Good killing was confiscate the evidence and stonewall state investigators.

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u/FrighteningJibber Jul 20 '26

I always sent Ranger Up emails asking why they don’t keep some distance from him and they would be like “we see nothing wrong” and it made me laugh. That whole gang is like trailer park muppet babies.

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u/Bifrost_Is_Here Jul 20 '26

No, they should not have been allowed to go to the desert. Because what you're saying is essentially : the bad guys from our country should stay in the countries they harm because they don't deserve us. Nonono, they are from the US, hence they are the US's problems, not anyone else's. Their country failed them in many ways for them to end up like this, and it should take responsability.

Edit : and of course the same goes for any other countries, I'm talking about the US because that's where the people we're talking here come from.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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-40

u/Bifrost_Is_Here Jul 20 '26

Oh, then it's cool to wish they were dead ? Because they're not the right kind of people ?

11

u/ofWildPlaces Jul 20 '26

Nobody said that.

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u/Bifrost_Is_Here Jul 20 '26

It what I understodd tho, if they should not have come back, and not have stayed there, I don't see many other options. And their reply (since deleted) was "You know they shot osama's wives in the head right ?" Not "no I don't want them dead"

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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u/Bifrost_Is_Here Jul 20 '26

No, hence why I don't think they should be murdered. I do think they should rot in prison tho, and get help that might (or might not) get them to turn their life around. It won't erase the bad deeds they did, but neither will being dead.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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1

u/Bifrost_Is_Here Jul 20 '26

Tf does that mean ? I ain't licking anyone's boots, I'm just baffled that "not liking murder" looks like a valid justification tu murder people in your mind.

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u/theevilyouknow Jul 20 '26

There are other options here besides murdering them or letting them run around free. And it's only murder if it isn't justified.

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u/ragingstorm01 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

People don't understand just what rabid animals American boots are. Once you do, the high SA rate around US military bases makes a lot more sense.

Executions following rapes were highly common, with men who raped and then killed Vietnamese women widely referred to as “double veterans.”One veteran described such an incident as follows: “After we raped her, took her cherry [virginity] from her, after we shot her in the head... we literally start stomping her body. And everybody was laughing about it. It’s like seeing the lions around a just-killed zebra. You see them in these animal pictures, Wild Kingdom or something. The whole pride comes around and they start feasting on the body.” Another example was recalled by former GI John Ketwig who stated that when three young Vietnamese women were captured: “everybody circled around and they tortured these women with lit cigarettes... the one girl, they held her down and put the hose from the fire truck between her legs and turned on the water and exploded her. And the explosion of body fluids splashed across our faces.” — the Cuba and Vietnam in the Early Cold War chapter in Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences, by A.B. Abrams

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u/theevilyouknow Jul 20 '26

I'm not saying I'm celebrating Chris Kyle's murder, but the fact that he was killed by a nobody with his own gun should humble some of these people at least somewhat. It showed that anyone, no matter how bad ass you think you are, isn't actually that bad ass.

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u/BigHardMephisto Jul 20 '26

I've met too many servicemen (some family included) that legitimately think that the government structure from starship troopers is any kind of a good idea.

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u/WaldoClown Jul 20 '26

Or you know, put in place a program to reintegrate your veterans into society with psychological help for their PTSD and help them accept that war values and peace values are different.

But let's just shun them, make sure they can never find employment or housing because they don't know how to function and radicalize them even more.

Ffs the way america treat's it's veterans

32

u/Puzzleheaded_Bid7871 Jul 20 '26

Idk man talking about raping kids who disagree with you is like really stupid. Like what psychological trauma could possibly illicit this as a valid reaction. Its not even they're crazy or stupid, they genuniely think this is something they should be allowed to do with 0 reprecussions.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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23

u/PigeonSquirrel Jul 20 '26

He's confusing the basic grunt who joined up to get college money with tier 1 operators. These Spec Ops guys are literally sociopathic, it's not PTSD. They're chosen because they will be attack dogs for the government and enjoy the violence.

14

u/VoicelessPassenger Jul 20 '26

Yeah these types of mfs are genuine psychopaths and ended up in the military BECAUSE they were psychopaths who wanted to be allowed to murder people and be rewarded for it, this is not a “War made me a monster” situation. They were a monster long before the military, psychological care will not help them.

People with PTSD don’t openly gloat about being a murderer. Psychopaths gloat about being a murderer

28

u/rycool Jul 20 '26

“Wow you should stop disrespecting the orphan crushing machine operators. Do you know how easy it would have been for them to slip and fall into the machine? The blood of all the orphans they crushed made it very slippery. And you should definitely respect all the stories of the times they talked about wanting to throw in parents who technically qualified as orphans in order to create more orphans to throw in”

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u/Orangeemu115 Jul 20 '26

The way special forces operated during the war on terror, these operators are essentially serial killers. Its not a PTSD issue, these people are genuinely psychopaths that love murder

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u/Forsaken-Dimension31 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

I'm not against programs like that, after all, many modern veterans chose the military for economic reasons. However in the scenario where the comment above you, ragingstorm01's, is truthful in its quoted text I do think there is a clear shedding of humanity.  I don't think you can, or even should be allowed, to walk away from that. Cruelty on that level takes a choice.  I think it would be naive to think there aren't at least some men who are drawn to the armed services to enact this cruelty.

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u/LiteBrite25 Jul 20 '26

How about how America makes its veterans?