Proud of my service

I cleaned toilets for this country. In today’s epidemic of Stolen Valor, I’m quite certain that no dishonorable veteran will follow my lead and claim things I’ve done for this country.

There isn’t an unimportant job in the military. Things have to be done to assist the readiness of our forces to meet challenges around the world. My cleaning of toilets during my time in the U.S. Navy assisted our military’s overall mission of protecting this country. By golly, I’m so proud of cleaning toilets for America.

Yet, we have impostors, liars all, who claim heroic duty in foreign lands, risking themselves as Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force, and MARSOC. Listening to their lies makes me that much more proud to have cleaned those toilets.

Sailors and Marines can confirm there are hundreds and thousands of toilets on Navy ships that have to be cleaned. Nowhere in the stories told by unheroic fakers of valor do we hear of them cleaning toilets like me. I cleaned my toilets and I’ve never claimed I was on some secret mission to clean toilets. Those of us who cleaned toilets in the military have records to back up where, when, and how we contributed to the overall readiness of the armed forces to protect and defend America.

The phonies claiming things they’ve never done have a “record” problem. One does not become a Navy SEAL, Green Beret, or a Delta Force hero without a record being kept. If the American military has one task that must be surely done, other than record-keeping, it’s the need for toilets to be cleaned, and cleaned often.

I’m no hero Green Beret, and if I said I was, I know the Guardians of the Green Beret would be outing me as a liar and fraud. If I claimed to be a Navy SEAL, I know my fellow Navy veterans would hunt me down as a Stolen Valor clown.

I cleaned toilets for this country. I’m damn proud of that!

STEVE FOSTER Fayetteville