#and also you are never truly anonymous on the internet you fucking tumshie someone with sufficient motivation could track you down

[auspicioustidings]

If you see a Call of Duty fanblog that claims they are or were in the military I can say that 99% of the time they are lying.

A cishet white man who had a good experience in the military will not engage in fandom and will only brutally make fun of it, if he had a bad experience he is nowhere near the fandom.

A cishet POC man is the same, it's just a lot less likely he had a good experience.

A cishet woman who had a good experience in the military is, almost certainly, an ultra conservative who would despise fandom spaces.

Anyone outside of the categories above 99% of the time did not have a good experience with the military. They may have PTSD not from war zones but from how they were treated in their own departments. They may engage with fandom, but they will never idolise these characters uncritically and are not going to joyfully make it a part of their online fandom personality that they are ex-military so can totally help you with details (which given that all branches of the military function totally differently and countries again function totally differently they can't).

As a good rule of thumb, if anyone on the Internet is making something about them that conveniently relates to the fandom they are in a major part of their personality, treat that claim as unverified and move on with your day. You do not owe strangers on the Internet your blind trust and they do not owe you proof of their claims if they are not actively hurting anyone with them. If you think they are using their claims to actively try hurting someone, block them. These people thrive on attention and negative attention spends just as good as positive, do not give it to them.