Scenario: You have a friend who's always lying about his/her deployment to look like a badass?

SPC Stephanie Oanes It obviously is affecting your relationship already. Be honest, square her away, and let the chips fall. If the relationship means anything to her, it will end. If it does not, it will end anyway.

We all exaggerate things. It is our nature to make ourselves look cool. It is another matter, in my opinion to tell stories of combat, that are non-existent.

Good luck.

SPC Stephanie Oanes, I'd privately call them out for being a BS artist and a liar -- which would probably terminate the friendship unless they started getting honest or at least ceased and desisted the braggadocio.

If the one-on-one had no effect, the next time I happened to be within earshot of their boasting, I'd be inclined to counter with one or three humorous but ego-deprecating tales about them from any common deployment.

And if those two warning shots didn't deter them, then I'd tell the bald-a**ed truth whenever asked by a mutual acquaintance: "Yes, I was over there with him. No, I don't have any stories as exciting as his because it was really pretty tame where we were at -- I got stuck doing parking enforcement around the headquarters building and he was tasked with keeping the sergeant major's square yard of grass neatly trimmed."

Dang, stuff I did in the military only needs small *cough cough* embellishments. "This is a no shitter ... " How all sea stories start out. :)

But if you have a "friend" lying to everyone then you might want to get far away from that person. If you decide to talk to the person, do it in private, not in public. Explain that you really don't like the tall tales and if they insist on telling them, you will not continue the relationship.

I think COL Smallfield said it all.

Almost as bad as stolen valor, actually worse. Be proud of your service, only 1% of Americans do what we do. Correct them and if they do it again cut sling load.

Who knows what else they lie about. Just my two cents.

The incidents described in the OP are integrity and honour violations. That person would no longer be my friend.

Couple thoughts:

1. Why are you such close friends with a liar?
2. If you are close, you should be able to talk to them about it.
3. If you're thinking of calling them out in public, you aren't that close.

You should already know what the right answer is. though friendships come and go you will definitely have to reevaluate your friendship with the, if your friend respects you and your friendship then maybe just maybe they will listen. if they dont listen is the friendship worth it knowing they are blatantly lying?

You pull them off to the side and tell them to stop the bullsh!t. If you say nothing, you are basically being culpable in this situation. You have to decide what is more important, your integrity or friendship with a person without integrity. Just my two cents.

I love these. I deal with these pretty harsh. First, I try to insinuate that they are embellishing and if that doesn't work they will be put in their place.
I have had my challenges in the past with this. I don’t joke about it. It adversely affects many people. You can tell when a soldier has it. I have a soldier in my platoon that has a severe case of PTSD. He is fine but it can flare up. He doesn’t let it cripple him or let it show. So to have a fake, and that is what he is, brag about this is disgusting to me.
When I first got back I had a friend of my wife talk to me about the military. He was deployed to Afghan in 03 as a helicopter refueling at some mega base. Needless to say he didn’t see anything happen. We were talking and he made a reference about how he deals with PTSD and that we know what we been through. I snapped and let him have it. We are still friends but he realized he was being hurtful. He thought he knew but he really didn’t.
That is not a friend. A fake is a fake. If they lie about their service to gain attention how can you trust a person? Would you feel comfortable that they wouldn’t make statements about you just for attention? A person like that is also hurting the credibility of soldiers. People see their BS and think PTSD is not real or is something that they can just over. They think that because they never seen a real case of it due to all the fakes out there. I still don’t sleep well. But people like that just want the attention and the hero factor that comes along with it. If you don’t address it is the same as letting a drunk get a drink.