David Reeder at Breach-Bang-Clear:

“I’d rather just come on out and get it out there. There’s nothing more to say about it. I came into the Marines as an intel guy, started working at the NSA, and got some deployments out of it. The deployments were national intelligence teams [three letter agencies, ed]. That’s all true. But I was never Recon. Someone called me out on it, and I copped to it. It’s nothing I didn’t bring to my own doorstep. I could easily have shut it down, and I didn’t. It’s a lie I’ve been living for twenty years.

This is a soul cleanse for me after looking over my shoulder all this time.

I apologize to the community, to everyone for misrepresenting myself. I don’t ask or expect forgiveness. I can’t make up for what I did, but I can try to atone for it.”

So let me get this straight.  Someone called you out on it, or otherwise you would have kept living with that false impression from your students and followers?

Okay, perhaps I’m being to harsh here.  Nathan had to point at David too, and say “Thou art the one.”  David engaged in true repentance at that point.  I don’t regularly follow Mr. Lamb so I have no dog in this fight.  I hope he benefits from this experience.  But I have this to say to him.  You do not atone for your own sins.  Only the sacrifice of Jesus does that, and if you have no savior, you aren’t saved.  It’s that simple.

Here is the thing, though.  It just isn’t necessary to embellish CVs like that.  I learn from people when I can, and when I can’t, I don’t.  I really couldn’t care less about their CV.  The question is always for me, “Is what they’re teaching valuable and meaningful for me, and am I physically capable of implementing and practicing it?”  If yes, then I try to learn from it.  If not, then I ignore it without any malice at all.

There is no shame in not being a recon Marine.  My son Daniel wasn’t a recon Marine.  He was an infantry Marine who saw heavy combat in Fallujah in 2007, earning the CAR.  He was a SAW gunner, and a designated marksman for his platoon.  He went through all of the shooting and sighting training that the Scout Snipers go through, but he told me he had no desire whatsoever to take the rest of the training and testing, i.e., stalking, egress, etc.

He also had no desire whatsoever to run everywhere, which is what the recon Marines had to do to be able to achieve a perfect score on their PT.  Mr. Lamb didn’t have to embellish his CV (or perhaps he did if Magpul would not have hired him, possibly leading to more difficulty in building his brand).  I don’t know what the future would have held for him had he killed this perception at the outset rather than live with it.

In the end, when you get enough years under your belt in your own line of work, you know you are the craftsman, expert and mentor when the kids come to you for mentoring, being able to choose anyone they want.  It is that choice that is confirmation of your life’s work, not your CV.