Saucy Jack Letter Was Debunked Long Ago

Regular readers know that one of my pet peeves is chain emails, or the emails that aren’t true but purport to be someone’s heart-tugging story or tale of modern-day patriotism.  Well, I got another one the other day and held on to it until I had time to look into the matter.  I’m not the debunker here, I’m just trying to use the Internets to amplify the debunking.

Thanks once again to Snopes.com.  You can read the original, expletive laden letter at Snopes and the full story as far as they know it behind the “Saucy Jack Letter.”  This has apparently been in circulation in one form or another since November 2001.  The version I received was G-Rated without the swearing.

An excerpt from Snopes’ overview of the letter:

Is the story at least believable? Not really – the narrative is rife with errors and inconsistencies: for example, Ab Gach, the panhandle, and the Hindu Kush mountains are all in the northeast portion of Afghanistan, not the northwest; scorpion antivenin is injected, not drunk; and a true “Recon Marine” wouldn’t be broadcasting specifics about his position and mission to the world at large. If this really was the work of a serviceman in Afghanistan, he was deliberately trying to be misleading or funny, not to convey an account of real events.

The “Saucy Jack” letter is as popular as it is because it purports to give insight into the day-to-day reality of a soldier in the field that CNN fails to provide. News emerging from the war in Afghanistan seems rigidly controlled, and the people back home are hungry for information that is not forthcoming. A missive such as this one thus falls on highly receptive ears.