Let me give you the opposite end of the story. I knew a man who was a retired Navy Master Chief and no matter what you did, he had done something bigger or better. We all thought he was the biggest liar that ever existed. His wife would get tired of hearing him and say "Shut up Bob, everybody knows that's a lie." He had a grown Down Syndrome son at the time and when his mother would say that, Robert, Jr. would pipe in and say, "Yeah, Shut up Bob, everybody knows that's a lie." He was a really nice man in his older years and you just had to love him. I once caught a 240 lb. Bull shark here in NC where sharks aren't supposed to be. When he heard about it he said, "I caught a 400 lb. Bull shark off a navy ship in Guantanamo Bay. His wife hit him with the shut up Bob, and Robert, Jr. followed suit. He claimed to have served on the first Navy Carrier, the Langley. He also claimed to have been on the first submarine that was saved by a diving bell rescue. He said he spent part of WWII up a Chinese River (Sand Pebbles Movie), and that he owned a Philippina woman that he purchased for 5 dollars, and that he knew Chiang-Ki-Shek (Chinese Nationalist leader personally).
Then when he died, his younger son, also a retired Master Chief by this time, and grandson went through his belongings. He had a scrap book that had pictures of the USS Langley, the rescued sub, the Philippina woman (a beauty) with him, and pictures of him shaking hands with Chiang-Ki-Shek and Mrs. Shek. Also pictures of the Nationalist soldiers executing Chinese communists. Sure enough there was the picture of him with the big shark on the deck of a Navy vessel, (a tug I think), in Guantanamo Bay. I loved that ol' guy, but it added a great appreciation to know that he had lived all those things or at least been around when they happened.
