I received a zombie lie chain email from a county veteran's rep a little while ago regarding an alleged ACLU suit against the Department of Defense to "to end prayer from the military completely".
The bogus email continues:
They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU and others.
I'm not breaking this one. If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times! Let us pray...
Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it! Please send this on after a short prayer. Pray for our soldiers Don't break it! ...
This is one of those zombie lies that won't go away. It's been around
for a long time, but the email just
resurfaced with a vengeance over the past few days. CNN even had PolitiFact do a segment on this in the past couple of hours, and they rated it "pants on fire!".
Normally, I would just toss this kind of crap aside. In this instance, however, the county veteran's rep sent it to his entire client email list of 169 veterans, which he never even bothers to BCC - we're all on the "to:" line of the emails he sends. So, I got right on it:
Dear Mr. xxx,
The content of this email has been totally debunked by both DoD and ACLU, and has been making the rounds for years. There was actually a discussion on CNN in the past hour, since the chain email resurfaced in recent days.
While I sincerely appreciate what you do for veterans, I respectfully request that you keep your email list apolitical, and related to veteran job searches. I also invite you to consider retracting your email with the information I provided above, and the links contained in my response.
Sincerely,
Richard
Less than 15 minutes later, the veteran's rep who sent that email responded to me, copying (once again) all 169 recipients, that he'd been forwarded the email by a supervisor, made the mistake of forwarding it to his list, and that he would be vigilant in the future about keeping politics off of his email list.
I'm not reporting this to castigate the veteran's rep. He was clearly upset that he'd been duped, and was quick to correct it. He has been very helpful to many veterans in seeking employment and other counseling. What I do want to point out is that, while we generally blow off this kind of crap, in some cases it is important to respond - even more so when it's coming from a state government official and blasted out to a client email list (which is probably a job-actionable offense, in and of itself).
Mark Twain once said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes". I can sleep a bit better tonight knowing that at least 169 people were corrected about a zombie lie almost as soon as it hit the wire.
You can do the same thing. If a friend, relative, or coworker copies you on a zombie lie email, CALL THEM OUT ON IT. Don't just toss it aside - and include everyone on your response who received the original zombie lie.
Note: No, I won't name the state or county agency that this zombie lie email came from. I really don't want to get the guy in trouble, because he does great work for veterans, regardless of his political leanings / affiliations. And, I did cause him to think twice about doing the same thing again.