Tribute to Veterans?

This picture was embedded in an e-mail I got yesterday from a fellow here in Boise. The message with the image was a follows: "A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check payable to "The United States of America" for an amount "up to and including his life."

That is honor, there are too many people in this country who no longer understand this.

"God Bless Our Veterans."

I fully agree with the sentiment and the NEED to thank veterans.

But there was something that didn't ring true to me about the picture.

So I did a Google search for "Bike in tree".

I got a group of images that included different views of the same bike, same tree. I also got some links to "bike eating tree" stories, which turned out to be mostly blogs.

Now I don't blindly trust blogs, so I refined the search again and found a site called Museum of Hoaxes.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4226/P30

So I sent a reply to all as an update to the e-mail my veteran buddy had sent.

This link (Museum of Hoaxes) has two pages of comments about the Vashon Island tree with the bicycle in it.

The VERY LAST "comment" was posted at 11:00 this morning.

From the kid who got rid of the bike in the 1950's..................

Before that, there is a comment from someone in the UK about a bicycle that WAS left in a tree by a soldier that did not return.

So the Harley poster might have been created using the picture from a photo contest in 1994, combined with a story from the British Isles about WWI, reported in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

But I am convinced that the poster was done with the New Hampshire dealership's name on top to attract veterans that had the cash to buy a Harley, rather than pay tribute to a fallen soldier.

And I find no Honor in that nor is it truth in advertising.