I need a little advice from you good folks. My father and I were talking with a fella that is involved with my son's Boy Scout troop. This guy is fairly well known around our town and he claims to be an ex-Green Beret that served during Vietnam. My father did serve in Vietnam as a Navy corpsman with the Marines. The guy we were speaking with has been in the local paper a few times, marched in our local parades wearing his old uniform and a chest full of medals, ect.
To make a long story short, my father later said that this guy was lying about everything. The places this guy said he was didn't jive with the time he supposedly served, and he generally felt the guy was full of s**t. This is something that I have felt since I first met him, but I couldn't prove it.
My question is this, is there a resource available to check on who are the fakes and who really served in the Special Forces? Because he is so involved with the Boy Scouts, this really makes me concerned.
Thanks
Dear Ironhorseman,
As a former British soldier of 13 years I feel the same way you do about "Wannabes" and the "Walter Mitty" characters out there that make false claims about their so-called military background. There is absolutely a resource that you can use but first of all, a little information that you may not be aware of...
It is a felony under US law (under the "Stolen Valor Act") for anyone to falsify a military background especially if claims of awards for valor are made. The usual penalty (including being publicly denounced as a fraud and a liar) includes up to one year in prison - if the claims being made also include the fraudulent possession or wearing of the US Medal of Honor then the penalty jumps to 5 years in prison. The fraudulent activity carried out by these disgusting people takes away the honor earned by those who really were there and who really did put their lives on the line - this activity is now severely frowned upon by the authorities in this country (and quite rightly so) and as such... any claims made that are brought into question are thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators are dealt with severely.
Now, as for resources to check on his background... there is a website that is hosted by members of the SEAL teams and other special forces organizations that feature an "Instant Lie Detector" (a set of questions to ask the so called "hero" - with examples of the typical responses to expect from a fraud - the site is called VeriSEAL.org and can be found at
http://www.veriseal.org. They offer a public service - free of charge- to "out" these wannabes and have a form on their site which can be found here:
http://sec-global.com/services/ctp/vsg/vrf.html - this form is used to investigate the veracity of claims made by so-called Special Forces veterans... The special forces community is a very small one - if the person did indeed serve as a member of the community then someone, somewhere will know the individual in question.
Anyhow... go check out the website and fill out the form... hopefully you'll get this guy before he steals even more honor from those who really have seen combat. Incidentally, my e-mail address is
president@ops-int.com so by all means, please keep in touch and let me know the out come of your inquiry. I will post details of the offender on my site -
http://www.ops-int.com if he turns out to be a fake... I get all manner of visitors from that very exclusive community every day given the nature of my business... if he is outed as a wannabe then this will serve to further embarrass the persona non gratis.
One last point, you can also check with the National Personnel Records Center for the Army to check the individuals record - if he has indeed served in any capacity in the military then he will have a record with them.
Sincerely & Respectfully,
Miguel A R Denyer
