Hunters of fake Navy SEALS experiencing a boom

In Louisiana, a man duped the governor into believing he was the lone survivor of a Navy SEAL team ambushed in Afghanistan. In California, a jousting promoter said he was a SEAL veteran, not just a veteran of battles at Renaissance fairs. In Georgia, a televangelist listed a stint with the SEALs in his online bio for years, along with bit parts in the films "Green Lantern" and "Who's Your Caddy?"

None of these men ever served in the elite Navy units that undergo some of the toughest training in the military and undertake some of its most dangerous special forces missions. And while there have always been SEAL impostors, their ranks have been reinforced since a SEAL unit based in Little Creek, Va., killed Osama bin Laden in May.

"I've told four women alone this week to run the other direction," said Mary Schantag, who, along with her husband, Chuck, a disabled veteran, checks out potential impostors and posts their names on their website, the P.O.W. Network.

The claims surface as stray comments in bars, a line in a Facebook profile or an insignia on a cap. The consequences are often nil. Pentagon officials have said they don't have the resources to fact-check every potential liar.

So the only thing standing between SEAL impostors and the truth is a small band of veterans and civilian volunteers who have made it their life's work to expose phonies in all aspects of military service, including bogus war-medal recipients.

"Only 500 SEALs served in Vietnam. And we've met all 20,000 of them," said Steve Robinson, a former SEAL in Forsyth, Mo., and author of "No Guts, No Glory: Unmasking Navy SEAL Imposters."

When news of bin Laden's death broke, these investigators say, they were soon overwhelmed by reports of suspected SEAL phonies. Robinson, who had hunted fake SEALs for 10 years, was called out of retirement to help fellow volunteers track down claims.

Military-service impostors can go to extraordinary lengths to bolster their lies. A West Virginia man recently went to his grave saying he had won a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star — and had news clips from the 1940s to back him up. But when Doug Sterner, of Alexandria, Va., a decorated Vietnam War veteran and war-hero boast-buster, began digging around in March and obtained the man's service records, he found a note from 1945 inserted by an officer that said the man's medal claims were bogus.

As is often the case with such posthumous discoveries, the news did not go over well with the man's family.

U.S. Senior Citizen - Georgia Retirement Communities Offer Your ...

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