The Sacramento Bee
Local News:
They are heroes -- in own minds: Phonies wage war on truth
By Sam Stanton
Bee Staff Writer
They saw the worst the enemy had to throw at them, surviving
firefights and air raids, sneak attacks and submarines.
They are American heroes, some of them even recipients of the Medal
of Honor, the nation's highest military award for valor.
Except for one thing. In some instances, they are phonies.
For reasons that defy logic, men and women across America are
living lies as bold as their claims of gallantry under fire.
"There've been so many of these guys I lose track of
them," said FBI Special Agent Thomas A. Cottone Jr., who has investigated dozens of
phony war heroes in recent years. "Most of the imposters that we've identified, some
were never in the service and most of the rest were never in combat or even went outside
the United States."
The problem has become so staggering that there now may be three or
four times as many people claiming to be Medal of Honor recipients as there are actual
living recipients of the medal.
The number of authentic living recipients of the medal is now only
158, 16 of them in California, so it is not overly difficult to discover one of the many
frauds masquerading as authentic medal recipients.
"Every one of them has a different story," said retired
Marine Col. Mitchell Paige, a bona fide Medal of Honor winner because of his bravery in
the Solomon Islands during World War II. "It's the most amazing thing you've ever
seen. You could write 100 books on it."
Paige, an 80-year-old Palm Desert man whose heroism led to him
being the model for a "G.I. Joe Classic Collection" figure, has confronted fake
Medal of Honor winners in their offices, on city streets and in men's rooms at Veterans
Day parades.
"I had one at a parade up north where a fellow walked up to me
with the chief of police and he had a Medal of Honor around his neck and he grabbed my
hand and said, 'Hi, Mitch, it's good to see you. I
haven't seen you in years.' And, I thought, 'Who in the world is this fellow?' "
Paige declined to serve in the parade as grand marshal and caught
up with the man later in the evening in the restroom.
"I got him in the head (bathroom)," Paige said. "I
told this guy, 'You better take that off because you're not a Medal of Honor recipient and
I'm going to call the FBI in the morning.' He'd been drinking and he started to get a
little rough and I just grabbed him."
The roll call of phonies crosses all socioeconomic lines and all
boundaries of reason.
Corporate leaders and judges have been found masquerading as Medal
of Honor recipients, and lesser tales of wartime bravery have led to the downfall of
numerous powerful men, including the firing earlier this month of Toronto Blue Jays
baseball manager Tim Johnson.
Johnson was removed from his job because he had made up tales about
his service in the Marine Corps that included stories of action in Vietnam, a war zone in
which he never served.
With his firing, he joined a distinguished list of would-be heroes,
including:
Former Oregon Congressman Wes Cooley, a one-term Republican who
lost his seat after it was revealed that he had lied about serving in the Army in Korea.
Former Arizona newspaper publisher Darrow "Duke" Tully, a
confidant of war heroes and combat pilots until he was forced to admit that his tales of
serving in Korea and Vietnam were lies.
And Larry Lawrence, the former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland who
was buried at Arlington National Cemetery until his remains were removed in December 1997
after it was discovered he had fabricated his stories of heroism in the
merchant marine during World War II.
In most cases, claims of false wartime courage are more pathetic
than illegal.
"Sea stories, I guess you call it," said Robert
Kronberger, a retired Navy commander in Big Bear City and national president of the Pearl
Harbor Survivors Association. "We all stretch the truth once in a
while, but most people would never do something like that.
"Most people are pretty honest about it, but I've seen a lot
who are prisoners of war who were never near Japan or Germany or anywhere. A lot of people
don't want to be second-best."
There are many other reasons some fabricate tales of derring-do.
Some have claimed to be survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor so
that upon death their ashes could be scattered there, an honor allowed only for legitimate
survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. Others are seeking benefits or medical care
available only to veterans.
But many others simply are seeking the self-aggrandizement of a
distinguished military career, and in cases such as that of the former Toronto baseball
manager it is not a laughing matter.
"We were in an unpopular war and that is always associated
with us," said Scott Campbell, spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans of America.
"And any time something like this happens it still just casts a shadow over Vietnam
veterans as a whole.
"We really dislike this because we have worked so hard to be
able to elevate ourselves, especially with the other veterans' service organizations,
because there are still those out there who look at
Vietnam veterans as those who lost the war. It wasn't the soldier or the sailor or the
Marine or the airman who lost the war, it was a political war."
So, the last thing veterans need is someone telling war stories
that are false, such as the one about shooting a young girl that Johnson supposedly told
his team as an inspirational device.
But the lengths some would-be heroes go to often cross the line
between being a blowhard and a felon.
Telling phony tales of wartime bravery may be morally repugnant,
but no laws are broken until an imposter tries to cash in for veterans benefits by
producing a falsified Department of Defense 214 form signifying discharge from the armed
services, or when they start wearing military decorations such as a Medal of Honor.
Then the FBI moves in.
It wasn't until recent years that Medal of Honor imposters became a
problem large enough for law enforcement to deal with.
But as more and more cases cropped up, it became apparent that
there were many imposters and phony medals floating around, so many that when Cottone got
a phone tip several years ago, he was drove to a gun show 10 minutes from his FBI office
in West Paterson, N.J., and was able to buy two Medals of Honor for himself for about $500
each.
"We began to question where these medals were coming from
because the quality of these medals looked exceptional," Cottone said. "Our
investigation led us to a company in Long Island, New York, the only official manufacturer
of the Medal of Honor for the Pentagon. And, as it turned out, that company was making the
illegal copies."
As part of a court settlement in 1996, the firm admitted making and
selling 300 of the medals between 1991 and 1994, Cottone said, although the FBI believes
many more were made prior to its investigation.
Typically, they were purchased for $75 each and then sold at gun
shows and other events to collectors or to people who wanted the glory associated with
such an honor.
"Some people do it for prestige," Cottone said. "I
mean, think of the significance of that award. In a way, it's sad. Many people, especially
younger people today, don't understand what the Medal of
Honor is about. Guys put their lives on the line and many of them have sacrificed their
lives."
In fact, many of the 3,427 Medals of Honor issued have been awarded
posthumously, the recipient having died in earning the honor.
Recipients of the medal are approved by Congress and receive
citations from the president for acts of bravery or self-sacrifice "above and beyond
the call of duty." And the sacrifice involved in earning such an honor has fueled the
ardor with which Cottone and Paige seek out imposters.
"My father was in World War II, so that's part of the
motivation for this," Cottone said. "I believe we owe it to all the
veterans."
Impersonating a Medal of Honor recipient can lead to a year in
prison and a $100,000 fine, but the punishments Cottone has seen over the years have been
much more severe for some.
"In one case down in Florida the imposter who was publicly
exposed was required to write a personal letter of apology to every living Medal of Honor
recipient, take out a full page ad on Memorial Day
saying what he did and perform 500 hours of service at a veterans hospital telling
veterans what he did," Cottone said. "Jail, I think, would have been easier for
him."
And after Paige exposed a Medal of Honor imposter in Southern
California several years ago, the case resurfaced about 21/2 years later when he received
a phone call from the National Cemetery in
Riverside. The imposter had died and his body was waiting at the cemetery, along with the
man's grieving family, for the imposter's burial with full military honors.
"I said, 'He's a phony. He's an imposter'," Paige said.
"(He) was never in the service and I told the director, 'If I were you I would just
release these people and let them go back home and have the
family find another place for interment.' "
It is not an uncommon problem, especially these days, with more and
more World War II veterans dying. Each week, Paige said, he receives faxes or phone calls
about obituaries appearing in newspapers around the nation that mention supposed Medal of
Honor recipients. Often, the imposter's families knew nothing of the deception.
But the living imposters are often the saddest cases, especially
when they are caught in their lies and explain them away with claims that they were on
top-secret missions and could not talk about how they received their medals.
"They'll look you right in the eye," Paige said.
"They'll take you home and show you their DD 214 forms. They have newspaper articles.
Some of them are so idiotic, and I think, 'Who are they trying to
fool? I've got President Roosevelt's signature on mine.'
"I tell them they should take the medal in to the FBI and
apologize and say you're sorry. I try to help them out because some of them are really
cuckoo, really nuts. They say the craziest things you've ever heard of. You can't help but
laugh."
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