Insight: Fake SEALs are barking up the
wrong tree
Sunday, June 20, 1999
By Milan Simonich,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Wayne Higley gave a four-star performance when he appeared on
"Good Morning America" to recount his daring days as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.
Thomas Beebe, head of military programs at Southern Illinois
University, captivated students with stories about life in the SEALs.
So did Raymond Aucker, who was superintendent of the Panther Valley
School District in Lansford, Carbon County.
All three said they loved their glorious times with the Navy's
elite Sea, Air and Land fighting teams.
Too bad that their service in the SEALs existed only in their
fertile imaginations.
Higley, Beebe and Aucker were frauds, and they were exposed by a
relentless, far-flung band of men who really served as Navy SEALs.
Led by Ty Zellers of Lebanon, Lebanon County, this group has found
and publicly shamed 7,000 phony SEALs, or about 1,500 a year, since it started its work.
The fakes have included teachers, preachers, police officers,
candidates for public office and employees of airports and nuclear power plants.
"There are thousands of these loonies out there, representing
themselves as something they are not," said Zellers, who served in the Navy for 25
years, 20 as a SEAL. "Some of these idiots get jobs and security clearances at
nuclear plants by claiming they were SEALs. Nobody checks them out."
So Zellers and other SEALs living in Montana, Nevada, Virginia,
Florida and Colorado have taken on that assignment. They use a meticulously maintained
database of Naval Special Warfare Archives to ferret out SEAL impostors.
Even the Navy relies on these former SEALs for accuracy.
"We cross-check records with Ty and his people all the
time," said Chief Petty Officer Todd Willebrand, a spokesman for the Naval Special
Warfare Command in San Diego. "They've helped us find a lot of phonies. I'd say 95
percent of the people who claim to be SEALs are liars, bragging about
their missions and all the medals they won. Real SEALs don't do that."
An elite group
Real SEALs also are rare. Willebrand estimated that they number
about 2,500.
Once Zellers and his crew establish that somebody is lying about
being a SEAL, they spend their own time and money to expose the faker. Uncovering a phony
can involve travel or dozens of long-distance telephone calls to the fraud, his employer,
even his wife and children.
The real SEALs are regularly threatened with defamation lawsuits as
they pounce on professionals and law officers who have falsely bragged to co-workers,
employers or students that they were SEALs. Yet no case has ever reached a courtroom.
"The people we expose don't want to see us in court. They want
to intimidate us into going away, which we won't," Zellers said.
Investigations by his group forced Higley and Beebe to apologize
for misrepresenting themselves.
Aucker fared worse. He was suspended without pay from his school
superintendent's job in August. The school board, which has been trying to fire him, plans
to do so next month, after settling a dispute over Aucker's right to a hearing.
Aucker, who had obtained his job with a doctorate from a
nonaccredited California company, packed up and left town in the middle of the night in
February.
Higley, Beebe, Aucker and dozens of other men who wrongly claimed
service as SEALs are named and pictured on an Internet site --
http://midcoast.com/~waterman/updates.html
It is maintained by real SEALs as a hall of shame for the worst
impostors.
"They have no idea what Navy SEALs went through," said
Darryl Young, a former SEAL from Florence, Mont., who works with Zellers. "Their lies
degrade those who served and especially those who died. We lost 49 comrades in
Vietnam."
Young carries shrapnel in his back from that war. He also suffers
from avascular necrosis brought on by his diving and underwater work as a SEAL. The
condition, caused by a lack of blood flow to major joints, has weakened his shoulders and
hips. It also has begun to cause deterioration of his bones. Young has trouble walking.
Grabbing cheap glory
Although the Vietnam War was reviled by many, countless men in
their late 40s and 50s are now eager to proclaim their service and invent stories about
being heroes.
Paul Bucha, who was an Army captain in Vietnam, said fakers of all
stripes have become rampant now that the war has been over for almost a quarter century.
"We come across people every week who lie about having the
Medal of Honor," said Bucha, one of 155 living recipients of that award, the
highest for military service. "I guess they think nobody will ever know the truth. It
seems that nowadays, nobody wants to say he was a clerk or that he didn't see
combat."
For some of the frauds, the SEALs have a special aura. Romanticized
since their inception in 1962, SEAL teams seemed even more glamorous during the 1990s
after some of their members became prominent politicians.
U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who once ran for
president, was a SEAL. So was Minnesota's governor, Jesse Ventura.
Higley, a Stoneham, Mass., man who duped "Good Morning
America" into thinking he was a SEAL, yearned to be part of the exclusive group. He
was caught by the real SEALs after his nationally televised appearance on Memorial Day,
1997.
Playing to the cameras, Higley stood at the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington, D.C., and pointed to the names of fallen SEALs. Then he lied about
serving with them and about receiving the Navy Cross, the service branch's second-highest
medal.
Real SEALs checked the archives, confirmed that Higley was not one
of them and confronted him. Then they placed his picture on their Internet site under the
title of "phony of the year." He remains there today, in infamy.
Unlike many impostors, Higley immediately apologized, and he
continues to do so.
"I did a very stupid thing that I am truly sorry for," he
said in a statement to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The strange thing was, it was a
friend of mine who first told everyone I was a SEAL. I was stupid enough not to stop
it."
Beebe, the administrator of military programs at Southern Illinois
University, was less contrite. He complained to his county sheriff that SEALs were
threatening him when they demanded that he resign from his job for misrepresenting
himself.
Beebe did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.
He still works at Southern Illinois, but his bosses said he had suffered tremendously.
"They destroyed his life," Rhonda Vinson said of the
SEALs. As executive assistant to the chancellor, she investigated Beebe on behalf of the
university when the SEALs called him a fraud.
"I think [Beebe] was very embarrassed. When something like
this happens, you're doing a "mea culpa" for the rest of your life," Vinson
said.
Young said that if Beebe's life was destroyed, he did it to himself
with his bogus SEAL stories.
Word of mouth
The SEAL investigators get most of their leads from average people.
Some are checking claims on job applications. Others have grown tired of a teacher's
bragging or a police officer's endless tales about serving as a SEAL. They write Zellers'
group to find out if the claims are true.
Many impostors may appear convincing because they wear SEAL caps
and the unit's symbol, a trident. One even had the trident tattooed on his arm.But
when pressed for specifics, such as the number of their SEAL graduating class, they
usually claim it is classified.
"Nothing would prohibit a SEAL from discussing his class. It's
not secret," said the Navy's Willebrand.
Young said he had uncovered more phony SEALs in Pennsylvania than
anywhere else. "It's the No. 1 state for us, but we get them everywhere, every
day."
Aucker was Pennsylvania's most notable recent case.
He was in trouble for neglecting his duties as Panther Valley's
school superintendent even before questions about his military record surfaced. Aucker
promised that he would fight to keep his job.
"I'm taking no prisoners. That's the Navy SEAL in me," he
told the Allentown Morning Call, which later helped expose him as an impostor.
Larry Bailey, another former SEAL who works with Zellers, said many
people who lie about being SEALs are actually successful in their jobs.
"But there's a vacuum inside their egos. They lack
self-esteem, so they claim to be something that sounds exciting," said Bailey, of
Alexandria, Va.
Young said he thinks that the fake SEALs fabricate these stories to
impress women, co-workers and prospective employers. "Some of them have been lying to
their wives and kids for years," he said.
Zellers and his charges occasionally take a break from their
investigations when they get tired of the grind or fall short of money needed to cover
expenses. But as summer begins, they are back in full
gear, hunting down SEAL wannabes. Their latest target is a U.S. customs agent who already
was exposed once before.
"We've had suggestions that we should charge a fee to check
people out, but I don't want to do that," Young said. "I didn't get in this for
money. I'm in it because I don't want phonies walking on the graves of people who really
served."
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