War brings out fake veterans

ST. LOUIS -- The war in Iraq led to stories of real-life bravery from soldiers, but it's also resulting in tales from those claiming falsely to be war heroes.

At least three Missourians have Web sites dedicated to tracking down people who pose falsely as military veterans.

Mary Schantag, a resident of Skidmore, 100 miles north of Kansas City, has investigated two recent incidents resulting from the war in Iraq. In both cases, relatives of soldiers captured in Iraq said they were reliving a nightmare because they had been prisoners of war in Vietnam. Only, the relatives weren't, Schantag said.

Schantag and her husband Chuck run the Web site phonyveterans.com. Chuck is a Marine who was wounded in Vietnam. The couple's site received 22 inquiries in 1998. Last year, it received 4,000, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

In Forsyth, about 50 miles south of Springfield, Steve Robinson looks into claims about being in the SEALs for authentiseal.org. The site receives about 20 to 30 reports weekly. Just a few of those turn out to be true SEALs, he said.

He, too, said he's already hearing fake reports from the most recent war.

"They claim they've just returned from Iraq, but they aren't able to disclose their super-secret missions," said Robinson, who was a SEAL for three years in the 1970s.

Increased attention on a conflict from a movie or documentary leads to new reports from fake vets.

The film "Black Hawk Down" about a failed U.S. military mission in Somalia in 1993 led to stories from "Black Hawk phonies," Schantag said. When the Discovery Channel reruns shows about the SEALs, Robinson said he receives a new round of fake stories.

Elite groups like the SEALs (an acronym for sea, air, land) or Army Special Forces are favorite targets.

In St. Louis in 1997, the head of the St. Louis city chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America resigned after falsely claiming to be a former SEAL. Daniel J. Meyer actually was a pipefitter on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.

A new war invariably leads to fake veterans looking for attention, the phony vet trackers said.

"We are desperate for heroes," Schantag said. "Anybody will believe anything about anybody if they can look up to them."

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On the Net

Phony Veterans site: http://www.phonyveterans.com

AuthentiSEAL site: http://www.authentiseal.org