Phony War Heroes Disgrace Themselves While Insulting Veterans

Roy A. Toups of Independence, Mo., was a man's man with a hefty resume. At age 46, he was a former U.S. Navy SEAL and a retired rear admiral who wore the Medal of Honor. After retiring from the military, Toups worked as an undercover agent for the National Security Agency.

His girlfriend proudly displayed a photograph of Toups wearing his Navy whites, the SEAL trident and the Medal of Honor. But an alarm sounded when private detective Michael Davis happened to see the photo. A Navy veteran himself, Davis immediately recognized that Toups' medals were improperly displayed and that he was wearing a badge an admiral would never have worn. When Davis contacted the FBI, Toups' story quickly unraveled.

His real name is Ralph Ervin Crowder. Not only had he never been awarded the Medal of Honor, he was never a SEAL. In fact, Crowder never even served in the Navy. He bought the medal and uniform at a military surplus store in Albuquerque, N.M., and his NSA identification papers were as phony as he was.

On Sept. 3, 2002, Crowder donned an orange prison uniform instead of his Navy whites when he pled guilty to a felony (impersonating an NSA agent) and two misdemeanors (impersonating an officer and improperly displaying the Medal of Honor). He was sentenced to eight months in federal prison.

Crowder joins a long list of politicians, athletes, actors, judges, media stars and everyday Joes who exaggerate - or totally invent - tales of their wartime exploits. They include:

- Tim Johnson, former manager of baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, who liked to get his team pumped up for games by spinning gory tales about his time as a Marine in Vietnam. He was fired in 1999 when it was learned that he never served there.

- Oregon Congressman Wes Cooley, who in 1995 told reporters he was a Special Forces demolition expert during the Korean War. He continued to serve his country as a volunteer intelligence agent after leaving the military. When enterprising reporters checked his records, they learned Cooley had never left the United States during his time in uniform. He lost his bid for re-election.

- For years, actor Brian Dennehy, the burly co-star of "Rambo," posed as a fighting Marine. In 1989, he told The New York Times he was hit by shrapnel during combat in Vietnam. In a 1993 Playboy interview, he claimed to have served five combat tours in Southeast Asia. Dennehy indeed was a Marine for nearly four years, but the closest he ever got to the front lines was when he lined up for his unit's football squad on Okinawa.

- In August 2001, Pulitzer Prize-winning Professor Joseph Ellis was suspended from his duties at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts after telling students he served as a platoon commander in Vietnam. He actually spent his years in the military teaching history at West Point.

As these fake heroes learned, whether they spin their tales for fame, government benefits or simply to impress their pals at the local watering hole, they risk being exposed by a growing number of angry citizens determined to set the record straight.

Chuck and Mary Schantag have been recording the history of Vietnam prisoners of war for more than 13 years from their home in Skidmore, Mo. In 1998, after opening their Internet site Pownetwork.org, the Schantags began hearing from people wanting information on neighbors and coworkers claiming to be POWs.

"It didn't take long to learn that there was a strong undercurrent of stories that couldn't be backed up," Mary says. "Over the years, the number of POW wannabes has turned into an epidemic." The Schantags have exposed more than 700 phony POWs and receive a dozen more requests each week.

Mary says it's not difficult to spot the poseurs. Complete lists of living Medal-of-Honor recipients and former members of the Navy SEALS, Army Rangers and other elite units are readily available. In most cases, it's just a matter of filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

How do phonies get away with it? Is the public that gullible? Mary says she believes it's because Americans are looking for heroes.

"Since the Gulf War, the Vietnam veteran has taken on a different status," she said. "Now it's cool to be a vet. Overnight, our veterans have gone from being the scum of the earth to heroes. Our sports figures are wife-beaters and our movie stars are drug addicts. America definitely needs heroes."

Vietnam veteran and Dallas stockbroker B.G. Burkett has exposed hundreds of pretenders over the past 16 years. He profiles many of them in his 1998 book "Stolen Valor," a 692-page tome that pulls no punches. Burkett said he's been told by government officials he's "No. 1 Freedom of Information Act user in America."

"I've checked over 2,000 stories, and at least 75 percent of them are bogus in one way or another," he said. "The strange thing is that some of the phonies actually did serve honorably in Vietnam, but then they decide to exaggerate what they did there. In other words, the guy really did serve in Vietnam, but he wasn't a rifleman. He was a cook."

It may not be against the law for a cook to claim to be a rifleman, but it is illegal to wear military decorations if you didn't earn them - especially the Medal of Honor. That's when FBI Special Agent Joseph Cottone Jr. gets involved. Assigned to the violent-crimes unit in Newark, N.J., one of his responsibilities is to investigate the illegal use and sale of military awards and decorations.

Cottone said the law is clear when it comes to the Medal of Honor. "There are three things you can't do," he said. "You can't wear it, you can't sell it and no one other than the official government contractor can manufacture it." He added that it's a federal crime to wear any medal you were not awarded. Maximum punishment for a non-recipient wearing the Medal of Honor is a $100,000 fine and a year in prison.

"It's real simple," Cottone said. "If you don't earn it, you don't wear it. Most of the cases the FBI works on involve the Medal of Honor, but I get calls all the time from people saying, 'Hey, this guy is wearing a Navy Cross and I think he's an impostor.' I have four active Navy Cross cases I'm working on right now, and I can guarantee that none of them were ever awarded that medal. Most of the time, they were never in the military at all."

Cottone isn't a veteran, but he admits he takes each case personally.

"Every one of these people is a disgrace and an insult to true veterans," he said. "Someone who has risked their life in defense of this country is the victim of these impostors. These phonies are stealing the valor that rightfully belongs to the true veteran."

Henry Mark Holzer also has made it his mission to expose combat counterfeiters. A Korean War veteran, attorney and law professor, Holzer has authored a number of books, including "Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam." In his most recent effort, Holzer teamed with his wife Erika, also a veteran, to write "Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service." They expect to publish the book this year.

"They imposter themselves for money, for glory, out of guilt, for women or to make up for their empty lives," Holzer said. "They lie to engender self-esteem, to earn extra civil-service points, to get a special license plate, to impress their kids or just to get publicity. Sometimes it starts with a small lie over a drink and then it just grows. 'Yeah, I was in the Army. Yeah, I was in Vietnam. Oh sure, I was in Tet. I saved the first sergeant, got wounded and earned a medal.' One guy won the Distinguished Service Cross but claimed to have won the Medal of Honor. Most people would be quite content with the DSC, but these guys are driven by a need they can't satisfy.

"It's ugly, it's awful and it's deceitful," Holzer continued. "This isn't just telling war stories in a bar; they're doing real harm. It's sickening when you have people like this leading the Fourth of July parade when our real heroes have died."

The Schantags, Cottone, Burkett and other fraud-hunters often are asked why they spend so much time and energy exposing the hypocrisy of cowards who pass as heroes. Henry and Erica Holzer answer that question on their Web site, Fakewarriors.com.

"Unless something is done . . . their shameless, self-aggrandizing and costly conduct will not only continue unabated; it will grow," the Holzers write. "Anyone who thinks such conduct is merely offensive and relatively harmless is misinformed.

"The legitimate accomplishments of veterans who honorably served America are dishonored and depreciated. Worse, those accomplishments increasingly are shadowed by suspicion among people who conscientiously try to distinguish between the real and the fake. The well has been poisoned by the proliferation of fake warriors."

The fraud-hunters are merely cleaning the well.