In this article:
Missing the signs
Well known fakers
Finding frauds
Why they lie

Printable version

Email article

An army of bogus war veterans marches through private and not-so-private life, and a thriving cottage industry has sprung up to unmask the imposters.

They were valorous stories, full of bravado and death, meant to make a lady swoon. And when he turned up to take her to breakfast in his white Navy uniform, his chest bedecked with three tiers of medals, it was more than Katherine Bradbury could bear. “I went weak at the knees the first time I saw him,” she says.

Capt. Roger Edwards, 45, was a Naval officer with limpid brown eyes, a neatly trimmed moustache, and a brazen self-confidence that could soften the most skeptical of souls. Bradbury, 29, was a young, attractive blonde with a cheerful disposition, working as a cardiac nurse at St. Peter’s Catholic hospital in Florida. “All the girls on my unit thought he was quite the catch,” she says. “I was the only one who was single, so they were always trying to hook me up with someone. He was perfect.”

He would visit the unit to drop off medicines, moonlighting as a pharmacologist from his real job as a medical officer in the Navy. After six months Edwards asked Bradbury on a date, and following dinner and a movie, the two chatted into the early hours. Bradbury was enthralled by his war stories. He said he was an elite Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) commando and that he had worked covertly for the CIA. He told her how he had rescued soldiers under fire, and another harrowing tale about how some wounded colleagues had to be left behind during a helicopter evacuation in Vietnam. He refused to desert them, he said, and jumped from the ’chopper to tend to their wounds. After that he was taken by the Vietcong as a POW. He showed Bradbury a puckered scar on his hip.

He was not just a fighting man, but also an Episcopal minister, he told her. Being a religious person, Bradbury was even more pleased. “I couldn’t have been more proud than when I was with him,” she says. “I was in love.” Edwards sent her a card every day and left roses at her doorstep.

Her parents, religious folk from rural Canada, were dismayed at their daughter’s choice: Edwards admitted to being married before and having two daughters, but he claimed the marriage ended after his wife had an affair. But Bradbury took him home for Thanksgiving, and her parents also fell under his spell. Edwards proposed, Bradbury accepted, and the entire family went to the local golf and country club to celebrate. The couple moved into an apartment in Florida soon afterwards, and Bradbury returned from work every day to a candle-lit bubble bath.

Edwards began to take her to military events, festooned with Purple Hearts for wounds in combat, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Basic Parachutist Badge. On Oct. 31, 2002, he was given the title of honorary Marine. Standing beside him was Thomas Cottone Jr., who became interested in the array of medals on Edwards’ chest. Cottone had more than just a comrade-in-arms’ interest in the heroism and achievements of such men — his job with the FBI was to sniff out military imposters.

Missing the signs

Looking back on their time together, Bradbury realized things had begun to unravel a long time before. One night, early in their relationship, a woman came to the door in a distressed state. Edwards went outside and Bradbury overheard the woman asking, in streams of tears, if Edwards would “reconsider.” He later said that it was part of his work as an Episcopal minister.

Then he began to take long absences, which he said were covert missions for the CIA. Much of the time it was to the Middle East. “I was so proud of what he was doing for his country,” Bradbury says. Yet during one of his extended absences she was at home when the telephone rang. The caller ID showed Edwards’ name and a long-distance U.S. telephone number. The phone went dead when she picked up, so Bradbury called back. After a few rings, Edwards answered. He was furious. “How did you get this number?” he snapped. “I’m undercover with the CIA and they are asking why I have had an incoming call on this line. They are going to interrogate me now. They could get me for treason.” When Bradbury said his name had come up on caller ID he became even more furious. “If two guys come to the door tonight, cooperate with them so that they don’t hurt me.” And with that he put the phone down.

Several months later, Edwards said he was being stationed in Japan. When she called over Christmas, Bradbury says, “An ensign in his office said he had gone to pick up his wife and children. I ran to the toilet and vomited. I felt like I had died.” When she called again, Edwards finally cracked, breaking down in tears and admitting that he was still married.

“I think it’s disgusting,” she says. “He is stealing the honor of those who have died in war for this country. He robbed me of the best years of my life. He fooled hundreds of people, though — he fooled everybody.”

Well known fakers

Edwards’ story is part of a murky phenomenon in modern-day America. An army of bogus war veterans thrives in private and not-so-private life. According to campaigners who work to expose the fraudsters, the problem of imposters has reached epidemic proportions.

The question of military records became an issue in the 2004 presidential election. Democrats made much of the contrast between the heroic Vietnam War record of their candidate John Kerry, constantly flanked on the campaign trail by fellow veterans known as the “band of brothers,” and the military career of President George W. Bush. Bitter battles about the details of a man’s service record is one thing, but making one up is quite another. Although it is illegal under federal law to wear a military uniform and decorations unless you are entitled to, the problem of imposters has become so acute that some states are passing laws to halt the tide. Washington state Gov. Gary Locke recently made it a crime to profit by falsely claiming to be a military veteran, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Among the bill’s targets are people wrongly seeking hiring preferences or educational benefits and conmen preying on people’s symapathies. It isn’t difficult to do: Military discharge papers, called DD-214s, can be bought on eBay for about $50.

The list of unmasked imposters is not exclusively one of pathetic misfits and marginal fantasy merchants. Wes Cooley, a U.S. congressman from Oregon, claimed he served with special forces in Korea on countless top secret missions. Although he was indeed in the military for two years in the early 1950s, he never left U.S. shores. In 1997, he lost his seat and was sentenced to two years probation, fined $7,110, and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service after being convicted of lying on official documents.

Patrick Couwenberg, a former Los Angeles Superior Court judge, claimed to have received a Purple Heart after being wounded in the groin while working as a CIA operative in Laos. But like Cooley, Couwenberg had never left the United States while in the Naval reserve. In 2001 he was removed from the bench by the California Commission on Judicial Performance.

David Nicholson, chief of the Amelia, Ohio, Police Department, claimed he served four tours in Vietnam and was captured and held for 15 days as a POW, earning him a Distinguished Service Cross. He later admitted to forging documents to get VA benefits. He was sentenced to three years probation and fined $300 for unlawful use of a military discharge certificate and unauthorized wearing of military decorations.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis began to write himself into his famous historical accounts by saying he served in Vietnam. In fact, he taught history at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., at the time. “Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made,” he said when caught. He was stripped of his pay for a year and suspended from his endowed chair at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. He continues to teach and write at the college.

In 1989, actor Brian Dennehy told The New York Times that he suffered a concussion and shrapnel wounds in combat, and in 1993 he told Playboy he served five years in Vietnam. Although he did serve in the Marine Corps from 1959 to 1963, his only overseas tour was to Okinawa, Japan. He apologized for lying in 1999 after winning the Tony Award for best leading actor in Death of a Salesman.

Most serious cases of veteran deception are handled by Cottone. “Before I started this I had no idea how huge it was,” he says. “Of all the crimes I investigate, including bank robbery and murder, this is the one I take the most personal satisfaction in solving. It’s truly disgraceful. It’s sacrilege to anyone in the military. They are taking away the valor of those who served in the military, people who have been killed [or] lost body parts while serving honorably for our country.”

Finding frauds

Finding statistics about the phenomenon is difficult. The VA only prosecutes those who lie to claim veterans benefits, of which they have a handful of cases a year. So a thriving cottage industry has sprung up to unmask imposters, led by outraged campaigners, in some cases from their homes. Their only weapon is public exposure. Genuine veterans write angry books with titles such as No Guts, No Glory and Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and its History, in which they expose phonies in outraged prose. And most sections of the military, particularly elite units, have retired soldiers who run veterans’ associations that play an active part in exposing frauds.

Senior Chief Kent Dillingham is a recently retired Navy SEAL who recently returned from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He runs an online group called VeriSeal, which exposes imposters. “What I think of these people is not printable,” he says. VeriSeal keeps a list of all those who have passed BUDs (Basic Underwater Demolition) training, which is a basic requirement for anyone to become a SEAL. The group responds to six or seven e-mails a day questioning the validity of claims made by reputed SEALs — nearly all of whom turn out to be imposters. They publish a Hall of Shame of “phonies” on their Web site, and they haven’t been sued once.

Cases range from charlatans bragging in a bar to police officers getting hired to run SWAT teams on the basis of their military experience, to even company CEOs. The saddest cases for Dillingham are when sons and daughters call about parents who claim they were Navy SEALs in an attempt to impress their children.

“We had one young man who spent his entire childhood and adolescence looking up to his father, who claimed he was a SEAL, and eventually wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. As the son got older he realized that what he was being told didn’t sound right in some places, so he gave us a call. We had to say, ‘Sorry, your dad was never a SEAL.’ It was heartbreaking for him.”

The group is deluged with inquires after war-related film releases. “When that first Navy SEALs movie with Charlie Sheen came out we had them crawling out from everywhere. They would say, ‘Yeah I was there. It was just like what you saw in the film.’ ”
Chuck and Mary Schantag keep a record of Vietnam POWs at their home in Skidmore, Mo., where they have been running the POW Network for 13 years. “It’s an epidemic,” says Mary. “We get two dozen inquiries a week from people and put up a new imposter on our site every day. It’s disgusting. We’ve seen it all — people with stories of being in the CIA, POWs. It’s amazing that everyone who ever served in Vietnam was a frontline hero rather than just a cook or administration assistant. These people have lied so long they have even started to believe their own lies.”

Why they lie

Professor Loren Pankratz of the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health Services University has written about “Factitious Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and has worked at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he found cases of faking. “These people come from a wide spectrum of social groups,” he says. “About the only thing they have in common is overacting.”

He says there are at least three types of imposters. The first is the Walter Mitty character, whose life is so humdrum that he needs to maintain a fiction to inflate his sense of self-esteem. The second is the tragic hero, who uses his terrible stories to exert control and loyalty. “It’s a way of keeping a wife, for example,” says Professor Pankratz. “It’s hard to abandon someone like that. You can’t just say ‘buck up.’ ” The third is the “gold bricker,” who uses bogus military experience to explain failings in their life or for personal gain.

Many maintain the facade in the most bizarre circumstances. In May 2004, Cottone attended the funeral of 2nd Lt. John T. “J.T.” Wroblewski, USMC, 25, who was killed in Iraq and was a parishioner at Cottone’s church. The Our Lady of the Mountain Church in Washington Township, N.J., was packed for Wroblewski’s funeral service. Former Marines, local dignitaries, councilmen, and police officers, all of whom knew J.T., swelled the number of well-wishers. A Marine detail of 15 men in dress blues, razor-creased trousers, and white peaked caps pulled low paid homage to one of their own. Later a full military burial would take place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

But throughout the service Cottone couldn’t help noticing a highly-decorated, moustached captain in full dress, standing near the grieving family and the coffin. The captain’s 24 medals included the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism against an enemy, two Silver Stars for gallantry in action, two Bronze Stars for heroism, and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action. But something just didn’t look right. The Marine captain’s whitish-gray hair wasn’t in a buzz cut and was long for a Marine. When the band played the Marine Hymn, he was slow to snap to attention. “That was the giveaway,” says Cottone.

After the service, Cottone cornered the Marine captain and asked him about his medals. “He said he had done three tours in Vietnam but then became very vague,” Cottone says. Then he broke down as the agent persisted. Walter Carlson, 58, had never served a day in the military, let alone in combat. In fact, he was a local bus driver. He rarely ventured out of the state, let alone to the Far East. But a friend had had given him access to uniforms and medals, and for years he had dressed up as a Marine to attend high-profile events for Veterans Day and Memorial Day and had even had the word “leatherneck” on the license plates of his car.

Carlson was arrested and faces six months in jail and a $500 fine for wearing a military uniform and medals. Judge Ronald J. Hedges ordered that he surrender all his military paraphernalia. “I did this for myself, nobody else,” Carlson told The Newark Daily Record. “I always wanted to be in the Marines. I knew one day I would be caught.” Then, by way of explanation: “Growing up I was picked on.”

On July 30, 2004, after a long battle to defend his name and medals, Edwards stood in court not in his Navy whites, but in an orange prison jumpsuit. He was found guilty of 11 counts of wearing unauthorized decorations. He had never worked for the CIA, nor as a SEAL commando. Edwards was sentenced to 115 days in jail and was ordered to pay $7,500. “I stand before you a broken man,” he told the judge.

Meanwhile, Katherine Bradbury feels her life has been ruined. But even now, after all that has happened, she finds it hard to meet men and to start the family she so desperately wants. She says, “No one really matches up to Roger and how he made me feel.”