After bin Laden death, a boom in SEAL imposters

In the fortnight since elite US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, faux commandos wearing the SEALs' gold trident and medals on their chests have been popping up all over the place. SEALs have been spotted in improbable places like a church in Pennsylvania, on Greyhound buses, in Wal-Marts and at fastfood restaurants. A man who identified himself as Gene said on a chat forum on US Navy SEALs, an unofficial website that posts videos, sells T-shirts and has chat forums about SEALs, that he has met "so-called SEALs on a Greyhound bus (a kid barely 19), at Wal-Mart (had a trident pinned to a golf hat), and at Taco Bell. "Funny, I never knew SEALs weighed 300 pounds (140 kilos)," Gene wrote. A woman on the chat forum said her mother is dating a man she met on MySpace who claims he was "the commander of Team Six when bin Laden was taken out. "He is overweight, has a bad knee, and tells her EVERYTHING about the 'missions' he gets sent away for," wrote the woman who signed herself "Skeptical Daughter," wondering if SEALs really behave and look that way. In an interview published in a Pennsylvania newspaper, preacher Jim Moats recounted his heady days as a SEAL during the Vietnam war. Moats said he was waterboarded during training to toughen him up in case he got captured by the North Vietnamese and was put on dishwashing detail after getting into a fight in a club. Related article: US town's quiet pride for SEALs who killed bin Laden If it sounded like it was straight out of a movie, it's because it was -- Steven Seagal's 1992 film "Under Siege". Retired real SEAL Don Shipley called the newspaper and told them Moats was a fraud. The pastor fessed up to the paper and to his parishioners that he had been lying about being a SEAL for years. Prior to the raid that killed bin Laden, Shipley was investigating 15-20 fraudulent SEAL claims a day, he told AFP. "Now I'm getting upwards of 40-50 a day. Since the bin Laden thing, everyone's a SEAL," he said. Since the May 1 raid that killed bin Laden, faux SEALs have been coming out of the woodwork, trying to bask in the glory of the real heroes, Shipley said. "You want to meet a SEAL, go to a truck stop. SEAL's are everywhere these days," Shipley said. But not in Virginia Beach, the seaside town where the SEAL's elite Team Six, which took out bin Laden in a near flawless mission, is based. Ask a local here where you might meet a SEAL or someone from Team Six and they tell you bluntly that you won't. Or if you do, you wouldn't know it. "A real SEAL isn't going to tell you that they're a SEAL," Dilsat Dorsey told AFP at her jewelry stand on the Virginia Beach boardwalk. But a faux SEAL would, because many of the wannabe heroes make up their glorious past to impress women or get someone to buy them a beer. Someone who walks around in camouflage clothing covered with medals and tridents, or someone who brags about killing scores of people on their latest SEAL mission is probably phoney, says usnavyseals.com, which in 2009 posted a list of 10 ways to spot a fake SEAL. "A Navy SEAL will always shy away from an in-your-face display of his credentials," the site says. The number of fake military heroes parading around the United States is likely to go up when Americans mark Armed Forces Week next week and on Memorial Day at the end of the month. "There are usually many more cases around these holidays because individuals either wear fake medals or talk about how they served in the military when they didn't really do so," Lindsay Godwin of the FBI Washington field office told AFP. Godwin also noted that posing as a member of the military is a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail. But that has not deterred the pretenders, and claiming to be a military hero when, really, you're not, is rampant in the United States, Godwin said. It also happens elsewhere. The Australian and New Zealand Military Impostors website has on its homepage a photo of a "dapper ex-sailor" posing at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, his blazer heavy with Britain's highest military decoration for valor, the Victoria Cross; Australia's Cross of Valor for civilian bravery, and medals from Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Netherlands.