Stolen Valor Act discussion- Part 3

Part III – A Case In Point

At about 8pm a few nights ago I received a phone call; the feminine voice on the line was desperate. Her boyfriend had told her that he was a former Navy SEAL, and that he was still involved with secretive assignments for the government. He claimed to be a part-time employee of the FBI, and at the same time claimed he was on a list of “subversives” maintained by “the government”. He claimed that he often performed undercover work which he could not discuss, but which was very highly classified. He claimed that he had repeatedly been called upon to gain unauthorized entry to an arms manufacturing facility (located nearby). He had shown her a “very large sniper rifle”, complete with an expensive telescopic scope. He claimed that because of all the super secret missions he had performed as a SEAL, that when he was discharged from the Navy, he was given a false set of credentials to conceal his past as a Navy SEAL. The discharge papers – the “false” ones – proclaimed that he had been a “Trombone Instrumentalist”. He even claimed that the Navy had provided him with a trombone to make the “cover identity” more believable. His most bizarre claim was that he had been hired by the FBI to frequent “sex clubs” to look for “suspicious people” and that she shouldn’t question him regarding his attendance at these clubs or his actions while there; he provided the name of an FBI agent who supposedly hired him for this activity.

She continued to recount one incredible claim after another that the man had offered, describing in detail his implied threats toward her if she ever mentioned his “secret past” as a “SEAL”. I consulted a copy of the Naval Special Warfare Archive’s SEAL database within ten minutes of the start of her call, and determined conclusively that the man had never been a US Navy SEAL. I then consulted an online database of over 20 million publicly-available records and verified that the man had actually been a musician in the Navy – a trombone instrumentalist – and that his “cover identity” was actually his real identity.

The caller was incredibly relieved to learn that the man’s claims of being a SEAL were without foundation, and then became very upset when she realized she’d believed all the lies. Then she quickly became very concerned and fearful because of the threats he’d made. Her call lasted more than two hours. Ultimately I put her in touch with a group that confirmed my findings and submitted a formal request for the man’s military records. Meanwhile, they also reported the man’s self-proclaimed “anti-government subversive” status, his claims of breaking into arms manufacturing facilities, and his ownership of a ‘sniper rifle’ to federal law enforcement authorities. Additionally, they reported the name of the FBI agent whom he claimed had given him the assignment to frequent sex clubs. The federal authorities are taking the report very seriously and currently investigating the matter.