Misty History

We'll just call this man "Bob." For reasons that are about to become quite apparent, there's no need to go further.

Bob is his first name, and that's all we really know about him for sure, because the rest tends to be a bit misty. He lives in Anne Arundel County, with its rich maritime tradition as the home of the US Naval Academy.  He was proud to dedicate a monument he created to military members and first responders. I mean after all, he was a former Navy SEAL and prisoner of war, right?

Well, no. And it's funny that by creating something worthy to honor the work and sacrifice of others, he washed away the clay around his own feet, and was found to be a fake.

The Capital Gazette newspaper - the one which suffered the horrible tragedy last summer when a madman invaded their offices and shot to death five members of their staff - sent a reporter to cover the monument dedication, and Bob told the reporter that he had been a SEAL and POW in the Viet Nam war.

Once the story of Bob was published, the ship hit the sand, as they say in the Navy. People called the newspaper to cast doubt on his story, and Bob backpedaled, denying he had ever claimed to be a POW or SEAL.

But the interview was on tape, with him saying, "I was a Navy SEAL. I was one of the first…,"

Reminded of this by the reporter (herself a veteran), Bob could only say, “I worked with them, but that was it. Please accept my apologies. I don’t remember saying that. It caught me totally by surprise when I read it in the paper. I don’t know what to do.”

A man from Cambridge, retired SEAL Don Shipley, is a member of the POW Network, and any time he or his fellow members get a Google alert of someone claiming to be a SEAL or POW, they check it out.  Their research indicated that, most likely, Bob was in the Navy in the Viet Nam war, serving as a meteorologist on the USS Constellation. Shipley cannot find any evidence of Bob completing SEAL training or working in that capacity.

“I knew it was BS as soon as I saw the POW thing. No SEAL has ever been a POW. He wasn’t either, hoisting weather balloons off the USS Constellation,” Shipley told the newspaper.

There is this trend called "stolen valor," in which people claim to be more than they ever were, and, possibly, even more than they might have dreamed. And what could be more glamorous than the double honor of being both a SEAL and a POW?

The newspaper story said that Bob's friends and neighbors, and even his wife, had bought his story as he wove it over the years.

Perhaps now he can begin to set the record straight. I wonder if he feels both the shame of having his perfidy revealed, and the accompanying relief of not having to maintain the false front he built up to so many for so long.