There seemed to be a lot of that going on in the 1990's. My own personal experience had to do with a local paper obituary that stated the recently deceased was a career Navy man and Navy SEAL. They listed his awards, one of which was the Navy Cross. I e-mailed the curator of the Navy/Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, FL with the news, knowing, if they didn't already know, they would want to know they had just lost a Navy Cross recipient. There were very few of them in the Vietnam UDT/Navy SEAL units. A day later I get a phone call from the curator of the museum James Watson who informed me he knew all the Navy Cross people in the SEAL teams (from that era) and the guy in the obituary wasn't one of them, in fact hadn't served with the teams. Called the newspaper and spoke to the obituary writer, he was apologetic, told me he had been flummoxed by the family and wanted to know if perhaps he should contact them ... we decided to let it go and not embarrass the family.
While no record existed of his enlisted record the citation was in a book of Navy Cross citations that the Bureau keeps. The Navy Cross was added to his jacket and BAM he made commander.
"There seemed to be a lot of that going on in the 1990's. My own personal experience had to do with a local paper obituary that stated the recently deceased was a career Navy man and Navy SEAL. They listed his awards, one of which was the Navy Cross. I e-mailed the curator of the Navy/Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, FL with the news, knowing, if they didn't already know, they would want to know they had just lost a Navy Cross recipient. There were very few of them in the Vietnam UDT/Navy SEAL units. A day later I get a phone call from the curator of the museum James Watson who informed me he knew all the Navy Cross people in the SEAL teams (from that era) and the guy in the obituary wasn't one of them, in fact hadn't served with the teams. Called the newspaper and spoke to the obituary writer, he was apologetic, told me he had been flummoxed by the family and wanted to know if perhaps he should contact them ... we decided to let it go and not embarrass the family."
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I was working in VN in the mid-90's. I guess you could call it my third tour but in the 90's I was getting decent money since I was working for a private company. I hung out at a local watering hole and met a guy who claimed to have been a Navy Seal and a former POW, Hanoi Hilton and all that. When I got transferred back to the the U.S., I happened to mention to a friend who it seems was the then current President of the retired SEALS that I had met a friend of his. I related the story, the circumstances and name and he told me..."the SEALS have NEVER left anyone behind. There has NEVER been a SEAL POW and there never will be." The next day, I received a call from another SEAL asking if they could have some info on how to contact this guy so they could "pay him a visit."
Sort of like -- it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Buenos noches.