Real heroes tend to downplay their accomplishments, that should have been the first red flag.
I knew an old guy with a DSC from Korea, never talked about it. The only indications of the what he had done was that he really hated communists (especially Chinese) and whenever we went to Korea on business he was always met at the airplane by at least a ROK O-6. They treated him like a hero.
I knew this guy was a phony 20 years ago when I lived in Morgan Hill. Every year or so, his number of “suicide missions” would go up by one and he’d tack another Silver Star or Navy Cross onto his record. That self-provided (and unverified) oral history in the Library of Congress convinced a lot of people that he was legit.