I was at work the other day, and a patient told me he had a history of PTSD because he was in 9/11. He is 71 years old, meaning he was in his mid-40s on that day. Making conversation, I asked him how he was there, thinking he may have been in one of the buildings.
Nope, he replied he was a Navy SEAL and was helping search the pile for several weeks. To the best of my knowledge, there were no SEALs doing that work. So I asked a follow up: “What BUD/S class were you in?”
He replied that he was in class 100 with a SEAL named Jim Weber. Then he went on to tell me he was an Electrician’s mate and attended Nuclear Power School in Orlando in 1971.
For some reason, the people who participate in stolen valor always claim to be SEALS or some other badass occupation. No one ever says “I was a cook.”
There are only about 7,000 former (i.e. non-serving) Navy SEALs scattered among our nation’s population of 313+MILLION. That’s approximately one (1) former Navy SEAL for every 45 THOUSAND citizens
You have far greater chance of meeting a former NFL football player than you have of ever encountering a real Navy SEAL. With that said, the FBI estimates that there are 300 SEAL Imposters for every living Navy SEAL.
His claims are bullshit for the following reasons:
- BUD/S Class 100 graduated in 1979 (Class 102 graduated in May 1979, and Class 101/103 also took place in 1979). If he was in Nuclear Power School in 1971, there is a massive, unexplained 8-year gap before he graduated from BUD/S. While not strictly impossible if someone cross-rated later in their career, it is highly unusual given the strict age cut-offs for SEAL training (usually 28 and under).
- He entered the Navy around 1970 and was still active duty on September 11, 2001. He was in the Navy for 30 years, and retired as an E6? Under the military’s strict “Up or Out” high-year tenure (HYT) laws, an enlisted sailor cannot remain on active duty for 30 years without reaching the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer (E-9).
- Navy Nuclear Power school was not in Orlando until 1976. A person who was in the nuclear power pipeline in 1971 would have attended the school in either Bainbridge, Maryland or Mare Island, California.
- With him being 71 years old now, he would have been 15 or 16 years old when he attended Power School in 1971.
I run into people who claim to have served all the time. One of the worst was this loser named John who was my boss many years ago. He claimed to everyone that he knew that he had been in Vietnam as the door gunner in a Chinook, his helicopter was shot down, and he spent years (I can’t remember how many) as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. The story of the chopper being shot down was my first clue- he said the pilot was killed, and described reaching over the pilot’s shoulder from his door gunning position and tried to prevent the crash. It seemed far-fetched.
That just didn’t seem likely to me, so I wrote to the POW/MIA association and inquired if a person by his name was ever a POW in Vietnam. The answer was no, he was not.
Stolen valor is a real issue. There are a lot of losers out there who try to steal military coolness for themselves. When people ask me what I did in the military, I either give them the real story (I was an electrician) or I make a joke and tell them I killed over 200 men. When they say, “Wow! Were you like a SEAL or something?” I reply that I was either an aircraft mechanic or a cook. I recently was working with a Lt. Colonel in the reserves (a Doctor) and he instantly laughed when I said cook, and replied with “No shit.”
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