Fake War Stories Exposed

Weekly Standard: Phony Soldiers Bring Shame To Military Forces

(Weekly Standard)  A few days ago the St. Louis Post-Dispatch exposed a different kind of fake: One who's making the kind of atrocity claims that got John Kerry noticed 34 years ago.

Former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey served with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Iraq for nearly a year during 2003. During that time, he claims, he and other Marines (whom he labeled "psychopathic killers") deliberately gunned down innocent Iraqi civilians, fired on peaceful protesters, and shot a 4-year-old child through the head at a checkpoint. Or was it a 6-year-old?

"How is a 6-year-old child with a bullet in his head a terrorist, because that is the youngest I killed," Massey told an audience at Cornell University. Or was it a girl? "That's war: a 6-year old girl with a bullet hole in her head at an American checkpoint," he told a Vermont audience.

Except, as Massey later acknowledged to the Post-Dispatch, he'd never actually shot any child, boy or girl. "I meant, that's what my unit did," he explained. Except that it didn't, according to Massey's fellow Marines and the journalists who covered them. Nor did they target civilians and protestors. In fact, as the Post-Dispatch documents, each one of Massey's claims is "either demonstrably false or exaggerated — according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit."

Nevertheless, Massey's lies have earned him the usual rewards of the anti-
war Left: A book deal, invitations to speak at elite colleges, and a place of honor with Cindy Sheehan's traveling circus. Confronted by the Post-Dispatch with the complete lack of corroboration for his atrocity tales, Massey merely shrugs. "Admitting guilt is a hard thing to do," he says.

It sure is.

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.
—Shakespeare, Henry V

Going through life feeling cheap and accursed cannot be pleasant — which is why, presumably, so many gentlemen go through it pretending they shot down the Red Baron, survived the Bataan Death March, or helped capture Saddam Hussein, as some fraud has probably claimed to have done while an admirer paid for his drink. Those who encounter these phony heroes will likely go home with a good story. But nothing they hear will top the true story of the man who wandered into a chapter of the American Legion in Washington state a few years ago wanting to become a member. Like many stories of military frauds, this one comes by way of champion hoax-exposer B. G. Burkett.

The applicant — who was Asian American — filled out a form indicating he was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and had been honorably discharged. He became a valued member of the chapter, eventually winning office as the chapter commander.

There was just one hitch. This man was a Vietnam veteran, all right. But he'd neglected to mention that he'd fought for North Vietnam. Once this shocking fact was revealed — despite his popularity with his fellow vets — the soldier's membership was gone with the wind.


Anne Morse is a writer living in Unity, Maryland.