COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
Military imposters on the rise, says expert
Joe Mandak, Associated Press
November 10, 2005
PITTSBURGH One man wore a Marine Corps colonel’s uniform and spoke at a
Memorial Day celebration. The other dressed as a major at a Marine Corps
League dinner.
A federal prosecutor says neither man had earned those stripes.
A military records expert says the number of alleged impostors, like the two
western Pennsylvania men charged this week, is growing.
“The more our guys come back from Iraq, the worse it gets,” said Mary Schantag,
who runs the POW Network out of her Skidmore, Mo., home with her husband, a
Vietnam Marine veteran.
This week, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan charged two Pittsburgh-area men
with impersonating Marine Corps officers, a misdemeanor that carries up to
six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Buchanan alleges John A. Eastman, 58, of New Galilee, dressed as a major at a
suburban VFW post last November. Albert T. McKelvey, 68, of Richland Township,
dressed as a colonel and spoke at a Memorial Day observance in May, she said.
Both men have military records, but neither attained the rank they represented,
said Buchanan, who wouldn’t comment further. The National Personnel Records
Center in St. Louis, didn’t immediately respond to a request for their records.
The Associated Press couldn’t locate a home telephone for Eastman; McKelvey
didn’t return repeated messages.
Robert Munhall coordinates 20 American Legion posts in Pittsburgh’s North Hills
suburbs and is a longtime friend of McKelvey’s. He confronted McKelvey for wearing
the colonel’s uniform at a Memorial Day observance three years ago because
McKelvey’s rank has been disputed for a decade.
“Mr. McKelvey is an honest-to-goodness Marine,” Munhall said. “He explained to
me that he had done some classified stuff and blah, blah, blah, there wasn’t a
good paper trail even though he did earn the rank.”
Munhall said he’s sympathetic, but “he can’t wear something he doesn’t have the
paperwork to back up.”
Department of Veterans Affairs officials couldn’t say how often people pretend
to be veterans; the agency tracks only people who try to fraudulently obtain
veterans’ benefits, said spokesman Jim Benson.
“Obviously, it’s not something you like to see people do, to take away from
the honor and respect that veterans have earned,” Benson said.
Schantag and her husband, Charles, started their nonprofit network 16 years
ago to track the service records of Vietnam POWs. Shortly after posting them
on the Internet, the POW Network started receiving calls from relatives and
neighbors of those claiming to be left off the list.
Schantag said records she got from the St. Louis center showed nearly all
those claims were bogus, and now she spends much of her time investigating
service claims.
“In 1998 we got 22 reports and 21, I think, were fake. Now I get about 22 a
week,” Schantag said.
Last year, six women said they were romanced by a man who claimed to be a
Navy SEAL. The man turned out to be an insurance adjuster.
Federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged a 58-year-old man with wearing
military decorations at a funeral for a 25-year-old Marine. The man apologized
and surrendered his paraphernalia after it was revealed he had never been in
the service.
“In 99.9 percent of the cases, they are exaggerating, forging, faking or
outright lying about their service records,” Schantag said. “They’re
leaving our guys with the pain and the nightmares, and they’re out there
on the front page taking the credit. A lot of these times, the Navy SEAL
was an Army cook.”
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