Pennsylvania pastor said he was a Navy SEAL and Vietnam Vet

After Bin Laden Raid, Fake Navy SEALs Are 'Coming Out of the Woodwork,' Says Watchdog

By CHRIS JAMES
May 9, 2011
A central Pennsylvania pastor who said he was a Navy SEAL and Vietnam vet has been exposed as a fraud – and the man who caught him says the number of wannabes falsely claiming to be veterans of the elite force has "skyrocketed" since the May 1 SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

For five years, parishioners of the Christian Bible Fellowship Church in Newville, Pennsylvania believed that their pastor, Rev. Jim Moats, was an ex-SEAL who'd seen combat during the Vietnam War.

In the wake of the bin Laden raid last week, the Harrisburg Patriot-News decided to profile Central Pennsylvania residents who'd served in the SEALs. On Saturday, the paper published a glowing profile of Moats, who reminisced about being waterboarded and about being reassigned to kitchen duty for bad behavior.

"I had almost no discipline," said Moats. "I was as wild as they came. That was my nemesis."

The story soon landed in the email inbox of Don Shipley, a real ex-SEAL in Chesapeake, Virginia who is among the small group of people with access to a database listing all current and former SEALs. Shipley, who has taken it upon himself to expose frauds, has a Google Alert set up to notify him by email whenever someone's claim of having been a Navy SEAL is published on-line.
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Fake Navy SEALs Are Coming Out of the Woodwork