1. He's wearing camouflage clothing decorated with multiple patches, ribbons, and tridents

2. When asked for his class number, says he didn't have to go through training...went straight to SEALs from Marines, Air Force, etc.

3. When asked what Team he was in, says Team 6 (everybody wants to be in Team 6)

4. When asked for names, places, dates, etc., the wannabe says it's top secret, still classified.

5. Claims to have been a POW, or his entire platoon was wiped out and he was captured.

6. Talks about his medals, maybe even the Medal of Honor (SEALs don't talk about their medals)

7. He can't remember the name of his swim buddy, Commanding Officer, or platoon officer.

The number of men (and a few women too, thanks to Demi Moore) claiming to have been UDT/SEAL has reached epidemic proportions. Daily we receive phone calls, FAX's, and e-mail requests asking us to confirm the authenticity of someone claiming to be a SEAL. Fewer than 1% of those turn out to be real SEALs. These phonies are found not only in bars trying to impress the girls with their SEAL exploits. Our list of known phonies includes policemen, ministers, authors, politicians, college department heads, Veteran affairs officers, and active duty, high ranking military officers who apparently weren't sufficiently proud of their legitimate accomplishments and had to tack on "SEAL", too.

This wannabe phenomenon is the subject of a book due out next month by Texas author Jug Burkett, entitled STOLEN VALOR, which will include 84 cases, several of them phony SEALs. Former SEAL CO, CAPT Larry Bailey, USN (Ret.) has written several articles for Soldier of Fortune magazine (issue, November 1994, for example) about these fakers.