Interesting Story

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/ ... p8ew12.htm

War stories sounded unbelievable ... and they were


To Port Charlotte High School history teacher Meredith Masony, Jerry "Jack" Albert's story sounded like it would make a great experience for her students.

It was quite a story.

It was the story of a Navy sailor who rose to a rank equivalent to a vice admiral.

He then became a CIA agent who worked with the Navy SEALs, the Army Green Berets and the Army Rangers on secret missions in Vietnam.

And it was the story of a harrowing escape from a POW camp after three and a half years of torture deep behind enemy lines in North Vietnam.

Masony's class was about to begin a chapter on the Vietnam War, and Masony thought inviting Albert to speak to the class would make the lesson come alive.

But instead of learning a lesson about heroism, the students learned something about exposing the truth.

And now, at least two teachers and a half-dozen of the students suspect the hero was a phony.


Met in church

Masony said she met Albert at her church where he worked as a secretary. He told her he was still traumatized by his experiences in combat.

"I'm sitting here eating this stuff up," Masony said. "I told him, 'I have 150 students that would love to hear you speak.'"

Albert agreed and Masony invited several other classes to attend his presentation, which was given April 22.

Within days after the presentation, Masony and her colleague, sociology teacher Frank Campagne, contacted a volunteer organization known as the POW Network (www.pownetwork.org). The organization has investigated reports of phony POWs for the past 16 years.

The teachers found a slew of information on the Network about Albert. It included complaints Albert claimed to be a Navy SEAL and a POW dating back to 2000 and 2002.

The reports include that the state had issued Albert vehicle tags that said "POW" and "Purple Heart." But the state later got the tags removed, according to a July 2002 transcript from "Channel 13 Investigates," a program that aired on the Tampa Fox TV station WTVT.

The POW Network cited Albert's military record, which shows he served in the U.S. Navy only from February 1963 to September 1964, earning a rank of E-3, a relatively low rank. He served on the USS Mazama.

He earned no awards or decorations and served no foreign missions with the Navy.

Albert was also investigated in May 2002 by the CyberSEALs, another volunteer organization that exposes phony SEALs. The allegation was that Albert had claimed in e-mails to be a SEAL team member.

The investigation culminated in a series of e-mails between Albert and the investigators.

After several rounds of denials, Albert wrote, according to the site's e-mail record: "Ok, you win. Poor try. I just wanted it all to stop. ... I never said I was a Vice admiral nor a POW, nor did I have a POW plate. The only misrepresentation that I made is that I was a Navy SEAL and in team 6. Again, it won't happen again."

In an interview at his Port Charlotte home Friday, Albert said he "never sent any apologies to anybody."

However, during his presentation to Masony's history class, Albert claimed to be associated with the Navy SEALs and a POW, the teachers said.


'Garbage detector'

Campagne, the sociology teacher at PCHS, served as a platoon's lieutenant in the Army's 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam war. He was in-country from 1970-71. He was seriously wounded by a land mine.

Campagne said he was preparing a slide projector for his own talk about his Vietnam experience as Albert began his talk. Campagne soon began to feel some things Albert was saying didn't jibe.

"My 'garbage detector' was going off like crazy," Campagne said.

He said he questioned Albert's claim to have trained with the SEALs, Army Rangers and the Green Berets.

"There's no human being that could go through all three," Campagne said.

In an interview later, Albert explained, as a CIA agent, he had gone through parts of the training with special forces groups, but did not complete it. For example, he said, he was sent through paratrooper school at Fort Bragg, where Army Special Forces get trained.

Campagne said he knew of only two CIA programs operating in Vietnam. They were Air America, in which a CIA front flew charter planes from the Golden Triangle, and Phoenix, which involved assassinations.

He said he asked Albert which operation he was involved in. "That's classified," Albert replied.


No proof

Albert told the class he was captured while on a secret mission in North Vietnam in 1968 and spent three and a half years as a POW. He said he was kept in a 4-foot-tall bamboo cage. Periodically, he was immersed in water or tortured.

The torture included beatings, rapes and getting fingernails pulled out, he told the class.

Albert, in the later interview, said there was no record of his imprisonment because he was "civilian," not military.

He also said he thought he was captured in Cambodia, not Vietnam. He said he couldn't remember the names of the soldiers he was with.

"It was a special-ops group," he said. "It wasn't Green Berets. I think it was Airborne Rangers, if I'm not mistaken."

He said after three years, he was able to vault a 7-foot-tall bamboo wall using a bamboo pole to escape.

He didn't know which direction he ran, only the direction his pursuers were coming from -- "behind me," he said.

He said he was rescued after he found the Marines 1st Division and went on to spend 42 years as a CIA operative.

Albert said he can provide no proof of his career. He said "the Agency" told him he could not reveal any information or he "won't be here much longer."

He said photos of himself with comrades were lost when his mother sold his footlocker along with other belongings years ago.

He said he had his pension "taken away" because he talked about his experiences, violating Agency rules.

He said he "lived everywhere" during his career, but he declined to specify where. He denied he lived in Port Charlotte until he moved there three years ago.

Campagne said he learned from two other longtime Port Charlotte teachers that Albert had also given a presentation on his military exploits to a class in 1990.

Albert said he was "visiting my daughter" who was graduating from PCHS at the time.

During his April presentation, one student asked Albert what kept him going through his years of torture.

He pointed to his wife, June Albert, who was standing nearby. Thinking about "that woman" saved his life, he said.

Albert, who had previously been married to someone else, married June Albert a few years ago.


Students' questions

The students appeared to be enthralled by Albert's tale, Masony said. She recalled that Albert, who was wearing dark sunglasses, kept wiping away tears with his hand, as if he was reliving traumatic experiences.

Later, as doubts about Albert's credibility took hold, Masony said, her "skin began to boil."

However, several of the students said they took the presentation with a grain of salt.

"You couldn't believe it," Nicole Lamorte said. "It just didn't seem right at all."

"He made it sound like a movie," Charlene Daniels said. She said as a member of the school's track team, she questioned how Albert could have pole-vaulted over a wall to escape without practice.

"I thought it was kind of fishy," added Courtney McGill. "I mean, why was he wearing sunglasses?"

Chris Velez, a U.S. Air Force ROTC member, said he was "rather angry" over Albert's story.

"The fact that he talked up the thing I wanted to do and to find out it was all a lie made me angry," he said.

"It's just bizarre, and the fact he goes into these schools is just despicable," said Mary Schantag, who along with her husband Chuck, run the Missouri-based POW Network, a group that records Vietnam POW history.

Schantag said it's easy to check phony POW reports. Military records can be obtained from the federal records center in St. Louis. And the Pentagon has published a list of all POWs.

The list includes covert operatives, civilians and even foreign nationals who were captured while working with U.S. forces, she said.

To date, the POW Network has uncovered no case where a bona fide POW was left off the list, Schantag said.

Albert is not on the list.


Numbers growing

People pass themselves off as war heroes typically to inflate their egos. Some also bilk the government out of health services, disability checks or tax breaks, Schantag said.

Phonies are found in all walks of life. They can be politicians, police officers or garbage collectors, the investigators say.

"They can't do without the recognition; they can't do without people thinking they're heroes," Schantag said.

She said the numbers of phony heroes began to increase after the first Gulf War and is growing rapidly now.

"It's an epidemic," Schantag said. "I've had two dozen reports (of phony POWs) this week alone, and it's only the middle of the week."

"Florida is the No. 1 state for these individuals," said Greg Platt, a former Navy SEAL who volunteers as an investigator for AunthentiSEAL.

Platt said his organization has proven Albert's stories false in the past. He puts no credibility in Albert's revised versions.

"His story is so full of it that it stinks to here," Platt said. "He's no POW. This guy is nothing but a liar. He's been busted before. Now he's getting busted again."

Wearing a fake uniform or insignia, forging military credentials, or using false credentials to obtain a benefit are violations of federal code. But the group's investigators say they have had problems convincing FBI agents to prosecute.

There is no law against lying about one's military exploits.

Platt served five years in the Navy, including four on an underwater demolition team that conducted missions in Vietnam and the Philippines.

Real elite-force veterans know the commitment it takes to complete weeks of intense training and execute extremely dangerous missions for two-year tours.

That's why SEALs regard phonies as "a slap in the face to every one of us," Platt said.

"Why don't we just start making everybody a SEAL?" he asked. "Why don't we get buckets of Medals of Honor and sell them on the corner for $10?"

[scubastevesgirly]

sounds like this guy has some kind of mental illness