SABILLASVILLE, Md. On a sultry day in July 2008, Marine Sgt. David W. Budwah strode in his battle fatigues to the front of a picnic pavilion to tell three dozen young boys what he did during the war.
With his clear gaze, rigid posture and muscled, tattooed arms, Budwah looked every inch the hero he claimed to be. He said he was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan when a homemade grenade exploded, wounding his face and arm when he dove to shield a buddy from the blast.
"We're here to make sure of the freedom you have every day," Budwah told his audience at Camp West Mar, a wooded American Legion compound about 60 miles northwest of Washington.
But the Marines say Budwah is a liar, a fraud and a thief. They are court-martialing the 34-year-old Springhill, La., native, alleging he was never in Afghanistan, wasn't wounded and didn't earn the combat medals he wore or the many privileges he enjoyed.
Budwah joined the Marines in October 1999 and spent nearly all of the next six years with a radio communications unit in Okinawa, Japan, according to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., where Budwah has been stationed since February 2006.
Phony heroes aren't unusual. Thousands of complaints pour in annually to the FBI and civilian groups about impostors flaunting store-bought medals.
Their very prevalence exposes something else a nation so eager to embrace its war fighters, especially the wounded, that it sometimes fails to discern between the real heroes and the fakes.
"In every society in history, the warrior is glorified," said phony-hero debunker B.G. "Jug" Burkett of Plano, Texas. "The second you say you're a warrior who has performed heroically in combat, everybody perceives you differently."
Burkett, 65, a Vietnam veteran and author of the 1998 book, "Stolen Valor," said the urge to honor the wounded can cloud a person's judgment.
"I tell reporters that when you've got a guy who's vocal 'Let me tell you how I won my Silver Star' your antenna should go up," Burkett said. "The real guys typically don't talk about it."
Budwah's case is remarkable because he is an active-duty Marine facing military justice, not a civilian charged with wearing unearned medals. Of nearly 3,100 courts-martial last year in the four major armed services, only 27 were trials for wearing illegal decorations. Just two involved Marines.
Prosecutors say Budwah wore unauthorized medals and accepted VIP invitations to rock concerts, major-league baseball games, banquets and other events meant to fete wounded warriors.
He faked post-traumatic stress disorder in hopes of leaving service early and was sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, where he bluffed his way into 33 events from late July through November 2008, according to charges obtained by The Associated Press through an appeal of its Freedom of Information Act request.
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