POW group calls claims of elite Navy service untrue

Comments made in Herald-Banner interview scrutinized by former military servicemen

Leslie Gibson

A veterans group contacting the Herald-Banner says that not everyone at a ceremony on Memorial Day at Rest Haven Funeral Home in Rockwall was who they claimed to be.

Michael Brown and Russ Leflamme said they were veterans of the Navy SEALS. Brown added that he had received the Navy Cross, two Purple Hearts and other awards. Leflamme said he also was in the Air Force for 10 years.

According to an organization which monitors claims of service and claims of honor, military documents available through the Freedom of Information Act do not support the two men’s claims of being SEALS, nor of Brown’s claims to medals.

The P.O.W. Network, which has researched false claims since 1989, submitted requests for public information on the two men and received documents back which do not support the claims of being a SEAL.

Mary Schantag of the P.O.W. Network sent the Herald-Banner copies of the documents she received from The National Archive Center in St. Louis, upon filing the FOI requests..

Brown, from Wisconsin, served in the United States Navy from Dec. 22, 1964 to Jan. 31, 1967, according to the information. No decorations nor awards were listed.

If he were a Navy Cross recipient and a SEAL, as he claimed, he would be in an elite group in both cases.

Only 120 awards of Navy Cross were awarded to those in the U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War, according to the official U.S. Navy Web site. That Web site links one to the Naval Historical Center.

One of the people who assists Shantag with research, Steve Robinson, said that total SEAL and SEAL-related participation in the Vietnam War was about 250.

He is a former SEAL, and provided some history and background via e-mail. He was in the U.S. Navy from 1970 to 1978, and was in SEAL Team One.

SEAL teams were created in January 1962, he said, drawing their initial members from the existing Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT, or frogmen).

The first UDT/SEAL involvement started in Vietnam War in 1965. The last UDT/SEAL personnel returned to the continental U.S. at the end of 1972.

“From 1962 until the last SEALS and Frogs came home at the end of 1972, there was a total of 250 Navy SEALS and only about 500 to 700 UDT Frogmen involved in the war. That’s for the entirety of the Vietnam War,” he said.

Brown, when asked what brought him to the Memorial Day ceremony said he did three tours in Vietnam, and received three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Navy Cross. He said he enlisted from his home state of Wisconsin.

When the P.O.W. Network cast aspersions on the service and medal claims, the Herald-Banner called him on June 1 and asked him about the claims.

He said he had no idea why someone would dispute his claims. He could not get to his records at the time; he is a truck driver and was on the road, he said. At the Memorial Day service, he referred to his wife, but later said she could not get to his records. He said the dispute was no problem. Once the paperwork came back listing no awards, he did not return the phone call.

LeFlamme however, did return the phone call placed when the paperwork came back showing he was in the Air Force, but nothing showed U.S. Navy nor SEAL service.

He had said on Memorial Day that he served 13 years as a Navy SEAL, before joining the Air Force, from which he retired.

Records from St. Louis requested and received by Shantag show that he was active duty Air Force from July 27, 1972 to June 30, 1993. The record shows he retired as a staff sergeant.

When called about this, LaFlamme said he had undergone a name change in a “long, drawn-out story that I’m not allowed to talk about.”

The name changed occurred in 1987, he said, and added that it included a social security number change. Both men said they lived in Rockwall, and met at the Waffle House and became friends.

Neither is active in the local American Legion Post #117, according to post commander Bob Laing.