Who is Robert A. Boyd?

Is he who he claims to be? A former CIA-trained special operations sniper who took out enemy targets in Vietnam? Or is he an impersonator, a 64-year-old disabled veteran and ex-Air Force mechanic who is trying to sell a fictionalized, historical book of his wartime experiences?

When the Auburn Reporter featured the Tacoma-area man in its May 27 Memorial Day weekend edition (“Fighting a war, past and present”), we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Local and regional veterans living in the Northwest contend he is a legitimate man of his word.

But after the story was published, enraged Vietnam veterans – both local and throughout the country – as well as concerned military experts and others familiar with and skeptical about Boyd’s past delivered a steady flow of emotional emails, online comments and phone calls.

Some responses were too nasty for print, others too sordid to explain. But they each made a substantial and persuasive point.

The man is a fake, they claim.

“If you want to meet a real Vietnam hero, I can introduce you to several. This guy is a disgrace,” wrote Jim Wright, a Vietnam veteran.

Tom Marino, a local veteran, says the Reporter “was duped,” and challenged us to dig deeper into Boyd’s background.

We found little to support Boyd’s claims of being a special ops sniper who worked under the cover of an airman mechanic who never turned a wrench while stationed in the Philippines during his ‘Nam missions. His military record indicates no special training or evidence of his covert duty.

Boyd’s explanation is simple and direct. His service record remains sealed, classified. Boyd said those documents are not even available to him, adding that even his public military records are incomplete, and don’t include all the aircraft training he received.

His service records indicate he received a small arms expert marksmanship ribbon and National Defense Service Medal, but nothing else.

“People don’t believe it, people don’t believe him,” said Terry Black Eagle, an Army master sergeant and code talker who claims his friend was in the Vietnam theater. “It hurts him because he served his country, and they won’t recognize him for that.”

According to Boyd’s service records, he was never in Vietnam, never received any special weapons or sniper training and was never hospitalized, all claims he makes in his book, “Codename Litefoot.”

“There is no record of my ever being in Vietnam,” Boyd said in his defense.

“A lot of people are not going to believe what they don’t know about it,” he said. “If they dont know what the definition of top secret is, they should go back and look it up.”

Boyd insists he was there, even though he was never there officially. And trying to substantiate his Vietnam adventures is like trying to chase a ghost.

“You would be trying to prove a negative. You would be looking for something that isn’t there,” said John Simpson, a law enforcement firearms expert and trainer, and retired U.S. Army Special Force instructor.

One thing the military is especially good about is keeping track of its personnel, yet Boyd asks us to believe he did all of the things in his book with no accompanying paper trail, according to several veterans familiar with Boyd’s story.

Classified documents are a great and “lame” defense for those who claim to be something they are not, several veterans contend.

So far, the Defense Department has declined to make verifying war hero claims easier by centralizing records across the services.

As expected, the Central Intelligence Agency would neither conform nor deny that Boyd ever worked for it.

Furthermore, Boyd is not registered with a VFW in the state. The VA headquarters in Fife does not keep a registry of veterans within the state.

Boyd’s book caught Simpson’s attention three years ago. He reviewed his book, which he interprets to be “poorly written fiction presented as fact,” and investigated his claims.

Simpson found several contradictions, inaccuracies and inconsistencies to Boyd’s claims in his story, including his understanding and mastery of weaponry, his training, use of sniper dialogue and timeline of duty. None of it adds up, Simpson said.

“He maintained he used a certain rifle and scope,” Simpson added. “I proved, without a doubt, it didn’t exist when he was in the Air Force.”

Simpson said Boyd has “not met the burden of proof in the stories he tells and in the firearms he describes.”

Jay Agg doesn’t know Boyd, isn’t putting him on trial, but says his situation “sounds very suspicious.” Agg is a former Marine and the National Communications Director for AMVETS (American Veterans), which assists and serves vets and their families. He said there is a national “epidemic” of those who impersonate veterans. Some people lie and say they have served in the military to gain respect, honor, jobs, VA benefits, money or friends, Agg explained.

But such fraudulent ways are worthy of prosecution, Agg said. The contentious Stolen Valor Act makes it illegal to lie about being a military hero.

Trouble is, the FBI and other agencies do not have the manpower to investigate and arrest every impersonator.

Pentagon officials have said they don’t have the resources to fact-check or boast-bust every potential military service impostor, the Washington Post recently reported.

But feds often pursue those cases that are egregious and widely public, including those accounts circulated universally online, Agg said.

“We tell people, if you really want to see people take action, take them to the media,” Agg said.

There are several websites that the public can access, report on and trace those they suspect of impersonating a war hero. Among those are www.reportstolenvalor.org and www.pownetwork.org.

For the record, Boyd is listed on some of those sites.

Boyd understands the backlash, has his share of supporters and continues to protect those he claims to have served with by fictionalizing parts of his book.

“The book was therapy,” Boyd insisted. “I don’t have a defense, I don’t need a defense. I wrote a book as therapy. … If people want to accept it or not, then it is up to them.”

In the mean time, veterans near and far remain upset, claiming Boyd is not who he says he is. They further claim he reinforces a stereotype of a burned out, distraught Vietnam vet who alleges mistreatment by the government.

Regardless of the rhetoric and whom you believe, the Boyd case delivers a black eye to the veterans community and brings disillusionment to us, the Reporter.