Right-wing hero lied about getting shot.
The first I ever heard of ex-Navy Seal Chris Heben was when he appeared on a local conservative-slanted radio talk show presenting himself as the greatest thing since sliced bread and promoting his new book, movie, CD, motivational speaking, nutritional supplements, and if I remember correctly, a line of kitchen sinks.
On the show, he called President Obama a “p*ssy.”
Not long afterwards, he reported getting shot in an Akron area parking lot and chasing the perpetrator but not being able to catch him. This happened in broad daylight in a normally crowded parking lot, but strangely there were no witnesses. Also, in the accounts I read, no description of the shooter or his vehicle.
Soon afterwards, he began appearing as a spokesman on TV ads for an Ohio auto dealership. The commercials end with Heben striking a pose, standing next to the short, pudgy owner of the dealership who is also striking a tough-guy pose.
Now, after months of investigation, the story hasn't held up, and Heben is being charged with obstructing justice and falsification.
I don't know how this will affect his career as a motivational speaker, singer/ songwriter, author, movie star, etc., etc., but the falsification charge shouldn't hurt his career as a frequent guest on Fox News.
http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index.ssf/2014/09/ex-seal_lied_about_bath_townsh.html#incart_hbx#incart_best-of
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While he could have been a Navy Mechanic supporting the SEALS and would have had to have gone through a modified BUDs training, the chances are 95% that he probably wasn't a SEAL.
Being a SEAL is not an actual rating or job title, it's a billet or posting that most who qualify to meet usually end up transitioning out of after the first or second deployment due to the physical pounding just the training puts them through. The majority of SEALs end up leaving actual SEAL billets after five years because no matter how physically fit you are, it's not like Crossfit or P90x; there's some serious wear and tear on the skeletal structure and the mental acuity required to be able to conduct tactical operations while living long-term in survival/hunter mode on a fairly constant basis can mess with the endurance one needs to be able to be a SEAL.
Most enlisted SEALs end up going back to their original rates or becoming BUDs instructors if they don't get a medical retirement; most officer SEALs end up being policy weenies.
As for your friend, not that assholes don't become SEALs, but there are so many idiots who claim to be SEALs when all they might have been doing was working on an insertion or extraction support team, small boats/Harbor Patrol/shipboard Security, or part of a Special Forces Command or Logistics Team; or who were part of an Diver/UDT or Underwater Construction team. All these people had to go through some of the same training SEALs did, and would often train along side by side with the rather small in number deployable SEAL teams. I met quite a few of those types when I was going to my Navy Service School back in the late 1970's; the base also was home to a squadron of River Boats (Vietnam era Swift-Boats) and lots of the older guys would claim to be SEALs because they occasionally provided in-country support for a few SEAL squads or otherwise acted as spotters for the big offshore guns and figured their job was just as hard and dangerous as being a SEAL, if not as glamorous. And if you didn't know what it really took to be a SEAL, they could spin a really good story based on enough truth that would be very convincing even to other people who knew some of the requirements to be a Special Forces unit member in general.
The one SERE instructor I actually knew (and BTW, that's another military wanna-be claim "I was a SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) instructor!"
told me that for every one actual SEAL who would go out on a mission, there were at least eight support personnel who also had to have some modicum of Special Forces training sitting back at base waiting to drop off/pick up the SEAL (or supply the SEAL), man communications, or otherwise help monitor and direct the mission. And these people wore the same unit patches and had the same special forces insignia that the actual SEAL did.'
So when they went on liberty or went back home, it was very easy for someone who a small-boats mechanic on a PC or Swift Boat assigned to deploy a SEAL team to claim to be a SEAL. After all, even though they didn't actually put their bodies on the line, or would have to actually go out and rough it for ten days in the wilderness, with the possibility of battle or capture, they had to go through some of the same training and were assigned to the SEAL team, weren't they?
Haele
motivational speaker, singer/ songwriter, author, movie star, etc., etc.,
I really should go to bed now...
Undetermined.
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