SEAL faker: ‘I was trying to help out vets’ - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

SEAL faker: ‘I was trying to help out vets’

SAN DIEGO — It was a story that captured the attention of the crowd: A Navy SEAL wounded in an attack managed to cut down insurgents who had killed his three teammates when their post was overrun in Afghanistan.

But Andrew Irvin Bryson’s heroics and credentials — including a Purple Heart and Combat Action Ribbon — hailed and recounted at the April 6, 2010, ceremony led by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in front of hundreds of veterans who received the Louisiana Veterans’ Honor Medal just weren’t true.

While his story might have impressed the crowd, some in attendance had already begun to suspect that Bryson was a faker. Several students at Louisiana State University, where Bryson founded the Student Veterans of Louisiana State University, wondered about the stories he spun about combat and killing bad guys. Several student veterans didn’t buy his story either and, by late summer, had forced his resignation from the club. But suspicions remained. Last week, a reader alerted Navy Times that his story may be bogus.

Bryson, in fact, had served in the Navy, but as an aviation electronics technician — not a Navy SEAL. In his eight years of service, he deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and earned several medals, but, according to records kept by Navy Personnel Command, he did not receive a Purple Heart or Combat Action Ribbon.

For nearly a year, Bryson was silent on clarifying the record following the governor’s ceremony. He contacted Navy Times on Friday afternoon, too late for the article that appears in the newspaper’s Feb. 14 edition.

“I wasn’t a Navy SEAL,” he said, explaining how the governor’s office had sought veterans’ stories to recognize publicly with the state’s medal. “So I kind of just gave them a story.”

“I falsified a story to try to help out vets. It’s just grown into a massive [nightmare],” he said. “Almost every single month since this has happened, I’m not able to sleep a lot because of it.”

Bryson said he created himself into a Hollywood-like character to draw more attention to the experiences of combat veterans attending college after their military service. It’s why he first organized LSU’s student vet group, he said. “I was really trying to help out vets at LSU,” he said.

Bryson is enrolled at LSU, where he is taking classes in sports administration, but he said he’s had mixed reactions from other student vets who have learned about the bogus story. He insisted his intentions are honorable, noting he continues to assist other student vets who are struggling with the transition to school and, for some, the stresses from their combat tours.

“When I got there [to LSU], there was nothing for veterans,” he added. “It just blew up like you wouldn’t believe.”

One of his friends and student veteran, a former Marine who wouldn’t give his name, told Navy Times that he had warned Bryson that his story could run afoul of the federal Stolen Valor Act, a law that makes it a crime to falsely claim to have earned military honors. He insisted that Bryson is sorry and is upset at reactions, especially from other vets.

“I can understand, it’s upsetting to them with a lie like that,” his friend said. “I think he wanted people to respect him more.”

Blake Dugas, a former Army combat engineer and club secretary, met Bryson about a year ago.

“He kind of introduced himself as a Navy SEAL,” said Dugas, and regaled them with wild stories. “I thought he was full of [it].”

But he said he never confronted him because “who am I to sit there and say anything bad about a Navy SEAL? I didn’t know what he did.”

Dugas briefly shared his rented home with Bryson. He recalled Bryson had a Purple Heart affixed to his book bag, and he showed off a plaque inscribed with “Special Projects,” though he “would never talk about it” in detail. (Bryson deployed and served four years with Special Projects Patrol Squadron 1 from 2003 to 2007, Navy records show.)

At club meetings, “he’d sit there and tell stories. It was well-known that he had a Navy Cross and a Silver Star,” he said. “He took stories from other people and he made them his own.”