Marine impostor's deception began years ago

A tattoo of an angel illustrates his right leg. A devil decorates his left.

But an elaborate web of deceit has left Richard Glen Strandlof with another indelible mark: fake military hero who misled veterans, politicians and others. All had bought into the story of Rick Duncan, the wounded soldier rallying opposition to the Iraq war and support for struggling vets.

Like the contradictory body art, Strandlof's story winds between malicious deception and actual good works. And it muddies the issue of whether his offense was simply that he fooled the people he purported to champion or broke the law.

He awaits arraignment in the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center on a misdemeanor traffic charge. And while the FBI is investigating possible fraud, no charges have been filed.

Strandlof, 32, spared no detail in his alleged résumé: Annapolis graduate. Marine captain. Survivor of the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon. Wounded, three-tour veteran of the Iraq war. An American hero who, in his next act, would stand up for his band of military brothers on whatever stage was set before him - from the Capitol steps in Denver to the campaign stump.

He backed mostly Democratic candidates sympathetic to his anti-war views in the run-up to the 2008 election. Beyond politics, he worked on behalf of homeless veterans in Colorado Springs, an effort that earned him widespread respect.

But revelation of his charade last month ignited the military blogosphere - some of the more charitable critics have suggested his deployment to a combat zone - and inspired speculation on just how he could pull it off.

The deception was elaborate, cunningly conceived and boldly executed - from his command of military vernacular down to details like the bumper sticker on his car.

"Got DD214?" it said, playing off the popular "Got milk?" ad campaign in what amounted to an inside military joke. The bumper sticker referred to the official form that details a soldier's release from active duty.

"I admit that not everything I said was as factual as I wish it had been," Strandlof told 9News on Thursday in the only interview he has granted since his charade began to unravel.

He said he constructed his military persona based on real and fictional accounts gleaned from reading materials and movies. He also claimed schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have affected his recollection of events over the last few years.

"When I talked with people about my passion about vets' issues," he said, "I believed that was the truth."

Army Spc. Garett Reppenhagen met the man he knew as Duncan at a veterans' gathering two years ago in Colorado Springs. He remembers him as, "spastic, a lot of energy, all over the place, an excitable person." That night, Duncan related how he'd been wounded by an improvised explosive device during his second tour in Iraq. He told others how the explosion had caused a severe brain injury - a circumstance that seemed to explain his twitchy mannerisms and sometimes erratic behavior.

It never occurred to Reppenhagen, an infantry sniper who actually did a tour in Iraq, to dig deeper. Vets don't press other vets for combat details like that.

"You sort of feel like a jerk by even doubting someone," he said.

Besides, Duncan's intentions seemed straightforward. He sent care packages to troops in Iraq. He stood up for homeless veterans in the Springs. He advanced his anti-war politics by connecting with like-minded candidates.

He even launched his own organization, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, which he said represented 32,000 veterans on a massive mailing list - though the only visible members seemed to be a cadre of local vets.

He certainly talked the talk. Duncan mingled easily in the military milieu. And in some ways, he walked the walk.

"It seems like his heart was in the right place," said Reppenhagen, 33. "He was a really hard worker. He did a lot of good by raising a lot of awareness. But then you find out that he's a fraud."

Strandlof's unmasking began early last month and resulted in his arrest soon afterward in Denver on a traffic warrant from El Paso County. According to one of the vets who first suspected the ruse, an FBI agent asked whether he was Strandlof or Duncan.

"Both," he reportedly replied.

Reppenhagen considered him a friend, a brother in arms. Then he saw that bond torn by the worst kind of betrayal.

And yet.

"I can't say I hate Rick Duncan for what he did," Reppenhagen said. "But I certainly never want to talk to him again."

The well-told combat tale, delivered by an accomplished liar, has become almost cliché. It has been known to yield any number of perks: a job, a date, a fund-raising boost, a political leg up - even a free parking place via Purple Heart license plates. It can conceal character defects or even criminal histories.

"It's a great way to deflect criticism - ‘I was a war hero for my country. How can you not like me?'" explained Loren Pankratz, a professor of clinical psychology at the Oregon Health and Sciences University who testifies in court cases involving military impostors or veterans who inflate their records.

Still, in that pantheon of anti-heroes, Strandlof isn't even exceptional.

"There are many, many worse cases than this," said Doug Sterner, the Colorado Springs man who has catalogued hundreds of military fakes on his "Home of Heroes" Web site. "These impostors are all over the place. But when I look at Strandlof's case, I am thankful to him because he put this problem under the spotlight."

Beginnings

It has been years, maybe a few decades, since Robert William Strandlof of Spokane Valley, Wash., last saw his great-nephew. But the family still speaks about Rick Strandlof, who left his Montana home as a teenager and never came back.

Though he never finished high school, the boy loved to read and had a "tremendous hunger for knowledge," recalled Robert Strandlof, who served as a Marine and whose brother, Richard - grandfather of Rick - served in the Air Force.

"He had such potential and he was such a smart kid," said Robert Strandlof. "He went out on his own and never really kept in touch. I understand he lived under all kind of lies. You can't do that, because sooner or later your lies always catch up to you."

Strandlof's grandfather told The Associated Press that his grandson was a "child prodigy" who would use the Internet to create aliases and fake identities.

"It was amazing the stuff he would come up with, that he had a Ph.D. from Europe," the elder Strandlof said. "And people would believe him!"

When Rick Strandlof first hit the criminal justice radar screen in 1997, it was under the name Richard Glenn Pierson, doing five years on forgery and bad-check charges in Montana. But even at age 20, he showed a brazen inclination to take on the system.

Acting as his own attorney, he sued the correctional facility's food service for $10 million because it served him saccharine, a known carcinogen, in his fruit drink.

That same year, he also sued Cascade County regional jail administrators, claiming the jail's ban on hard-core pornography violated his constitutional rights. That lawsuit also demanded that he get his job back in the jail's law library.

Cascade County Sheriff John Strandell told a reporter at the Great Falls Tribune in March 1999 that Strandlof was fired from the library because he was using the jail's computers and law books to pose as a lawyer.

By late 2005, Strandlof was living in Incline Village, on the north shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada. He formed a foundation that promised to return open-wheel racing to the streets of Reno while also supporting programs for local children and the poor.

On Dec. 31, 2005, according to Reno Magazine, he held an auction that netted $25,000 for his Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix Foundation. In early 2006, Strandlof told Nevada Appeal newspaper columnist Roger Diez that he had secured $3 million from a "venture capital group in the Silicon Valley" to fund the purse for the race he planned over the July 4 weekend in 2009.

He said he had a 35-page business plan. He said the race would draw 100,000 spectators. He said part of the proceeds would support local charities, such as the Washoe County Association for Retarded Citizens. No one with that group has ever heard of Rick Strandlof.

Months later, Diez acknowledged in a column he likely had been duped by Strandlof. The race Web site was down. Strandlof's phone was disconnected.

"After that disappearing act he pulled, I figured there was something not on the up-and-up about the guy," Diez said. "Until that point, I had no reason to not take him at his word."

Yet Strandlof, it seems, had merely shifted gears and settled into anti-war politics.

Activist Rich Haber, who helped organize the Reno chapter of the anti-Bush organization called World Can't Wait, said Strandlof appeared at about three rallies.

Back then, there was no mention of a war record or combat injuries, Haber said. Strandlof simply struck him as a young and energetic man spouting a general displeasure with the current political climate.

He also had a knack for channeling his rapid-fire rhetoric into compelling media sound bites.

Haber recalled a March 2007 rally at Reno's Bruce Thompson Federal Building, where activists protested the fourth year of the Iraq war. Before local TV cameras, Strandlof cut loose - and looked like a natural.

"He was well-spoken, and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about," Haber said. "He just impressed me as a young guy who was fed up with the way things were going and wanted change."

For a time, Strandlof's name appeared on World Can't Wait's national Web site as the contact for the Reno chapter. A surprised Haber tried to reach out to the younger man - but Strandlof remained distant and didn't return phone calls.

Change came, all right.

Strandlof sat down and sighed heavily when two Reno police officers confronted him in the early morning hours of April 21, 2005, about a stolen gold Ford Explorer.

Officers found the SUV near Strandlof's apartment, full of personal items: a T.J. Maxx card, deodorant, photos, clothing, CDs and employment papers bearing his name.

Strandlof called to his roommate, Jeremy Weed - a man he listed as next of kin in police documents and who would later move with him to Colorado, where Strandlof identified him to acquaintances as his boyfriend until a recent breakup.

"My vehicle is not my vehicle," Strandlof told Weed, according to the incident report.

In fact, it was a stolen rental car Strandlof told officers he'd used on behalf of a political group to drive local voters to the polls.
Later, he told a Washoe County District Court judge that he'd struggled with mental health problems and had sought treatment as a teenager, according to the district attorney's office. He requested his case be heard in the county's Mental Health Court, whose records are sealed.

Strandlof spent nine months in county jail for possession of a stolen vehicle. District court documents show he was required to take medication and read a book on bipolar disorder as part of his 15-month probation.

A ring of truth

Strandlof surfaced in Colorado as an energetic force for veterans rights, along with a stance against the Iraq war consistent with his days in Nevada.

He even launched his own organization - Colorado Veterans Alliance. Colorado veteran Daniel Warvi agreed to serve on the board.
Warvi said he was taken in by what he called Strandlof's "Fobbit" war stories - the often mocking nickname for the servicemen and -women who are hunkered down in a war zone's Forward Operating Bases, called FOBs, while others are risking their necks.

"Rick had always claimed that he was a logistics officer," Warvi said in an interview last month. "So a lot of it was him complaining, ‘Well, yeah, all I did was deliver mail and food.'"

But the impostor spoke just as vividly about the day he claimed he was injured by an explosion. Warvi suspects that Strandlof turned to the Internet to pad out his stories with convincing details.

"Up until recently, guys could literally go on patrol, get into a firefight or get into combat, and that night they could hop on MySpace or Facebook and blog about it," he said. "He mined all the information he needed to fabricate his persona."

Army Spc. Mark Wilkerson cut Strandlof a lot of slack for his supposed disabilities. He first heard him speak, eloquently but with a pronounced stutter, at a barbecue held by some people with Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"He said he was 100 percent disabled, that's why he's a little off, that's why he was a little unusual," said Wilkerson, who now lives in Colorado Springs. "I was naive, we all were, but he was just so convincing in the way he would speak about his experiences."

Wilkerson said Strandlof would disappear for weeks at a time, saying he was getting treatments at the VA hospital in Denver.

When Wilkerson invited Strandlof to join Iraq Veterans Against the War, he balked --possibly because he knew the group checks DD214 forms to authenticate service. He declined to join officially, saying he preferred to work with the group "under the radar" so he could maintain relationships with conservative elected officials.

During a protest in October of 2007, a Marine colonel stopped Strandlof and challenged his authenticity - a common occurrence during veterans' anti-war protests in a military stronghold like Colorado Springs. But Strandlof answered the Marine's questions to his satisfaction.

"He would tell people stories about Iraq, and he would cry; those emotions he was able to conjure up were amazing," said Wilkerson, 25, now a student at Pikes Peak Community College.

Colorado Springs veteran Mike Flaherty says he grew suspicious of the man he knew as Rick Duncan when Duncan stayed at his house at the end of 2008.

Duncan had always seemed overly eager to discuss his war wounds and his post-traumatic stress disorder, but his behavior as a roommate strained belief.

Flaherty recalled coming home late at night from his job waiting tables and finding Duncan asleep in the living room. Stirred from his slumber, he would begin whimpering, as if in the throes of night terrors.

Flaherty didn't buy it.

"He'd have these really panicked looks on his face, like he knew we were paying attention," Flaherty recalled.

After staying for six weeks, Duncan skipped out on his $300 share of the rent and vanished without warning at the end of December or early January.

"He just kind of left in the middle of the night," said Summer Simmons, also a roommate during that period. "He turned his phone off.
There was no way to reach him. He wouldn't respond to e-mails and just kind of disappeared on us. We never heard from him again."

Hal Bidlack, a retired Air Force officer who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, said Strandlof had "little things that boosted his credibility" - like the "Got DD214?" bumper sticker.

"It's only a joke to veterans," Bidlack said. "He certainly studied a great deal. He found he liked a community. He just hadn't earned the right to be in it."

Strandlof campaigned with Bidlack as he traveled the 5th Congressional District. He worked in his office and stood on the stump with him as Bidlack recalled his experience at the Pentagon on 9/11. Strandlof had also said he was in the Pentagon for a meeting that day.

Bidlack worked in the triage area and suffered nightmares afterwards, and he doesn't speak publicly about the details. But on the campaign trail, when people asked, he would offer that he saw the worst in people and the best in people all at once that day.

Last year, Strandlof held a remembrance for 9/11 victims. Recounting his own supposed experience in the Pentagon that day, he spoke tearfully about the "duality of that day, the good and the bad that I saw that day are forever etched in my mind."

For Bidlack, the remarks had a familiar ring - one that now appears consistent with Strandlof's tactic of parrotting the real-life experiences of others.

"It was changed a bit," Bidlack said. "He would listen carefully and then tell stories back. It's just a shame. It sounds trite, but he used his talents for evil."

But it wasn't just those convincing details that won people over. It was his apparent commitment to veterans causes.

Robert Moran, whose The Street Church in Colorado Springs works with the poor and homeless, found an ally in Strandlof.

While Moran's approach to advocacy was "sitting down and talking," with city leaders, Strandlof pursued legal action, challenging the city's support of sweeps that dismantled homeless camps.

"He definitely showed a real passion for people on the streets, veterans and nonveterans," said Moran, who served 22 years in the Army. "We saw Rick as someone who had compassion. People would call him and ask about where and how to get help for mental issues, and he had the answers."

For Moran, deciding on whether Strandlof was "good or bad in the end," depends on unanswered questions about funds he may have collected in the name of veterans.

"If he did do something illegal, it may be that it wasn't intentional - it may be that he just isn't healthy," Moran said. "What do you do with a Rick Duncan? Do you pray for him and hope he gets some help? In the short time he spent advocating for the homeless, he did some good, but the jury is still out for the long term impact, right?"

Unraveling claims

When the truth finally emerged, it happened quickly.

Near the end of April, Strandlof - in the persona of Rick Duncan - called a Fort Carson legislative liaison to say he was working for Sen. Mark Udall and wanted to set up a meeting at the Army post. The liaison then called Udall's Colorado Springs office seeking verification.

Udall's staffers said Duncan didn't work for them. On May 1, they met with Warvi of the Colorado Veterans Alliance to express their concern.

Warvi had become exasperated with Duncan's inability to provide the details necessary to move the organization toward legal nonprofit designation. He'd never doubted his claims about military service - but the call from Udall's office prompted him to take a closer look at Rick Duncan's record.

"That was the tip-off that said, ‘Hey, we need to start digging,'" Warvi said. "It just started to fall apart pretty quickly."

Duncan's facade began to collapse within hours.

Warvi phoned the public affairs officer at Annapolis and learned that the last naval officer by the name of Rick Duncan graduated in 1948 - almost 30 years before Strandlof was born. He checked with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office and learned that the CVA name already had been registered to a man no one had heard of: Rick Strandlof.

Later inquiries turned up mounting evidence that Strandlof and Duncan were, in fact, the same person. Board members learned about the ill-fated Grand Prix event in Reno. They contacted a Nevada-based member of World Can't Wait, asked some questions about Strandlof's demeanor, and heard the man describe Rick Duncan in precise detail.

"Finally, we found the court documents in Reno," Warvi said of the papers that put Strandlof in Nevada instead of Iraq. "And that basically destroyed Rick's entire timeline."

And yet, in his interview with 9News, Strandlof stayed true to the Rick Duncan persona, voicing regret not so much for any perceived fabrications, but for his shortcomings in advancing veterans' issues.

"I believe that people who defended a nation's ideals," he said, "should have ideal treatment from a nation."

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This story was reported by Jason Blevins, Jessica Fender, Nancy Lofholm, Barry Osborne and Allison Sherry of The Denver Post, and Lance Benzel and Carlyn Mitchell of The Gazette.  It was written by Kevin Simpson of The Denver Post.