This past Memorial Day, a Vietnam veteran in London, Ohio, shared a harrowing story.

He told a newspaper reporter how, when he was an Army private in 1967, a North Vietnamese soldier climbed a tree, stuck a P-10 pistol into his ear and took him prisoner. How he survived for three months on dirty water and an ounce of rice a day.

He said he escaped by breaking a guard's neck and shooting the others with the AK-47 he ripped from that dead soldier's hands.

He claimed he ran barefoot through the jungle for 10 days to reach a Marine stronghold. He said he earned a Silver Star for his troubles.

Within hours of the story being published in The Madison Press, a woman in rural Missouri heard her computer make a familiar noise.

Ding.

A Google Internet alert let Mary Schantag know that someone, somewhere, was claiming to be a Vietnam War prisoner. She scanned the London story, checked the Department of Defense online list of war prisoners -- the man wasn't on it -- and then she got busy.

By day's end, 63-year-old Kenneth Eugene Reed was branded a liar on Schantag's Web site, http://www.pownetwork.org.

Then a large, well-connected network of people scattered across the country spread the word on blogs that the story couldn't possibly be true.

Schantag's group started archiving POWs' stories 20 years ago. Now, it and others like it work just as hard to expose fakes, and they all wanted Reed outed.

"We're not talking about an embellished story in the back room of a Friday night fish fry at a VFW," said Schantag, the 56-year-old wife of a former Marine.

"We're talking about men claiming medals that they don't have, men who say they endured torture and prison camps when they didn't. "Putting a fake hero on stage with a real one is an insult. These men left their blood and their body parts on the battlefields and these fakes steal their stories, but they don't steal their nightmares or their pain."

Reed apparently did spend 17 years in the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. He is a decorated veteran with a Purple Heart. Madison County Veterans Service Officer Rodger Baker confirmed that.

He said privacy rules kept him from providing Reed's records, but he said Reed doesn't have all the medals he claimed and that he was not a prisoner of war.

Last month, Reed admitted to The Madison Press that his story was untrue, and he apologized to the paper, the community and other veterans.

In an interview with The Dispatch last week, Reed didn't want to say much and wasn't as clear. In a circuitous conversation, he often didn't finish his thought or sentence.

When asked whether he was a prisoner of war, he said no. Then, he said this: "I am not a liar. I told the truth."

When asked whether he had been awarded, as he had claimed, a Silver Star, the military's third highest honor, he said, "I had one, but there's no record of it."

Reed said he made a living mostly as a truck driver and worked in a factory. He's retired now, he said, and doesn't have much contact with any relatives. He lives in the city of London but said all he's ever really wanted to do is own land and be a hog farmer.

He is, by all accounts, loyal to the local American Legion post and helps the veterans organizations with community events. His friends say this national dust-up caused barely a stir in town. No one seemed to care about what he had said.

Reed ended the conversation by saying he wished he had done things differently in the first interview.

Why an already-decorated veteran would make up such a story just for the sake of it seems a bit of a mystery, said William Schmidt, the commander of Ohio Chapter #1 of the American ex-Prisoners of War.

Some do it to get things, such as tax-free benefits and free meals and license plates, but most know other veterans would quickly recognize the story as false.

"It's like a flute player who is out of tune," Schmidt said. "Eventually, the bandmaster will recognize that."

Michael Chakeres, a retired optometrist from London and a former state commander of the American Legion, knows Reed well. He has helped his friend cope with the fallout.

"He didn't mean any harm. I think he was only trying to get some pats on the back. He wanted someone to say, 'Good job,'  " Chakeres said.

After Reed's story was published, the national networks called for him to be criminally charged. The Stolen Valor Act became law in 2006 and made it a federal offense to falsely claim military honors or lie about combat service.

There have been an estimated 40 prosecutions under the act, according to published reports last year. The FBI investigates violations, but could not update those numbers or say whether any of those prosecutions were from Ohio.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. John T. Salazar, the Colorado Democrat responsible for the law, said Reed and others like him are not the intended targets.

"In theory, the Stolen Valor Act is for those who get something out of their lie, someone who gets some benefit," spokesman Eric Wortman said.

Salazar has introduced another bill that would create a public database of all military honors. It is under consideration by the Armed Services Committee.

Though such a national honor roll would have many benefits and uses, a clear one would be that a veteran's claims of medals could be quickly vetted.

Chakeres, a former Navy Seabee, said veterans are proud of their service and protective of their sacrifices. He understands the voracity with which these groups go after someone who lied.

But he said a little empathy for a misguided veteran can go a long way, too.

hzachariah@dispatch.com