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Calif. man admits lying about Vietnam service

SACRAMENTO — An Oroville man has pleaded guilty to falsely representing himself as a decorated military hero from the Vietnam War.

Michael Allan Fraser, 62, claimed in an interview with the Oroville Mercury-Register last year that he was awarded two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars for combat in Vietnam. He also traveled to Vietnam with war veterans on a mission to “bury the ghosts of the past.”

But a Colorado man who helped write the Stolen Valor Act, which was signed into law by President Bush in 2006, noticed problems with Fraser’s daring tale of valor.

He looked up Fraser’s record and found that he had served in the military as a veterinarian’s assistant in the Philippines.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan sentenced Fraser this week to 100 hours of community service helping veterans and issued a $500 fine.