A viral video of an apparent bogus Army Ranger shopping in a Pennsylvania shopping mall on Black Friday is sparking police investigation.
Ryan Berk, a former enlisted infantryman and combat vet, was angered by the supposed impostor, Sean Yetman, who was claiming he was in the Special Forces. He took this video calling Yetman out on several inconsistencies in his story.
Yetman told Berk he went to basic at Fort Jackson, which would be impossible if Yetman was a Ranger because Rangers must do their basic training in Fort Benning. Yetman backed his story up by saying he didn't start as a Ranger, but a "driver of Humvees" where he answered a phone instead of providing a valid Military Occupational Specialty.
Yetman also wore three Combat Infantry Badges on his uniform, which he originally said were all earned in Afghanistan - this is impossible, as soldiers can only wear one Combat Infantry Badge per place they fought in support of the Global War on Terror. When Berk told Yetman that he quickly changed his story, saying one was from Iraq and that the second Afghanistan badge was when "my campaign took me outside of mission lines of Afghanistan."
Yetman was additionally called out on inconsistencies with his uniform. His lag patch was too low on his arm, his boots weren't properly bloused and his combat patch was missing. He allegedly gave his combat patch to a child earlier in the day.
While he insisted he was not a "phony" in the video an Army Human Resources Command said there is no record of a man by the name of Sean Yetman in uniform. It was also confirmed that Yetman was arrested in 2003 for impersonating a public official.
It was confirmed by officials that Berk served from 2009 to 2012 and deployed twice to Afghanistan. He left service a sergeant.
Since the video was posted it gained over two million views and countless death threats to Yetman and his family.
"That's a shame," Berk said to Army Times, responding to the personal threats on Yetman's family. "His kids obviously have nothing to do with it. That's wrong. That wasn't my intention. My intention was to have this guy put on blast so he stops doing it."
