Washington • Here’s a fact: Myron E. Brown is a veteran of the Korean War and a decorated one at that.

But then came the fiction.

Earlier this year, Rep. Jason Chaffetz presented Brown, an 86-year-old Provo resident, with three military awards supposedly misfiled for the past 60 years, including the second- and third-highest honors the Air Force bestows.

Brown said the written citations for the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart came in the mail, so he ordered the medals from an online retailer and asked the congressman to formally present them to him, which Chaffetz did at a Saratoga Springs town meeting in late June.

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Records nowhere to be found » A Salt Lake Tribune review shows that the citations are fakes and the Air Force has no record of Brown receiving these honors. People who track such awards say Brown is culpable in a case of “stolen valor.”

“The man had everything to be proud of and unfortunately he negated all that by trying to inflate his résumé. He didn’t just bump it up a little bit, he falsified that record to place himself among the 1,000 most decorated heroes of the Korean War,” said Doug Sterner, curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor, who places legitimate military honors online.

Sterner, the first person to question Brown’s long-lost awards, has no direct proof that Brown forged the documents, and that is important because a 2006 law makes it a misdemeanor crime to claim military honors you have not legitimately received.

Brown says he earned the medals Chaffetz presented to him and denies that he falsified the citations.

“I didn’t do them. That is all I know,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I have not the slightest idea what these people are talking about.”

Beyond the citations, Brown could not provide information to help corroborate the honors and could not provide the name of a member of his unit who could back him up.

“As far as I know they are all dead,” he said.

Brown also said that other than a letter and the accompanying citations, he has not been contacted by anyone from the Air Force.

“I just got the letters from the Air Force. I had sent in a request to have them check and that is what I got back.”

Sterner brought his concerns to Chaffetz, who contacted the Pentagon four months ago trying to verify a letter Brown presented to his office announcing the honors. His office received a response on Wednesday from the Air Force’s legislative liaison saying the military could not say whether Brown’s letter actually came from the Air Force, even though it was supposedly sent on Jan. 25, 2011.

“We cannot validate the authenticity of the letter,” the response states. “Unfortunately, it appears his record is lost in transit.”