"The King of Stolen Valor" documents the completely insane life of a former Special Forces soldier turned grifter and vigilante named Jack Idema. Largely forgotten by today's generation of soldiers, the name still resonates with old-school War on Terror vets and readers of Soldier of Fortune magazine.
The documentary was produced by "Oki's Weird Stories," a YouTuber as opposed to a traditional documentary filmmaker. However, his work on "The King of Stolen Valor" is thorough, compelling, and nuanced. Unpacking the life of Jack Idema is a tricky task, even more so than I would have realized when I first started watching.
Keith "Jack" Idema served in U.S. Special Forces briefly, and apparently was not very well regarded by his peers who saw him as lazy, unprofessional, and difficult to manage. Leaving the military, Idema told lots of tall tales about black ops he never participated in while attempting to sell various types of training.
"The King of Stolen Valor" does a good job parsing out how different the paramilitary sub-culture was prior to 9/11. The internet wasn't really a thing, the military was seen by many as a Cold War artifact, and the frauds, grifters, and money hungry congregated in the classified ads of Soldier of Fortune rather than on Instagram.
Friends of mine knew Idema. The quote about him that stands out in my mind was another Special Forces veteran telling Idema, "I'll fucking kill you if you ever talk to my wife like that again." During this time Idema was making and selling military web gear, and I'm told, even had a few contracts to provide chest rigs to JSOC. Mostly, Idema was indeed a king of stolen valor but every once and a while there may have been a kernel of truth to his stories.
Someone once told me the CIA wanted Idema to give them access to sources he had inside Russia, sources that knew about the smuggling of fissile material. When he declined the CIA's request, I'm told, Idema was immediately audited by the IRS.
Idema cycled through failed business ventures and failed relationships until 9/11 happened. Traveling to Afghanistan, he successfully posed as a former Special Ops soldier turned CIA contractor working as a fixer to journalists. The problem was, that Idema was misrepresenting himself and his relationship with the U.S. government. In reality, Idema was simply a mercenary trying to make a quick buck. Ultimately, he hoped to cash in on the reward money that was being offered for Osama Bin Laden.
But Idema was also involved in extra-judicial detentions and torture. In Afghanistan, he ran his own private prison where he captured and interrogated suspected terrorists. At times, he received assistance from the nascent Afghan government and coalition soldiers who simply didn't ask too many questions about the dude wearing dark sunglasses that was running these operations. Like the best stolen valor cases, Idema would buttress his lies with bravado, and let people fill in the blanks for themselves.
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Idema's arrest, trial, and imprisonment were covered at the time in the press and in the documentary, which will likely become the final word on Idema. However, an unexpectedly dark turn occurs as the filmmaker interviews Idema's widow, Penni Idema.
After the Afghanistan misadventures, Idema began dating Penni and took her down to Mexico where he became severely drug addicted and eventually participated in gay orgies. Idema and Penni both became HIV positive. In the film, Penni tells her story of abuse and torture at the hands of Idema until she finally escapes. After his death, Penni has done her best to move on with her life.
What starts as a fun film to watch, a real-life Coen brothers-type story about a talented con man and grifter morphs into yet another warning about men who are as confident and convincing as they are psychopathic.
Much like how Wayne Simmons conned his way onto Fox News for a decade pretending to be a former CIA officer, Idema was able to run vigilante operations overseas because the people around him failed to ask questions and ultimately failed to stop him until it was too late.
The failure to stop these fraudsters is not just an indictment on any individual stolen valor case, but on the system that they thrive in.
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