Randall Moneymaker was found guilty of fraud.

Was Randall A. Moneymaker a soldier's soldier, with decades of service that included combat tours to Grenada, Panama, the Balkans and the Mideast?

Or had the 44-year-old Roanoke man spun a few troubled years in the Army into a made-up tale of firefights, Ranger missions and hundreds of parachute jumps -- and eventually into a job as a recruiter in Roanoke and Christiansburg, and more than $18,000 in military disability payments?

Were the scars on his back the basis for the Purple Heart he claimed to have earned? Or were they the marks of liposuction?

After three days of testimony in federal court in Roanoke -- and a thorough dissection of Moneymaker's long list of supposed awards and overseas postings -- a jury took just over two hours to find him guilty of six charges tied to fraud and theft.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig "Jake" Jacobsen called Moneymaker's inflations of his record "despicable" and an insult to veterans, especially those who'd been injured.

"As a combat veteran myself, I took this case very personally," Jacobsen said after the verdict.

The trial was filled with arcane details of military paperwork. Several witnesses testified in uniform, and Jacobsen and Moneymaker both wore short, military-style haircuts. U.S. District Court Judge James Turk remarked that he spent years as a member of the 2174th Garrison Support Unit, an Army Reserve unit based in Salem that Moneymaker joined in the early 1980s.

Jacobsen said that Moneymaker was in the Reserves from 1981 to 1982, then in the Army from 1983 to 1985. He left after misconduct that prompted an "under honorable conditions (general)" discharge, a certificate below an honorable discharge. He was supposed to be barred from re-enlisting, but in 2004 talked his way into the Active Guard Reserve, claiming he'd been on active duty since the early '80s, Jacobsen said. He became a recruiter and often wore medals including combat and Ranger badges and a Purple Heart.

But there were no records to document Moneymaker's military service between 1985 and his return to the Reserves. The Ranger school at Fort Benning, Ga., said it had not trained him. And a resume he filed in 2000 when he successfully applied for a job at Verizon listed civilian jobs from 1985 on.

The only witness who said he served with Moneymaker in the 1990s, Reserve Sgt. Noval Wright, admitted it was only after a discussion some time after 2004 that he realized they had been in Panama at the same time.

Moneymaker did not testify, but based his case on the argument that military records are routinely lost and confused.

"The government records are just jacked up -- that's a military term," defense attorney C.J. Covati said in his opening statement.

Retired retirement reviewer Robert Gruber testified that the documents Moneymaker sent to support his claim of more than 20 years of service immediately raised flags. "This guy makes Audie Murphy look like a rookie," Gruber recalled thinking.

Martha Lacy, a nurse practitioner at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem, recounted examining Moneymaker when he applied for disability. She said he told her that he pulled shrapnel from a wound on his abdomen after a grenade attack in Panama, and that a wound on his back required more medical attention. But when Jacobsen produced records of liposuction Moneymaker received, Lacy said the scars on his back were at the same spots indicated as liposuction sites.

Defense witnesses said Moneymaker has two sets of scars.

The last defense witness was World War II veteran William Fauber, who testified from a motorized scooter and with the chest of his sports coat weighted with medals. Fauber said he was a member of the famed Darby's Rangers and that Moneymaker had helped him gain a Ranger badge years later. He acknowledged that all he knew of Moneymaker's service was what Moneymaker told him, but told the jury, "If he's not a Ranger, then I'm not a Ranger."

Jacobsen asked jurors to note that Moneymaker could not produce photos from his time overseas, much less soldiers who worked closely with him. He dismissed the records and accounts Moneymaker had given as forgeries created to gain benefits.

"The only thing this defendant has lived up to is his last name," Jacobson said.

Moneymaker's charges included five counts of making false statements on forms he filed or in claims he made while applying for disability benefits or inquiring about a military pension. He also was charged with theft for receiving $18,449.32 in disability payments to which he was not entitled.

Most of the charges carry a five-year maximum prison term, but no date has been set for sentencing.

Asked during a break midway through the trial how he was holding up, Moneymaker nodded.

"I've been through worse."