The ‘Commander’ in the classroom: Is this war hero teacher a phoney?

Wednesday, 13 May 2026

He drives a Bentley with ‘CDR LI’ plates and wears a chest full of medals, but those who served say his story doesn’t seem to add up. Steve Kilgallon investigates.

The rack of medals across Marlborough maths teacher Mike Li’s chest at an Anzac Day parade told a remarkable story.

According to his ‘tin’, Li had spent time in the Special Forces, was captured by the Iraqis, saw action in the Gulf War, won an MBE, a Mention in Dispatches, the rarely-awarded Military Medal, and served in Yugoslavia and Cyprus. Former Army major Simon Strombom says Li told him he had commanded a nuclear submarine.

“It’s an amazing story,” says Strombom, who was taken aback when he saw Li wearing those medals at New Plymouth Boys’ High School’s Anzac ceremony three years ago.

“It’s so amazing … because it is a f….. story. It would be in the f….. fiction section.”

Strombom, in disbelief, asked medals expert Ian Martyn to investigate.

Martyn, who served in both the army and navy, was the man who unmasked former Rolleston RSA president Bruce Blackburn for wearing medals to which he was not entitled.

To an authority like Martyn - who runs Medals Reunited, a service which ensures long-lost medals are returned to the families of their original recipients - those ribbons, clasps and medals tell a very distinct story.

“If all this is true, he’s probably one of the greatest modern-day [war heroes],” says Martyn.

Do you know more? Email steve.kilgallon@stuffdigital.co.nz

But if it is true, why is Michael Li almost a ghost?

“For someone to have those medals,” says former NZ Navy officer Toby Mills, “it would be like Willie Apiata: you would know them.”

Doing the research

From the memorabilia-lined office in his immaculate home in suburban Nelson, Martyn began to do his homework.

The internet offered little on Mike Li - except, notably, a brief autobiography from when he joined the teaching staff of Shirley Boys’ High School in 2022, in which Li said he had left school at 16 to join the British Navy and then the Marines, serving 11 years as a weapons engineer, before time in the Sultan of Oman’s armed forces, then working in oil and gas as a geodesist (large-scale surveying) and geophysicist for 24 years.

Li then embarked on his “third career”, qualifying for a graduate diploma in teaching at Canterbury University in December 2017, before taking his first teaching job at Cashmere High School.

That brief naval career does not match up with his supposed exploits whilst enlisted, Martyn and others claim.

Martyn studied photographs of Li in his 2023 Anzac Day outfit and identified each of the medals, badges and pins (and the beret) he wore - and from that, tried to establish a picture of everything Mike Li must have done if he had earned his medals.

They were as follows: MBE (Member of the British Empire), Military Medal, General Service Medal (with clasp), Gulf Medal (with two clasps and a Mention in Dispatches), UN Medal (Cyprus), NATO Medal for former Yugoslavia, Oman Peace Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait) and the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia).

Some of those are entirely plausible - the Yugoslav and Cypriot medals simply indicate time served there: “You just have to be there, vertical and breathing,” says Martyn (although Martyn says the Yugoslav medal would usually have a clasp, and Li’s does not). Likewise, the General Service Medal just indicates service in either Northern Ireland, Kuwait, north Iraq or southern Turkey. The Kuwait and Saudi medals were given out to those involved in the liberation of Kuwait.

But medals experts explain that the others are much more rarely awarded, particularly the Military Medal, which was usually given to soldiers, not sailors, restricted to non-officers and discontinued in 1993. Only 16 were awarded for service in the Gulf War, none to the Royal Navy or Marines - all went to those in the SAS or Army, and all but six of the SAS recipients were named.

Awards of the MM, the MBE and the Mention in Dispatch (MiD) are routinely listed in the London Gazette, the official British government publication which details honours recipients (even SAS recipients are listed, albeit sometimes under a pseudonym).

By cross-referencing various clues, Martyn began to think that Li had taken his wife’s last name, and may have been originally called Michael Robert Jarvis.

So he searched for men named Li, Lee, Leigh and Jarvis earning such awards, and broadened his search to any naval officers named ‘Michael’ whose awards might match those worn by Li.

He found nothing. Stuff replicated that search, with the same results.

“All these medals can be bought: an MBE sells for $500 on the net,” Martyn observes.

It’s worth stressing that the cohorts winning these awards were very small: less than 100 servicemen were gazetted for MiDs for Gulf War service: “So that got my immediate attention,” Martyn says.

The two clasps on the Gulf Medal are also very specific.

The first was given for operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during ‘Operation Granby’ (the British part of the liberation of Kuwait) between January 16 and February 28, 1991: they signify active involvement in the war.

The second was given to members of the Kuwait Liaison team who were in Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and captured by the invading Iraqi Army. Only 38 servicemen were awarded that clasp, none of them Royal Navy personnel - none called Li or Jarvis. Nobody on a photo of that group appears to resemble Li.

Some 1500 civilians working for British Aerospace - mostly ex-services - were also given the award. But for the Operation Granby clasp and the MiD to make sense, Li would still have had to be serving in the military in August 1990, and so wouldn’t have qualified this way.

Publicly available data, published in Hansard, suggests no-one serving in the Royal Navy or Royal Marines received both Gulf War clasps.

The Oman Peace Medal was awarded to anyone who has served in the Sultanate’s Armed Forces, police or Ministry of Defence for more than a year.

Former NZ Defence Minister Ron Mark spent 1985 to 1990 in the Omani military, rising to the rank of Major, after leaving the New Zealand Army and said he had never heard of Li (although it’s likely Li’s service in Oman came after Mark’s).

Li’s green beret is a Royal Navy special forces Royal Marine Commando issue beret (which indicates passing an All-Arms Commando Course). His hat badge is a naval officer’s badge (if he was claiming service in the SBS [Special Boat Service] he would have a different hat badge).

The pewter badge on his jacket - the Continuous at Sea Deterrent badge - is awarded for one or more patrols on a nuclear submarine (it would be silver-coloured for more than 20 patrols). The dolphin badge below is awarded to anyone with submarine service.

So, Martyn says, that suggests Li both served in a special forces unit, on a submarine, and reached a naval officer’s rank. That fits with his use of the honorific ‘Commander’ (the rank that would be required to lead a naval submarine).

During the most likely time period for Li’s military service - the late 1980s and early 1990s - the British operated four such boats - Resolution, Repulse, Renown, and Revenge - before they were retired in 1990.

In a pepeha posted online as part of a series of flashcards in the name ‘Mike Li’, is one which says ‘HMS Resolution is my boat’.

“To become a captain on a nuclear-capable submarine, you’ve got to be in [the service] for quite some time, right?” asks Martyn, considering Li’s self-reported 11 years of service.

Martyn and others spoken to by Stuff were of the view that the training, experience and series of promotions required to reach that seniority would take much longer, perhaps more than two decades.

Martyn searched the Navy List - a public record of anyone retiring from the British Navy at officer rank - and again found no Li, Leigh, Lee or Jarvis.

He also asked questions of military contacts in Britain without success.

Martyn is not the only medals expert who has looked at Mike Li’s array and raised concerns.

Toby Mills approached Auckland medals dealer Aubrey Bairstow, who told him he thought Li was a “phoney”.

Bairstow also searched the Gazette and Navy List, and pointed out potential inconsistencies, including the Gulf clasps and the unlikely Military Medal award. “It’s possible but unlikely,” is Bairstow’s opinion, “and there are also awards missing which one would expect a Commander to have … it does seem improbable”.

And the veterans have also asked around.

Mills spoke to a retired British navy submariner. One Army veteran consulted both a former submarine commander and a former SAS member - who in turn made enquiries of other former British servicemen, including decorated Gulf War servicemen. Strombom phoned military contacts and was approached by three concerned serving NZ Navy sailors who had all also been in the British Navy. Bairstow consulted a senior New Zealand submariner.

A former Royal Navy SBS contact in the UK had independently contacted Mark, raising his concerns with a message entitled ‘What the f…?’.

None of those contacts recognised Li’s name, his photograph, or his medal collection.

Stuff put questions to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) about Li’s service record and medals.

Royal Navy spokeswoman Commander Serena Brotherston said it couldn’t give out details of the service records of a living person due to UK privacy legislation, but said: “The Gazette would certainly mention the MBE and MM if received.”

The MoD’s Medals Office didn’t respond to questions before deadline.

The ‘Commander’

Toby Mills was the first veteran to ask questions about Li.

Li moved from Shirley Boys’ to New Plymouth Boys’ High to teach maths and physics, and three years ago, Mills’ son came home from school saying he had a new teacher who had told his class he had served on submarines and instructed his pupils to address him as commander.

“I thought that was strange,” says Mills, “because I know a lot of commanders and when they leave the forces they don’t normally carry on like that. I did question the school why he was getting the students to call him that, and didn’t really get a good answer.”

(NPBHS headteacher Sam Moore did not respond to questions about Li before deadline).

So when it came to Anzac Day, Mills had his eye out for Li, and he was quick to spot the tall, bearded man in the commando green Marine’s beret. “It stuck out,” says Mills. An army war veteran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also had his interest piqued by Li’s outfit and medal collection.

“The medal group in itself is unique,” claimed the former soldier. “On the face of it, it is a really amazing set of medals, and add to that the submariners’ badge and that he was a naval officer at commander level, he must have an amazing back story.”

He struck up conversation with Li, and says he was left with a “gut feel” that Li’s war stories did not seem to add up.

“It could work with a certain sequence of activity, but that was not the story we got. With such a unique group of medals, it should be possible to identify who that individual is. I couldn’t corroborate it. There is enough there to make you curious and to question.”

After New Plymouth, in 2025, Li moved on to Marlborough Boys’ College.

In the top of the South Island, Li drives to school in a black Bentley bearing the registration plate ‘CDR LI’, and is listed in the school’s staff directory with the honorific ‘Commander’.

Stuff has been told he has again asked pupils to use that title.

Marlborough Boys’ principal Jared Dunn said he’d not received any complaints about Li or his military service.

“As far as I am concerned, he’s here as a teacher of science and physics. I haven’t had time to look into [his past],” he said. “I know there’s been stories and people have asked questions but I’ll take it at face value.”

Asked if Li asked students to call him ‘Commander’, Dunn said: “I’m not sure. Some people call him commander, some don’t. To me, he’s Mike.”

But for Mark, the use of that title in civilian life is unusual.

“One of the key tenets of the Special Forces is humility,” he says.

In ex-services circles, those who claim the medals (and honour) they are not entitled to are called ‘Walts’, after James Thurber’s delusional short-story character Walter Mitty; one online group pursuing such characters call themselves the Walter Mitty Hunters’ Club. In America, they call it ‘stolen valour’.

It usually works, says Strombom, because the public don’t really know what they are looking at - just that it’s impressive.

“Everyone sees a set of medals and takes them on trust,” he says.

One of the most egregious recent examples was that of senior British police officer Nick Adderley - chief constable of Northamptonshire police - who was dismissed for wearing a Falklands War medal despite being 15 years old at the time of the conflict.

Presently, the punishment in New Zealand for falsely claiming medals is $500: much lower than in countries such as the US (one year’s imprisonment) and Australia ($5,000 fine and/or up to 24 months jail).

Waikato National MP Tim van de Molen has a bill pending - with cross-party support - to amend the 1918 Military Decorations and Distinctive Badges Act to increase that penalty to a maximum of $10,000.

Van de Molen, a former territorial Army officer, said he’d been motivated by a series of ‘stolen valour’ incidents.

His law, he said, wouldn’t capture people wearing their ancestors’ medals as a mark of respect on Anzac Day; he wanted that tradition to continue.

But he said he found stolen valour to be “particularly offensive” and “disgraceful”.

“Medals are a small thing the Government can do to acknowledge that sacrifice and service, so if someone portrays themselves as having given that sacrifice and service, which is greatly respected and deeply appreciated, without having done so, it undermines that.”

Asked about Li’s case, which veterans have made him aware of, van de Molen said: “It seems a very unlikely collection of medals … to have earned. I haven’t met the chap and I don’t know the situation, but it seems on the face of it that this is an example of the sort of breach that Kiwis would be disgusted by. I certainly would be disgusted if it was the case that he was purposely misrepresenting himself as earning those medals when in fact he had not.”

’I’m not answering any questions’

Stuff has made multiple efforts to get comment from Mike Li about his military career.

When Stuff visited his home in Picton, Li said: “Why are you approaching me at home? The boundary to my property is there. I am not answering any questions. Goodbye.”

He did not respond to a list of questions emailed twice to his school email address.

“How could a person have done all this - it’s astonishing,” says Mark.

He has a simple request for Li: “Prove it, give us access to your military records. It’s as simple as that.”

* Additional reporting and research: Chris McKeen