SEATTLE – A Lakewood man says he wishes he could take back his words that have circled the globe.

What Jesse MacBeth said – and did – landed him in federal prison.

Now, he admits to KING 5 that his lies inflamed anti-American sentiments and made things more difficult for U.S. Forces fighting overseas.

Jesse MacBeth has received hate mail and the scorn over Americans of all political stripes for posing as a combat-hardened soldier-turned peace activist.

"I lied about a lot. I feel really bad about that," he said.

Jesse MacBeth is just out of federal prison. He is now in a halfway house and, he says, he is a changed man.

"I'm sorry to the families that I hurt, the groups I made look bad, the veterans I defamed and the people that lost people," he said.

He is asking for forgiveness for crimes that some may find unforgivable.

In anti-war videos, all over the Internet, MacBeth told grisly lies that as a former Army ranger he killed more than 200 innocent civilians in a fear campaign by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Federal prosecutors charged MacBeth and seven other men in "Operation Stolen Valor." Most of the men posed as war heroes for the glory and for Veterans Administration benefits.

But MacBeth's case was singled out because his alleged atrocities became world-wide propaganda.

"Some of these stories were in fact translated into Arabic and distributed in the Middle East," said Jeff Sullivan, U.S. Attorney.

"That's something I got to live with. I feel bad about that. Because of me, because of my words, other people have died because of that. I've caused other people to hate America," he said.

MacBeth was in the Army for 44 days. He says as an American Muslim, he was taunted by other soldiers and his superiors before he was booted from boot camp.

"I thought the only way I could get back at the military and the government was to lie," he said. "I'm sorry about that. I regret the fact that I did it."

MacBeth didn't go to prison for his words. His five-month sentence was for wearing medals he didn't earn and for attempting to get VA benefits by claiming he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

At age 23, MacBeth is the youngest of the men convicted in "Operation Stolen Valor." The oldest is 71.