Aren't all Tom Clancy backstories true? I'm crushed!
Actually, they are ALL TOTALLY FACTUAL....but if you really believed that, we'd have to kill you - and that takes WAAAY too much paperwork. So, no, they are made up.
Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum are the two greatest confusion-writers of our time.
Clancy can't write a paragraph without military or scientific jargon, and Ludlum is addicted to new characters.
Trying to teach "The Bourne Identity" was one of the hardest tasks I've ever had. The class said, "Where did THAT guy come from?" so often, we started keeping a Bourne Identity Cast List.