Beachwalker, again, I feel bad for putting something out there that I did not validate. I guess that's what the person who made up these stories wanted in the end, for some unsuspecting person like me to feel bad about sending out a heartwarming story which plain and simply wasn't true. People who do things like this suck and I wish them all a rusty treble hook right in the corner of their eye.
Here's some links to information regarding those claims.
http://www.snopes.com/military/keeshan.htm
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-mr-rogers.htm