In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. All too often, these suffering "veterans" never set foot in Vietnam and yet, the images they offer have permanently shaped the way Americans view soldiers from this war: As slovenly,. connection to a census though the connection is not identified. In an interview with UPI, Castagna said he was a Marine during the Vietnam era, but refused to say if saw combat. 'In Vietnam, it just took longer to emerge.'. But I know this didnt just occur starting with the modern wars. For a very long time I couldn't summon up the courage to stop it. Any number of personality flaws might drive someone to fabricate a military background, no matter what their station in life. A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. REALITY: Johnson -- whose public mea culpa last November was too recent to be included in Burkett's book -- never served in Vietnam and never saw combat. After one local vagrant killed a policeman, the next days headline read, VIETNAM VETERAN GOES BERSERK. A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle Interview - CURT COLLINS - Saucers That Time Forgot. (Video) A Vietnam Vet. 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (CENSUS FIGURES). I wish a month of my pay could afford a new basic Rolex.. (not the specialty models like this guy could afford). what I do know. It is totally made up, apparently to push the author's and other veterans political or emotional agenda.The same goes for Don Shipley and his alleged 10 million fake Navy Seals. The 2000 census site at www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/censusatlas/pdf/12_military-service.pdf shows the claims rose to 8.4 million Vietnam era Vets. One said he was a doorgunner on a helicopter but didn't know the basic nomenclature, didn't seem to understand the tactics and was a little vague on the units to which he had been assigned. But at the dedication ceremony, despite the hundreds of "normal-looking" vets in the audience -- suits, jackets, neckties on some -- the television news teams immediately gravitated toward "the guys in fatigues and boony hats, the bearded bums. I found out quickly IF I listed military service, early on for jobs, I did not get the job!Its only since 9/11, that I did start seeing 'Nam unit hats!When I see one or a bumper sticker & the vast majority seem to be genuine. And there he was, my false ranger, holding his shadow box of medals as he repeated his fake story. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D. C. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle. Web. But 80%? IF one was there & received the home coming I did, one would not bother. Blumenthal made a handful of false and misleading statements about having . "They give me a blank look.". When his unit came home and started gearing up. claiming Vietnam service who were not there and that there are many claiming It also notes that information on total personnel abroad (Vietnam and elsewhere) was not available.Finally No. "What he is trying to do, at considerable risk to himself, is to say that this service means something, and by letting just anyone stand up and claim these honors, you're diminishing the real value of those who did serve. The real Daubmann had been killed in the war. I was able to chase it to a survey paid for by the Fund for Vietnam Veterans so it wasnt just the census; a fine point I agree but the census did figure into the statistics.So we can continue this no we cant because Im not going to play anymore. As were 45 claiming to have been prisoners of war. The point is the magazine has a political agenda. The universal attitude was, 'Why should we give money for these bums?' But since you want to continue, here we goYou wrote, Further, if you bothered to read Beatons statistics, as at this webite below, said to be written by Beaton and Cpt. According to the American War Library, as of February 28, 2019, it is estimated that approximately 610,000 Americans who served in land forces during the Vietnam War or in air missions over Vietnam between 1954 and 1975 are still alive to this day. address this in a comment rather than a new post so not to annoy those of you David -You said, "Kevin, the only reason I waded into this whole 'Stolen Valor' thing to begin with was because you used this Stolen Valor 'statistics' as justification for dismissing most Roswell witnesses, who you said you previously believed. guide to other statistical publications and sources both in print and on the Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Whenever I mention Vietnam service, I always point them to the 187th AHC web page. aircraft into Vietnam. I am astonished at the number of people who claim to be Vietnam Vets who aren't. These are old friends from high school and a relative. Although Burkett was able to prove that Yandle had never been in combat. In the military-rich Hampton Roads region, we struck gold: From the pilots who flew the paratroopers to the infantrymen who stormed the beaches, I was able to relate the entire D-Day narrative chronologically, all through veterans eyes. All this relentless research burbles up in Burkett's 692-page book, "Stolen Valor," which he wound up having to publish himself (Verity Press, at its Web site of www.stolenvalor.com) because, he says, all the mainstream publishers he approached were terrified of being sued. Case in point, and perhaps the one for which Burkett is best known: In the early 1990s, Joseph Yandle, a man serving life without parole in Massachusetts for his part in a murder-robbery, began a campaign, soon picked up by the Boston Globe, to have his sentence commuted. 03 North Vietnam sent an estimated 700,000 troops into war. Mr . 'A lot of them are groupies. Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. 'You can normally tell who is a phony. Slessler said many of the imposters he sees suffer from 'survivor guilt.' As I say again, the alleged 10+ million Vietnam vet fakers figure, promoted by various Vet organizations and publications, has absolutely no basis in fact, no actual documentation anywhere to support it, certainly not any ACTUAL Census report that has been cited repeatedly as a reference. (I will note that this is also a politically driven 'My pretense took on a life of its own and almost became real. Aren't those the guys who are unemployed and on drugs? I doubt there are 10 million of them, but it appears to me there are a lot of fakes. found it which, I think, adds some legitimacy to the figures and does suggest a That is the one common thread., In Burketts mind, most fakers do so because of low self-esteem. In 2007 the effort snagged eight people who were receiving VA compensation for combat injuries, although none had served in combat and two had never served in the military. Now, they are being seen as heroes,' said Dr. Betsy Tolstedt of the Veteran Administration's outreach clinic in Chicago. Khe Sanh was one of the war's bloodiest battles -- hundreds of Marines were killed -- but the only killing Yandle was intimately familiar with was the June 1972 slaying of 65-year-old shopkeeper Joseph Reppucci in a Boston liquor store. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was caught up in this. was not saying it was for service in Vietnam. This is figures).. (The ONLY question EVER asked by the Census, NOT if they were actually serving in Vietnam.) 01 The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years. I think you can find fakers very far back, said Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of social psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies the communication of deception. 569).No. Burkett predicted that half would be frauds. It is not. But he'd like it if some of this eased up. Their personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. But, the former Ranger said, call this other former Ranger down in Pennsylvania; he was in that unit. 10/05/2017 by militaryphonies. Overall, about 3.5 million Americans served in Southeast Asia during the war. Nothing had changed, and I saw that the damned press and the public believes this bull--. And? Stolen Valor. Fazio, though, praised Castagna for organizing the convoy, which is expected to total thousands of vets when it reaches Washington on July 4. His was the classic story, embraced and portrayed by the media in endless permutations until it became the stuff of legend. The second you tell people that you are a veteran, they look at you differently. I believe the numbers.If I can meet that many phonies in my very small community, I believe the numbers completely. Who knows? was conducted in 1995 which is not to say that the statistics about the fake Vietnam veterans is in that census either. does not seem to be accurate and my review of the census doesnt bear this out. Good grief, I thought. 569 again lists an ESTIMATED 8.744 million active duty military personnel during the Vietnam era, here defined as Aug. 4, 1964 to Jan. 27, 1973. Other still claim to be combat vets as an explanation for emotional problems. think I have been able to deduce what has happened. But other men (and women) I've run into over the past 4 decades, thousands of them, have mentioned nothing about being Vietnam vets. Records showed the actor had spent his 1959-63 stint as a peacetime Marine, playing football for the Corps on Okinawa. whole record for the breakdown of the numbers. "It . I wondered if some of this didnt come from the Department of That same web site published an article, Who Are the Real Viet Their overall agenda makes their warning suspicious and Moreover, 30-50% of those meeting criteria for PTSD had mild . But the real truth is that nearly everyone was exposed to indirect fire, ground attacks at base camps, and other elements of combat based on the nature of the war. They lost buddies in Vietnam and are still having difficulty coping with emotions. There are many sites devoted to Stolen Valor which had exposed thousands There is no hard count of how many people have lied about their military service, but one of the best sources on the topic thinks the number is in the millions. Telling war stories is as old as war itself, says author B.G. facts being unverified. People want to be a certain kind of person they only wish they could be. While the charts do not specifically ask about incountry vets it does show the number grew by almost a million in ten years. This has become pointless and I just dont any more time to devote to it. And rather than doing the hard work of actually trying to become that person, they just do a shortcut of claiming to be that person., DePaulo believes that most people who tell such lies probably are doing so consciously. In 2019, approximately 3.4 million Vietnam War Veterans were enrolled for Veterans Health Administration services (12). The Nazis, in particular, lionized him. He was a stateside Marine. On Burkett's walls, chockablock with his MBA diploma and certificates attesting to his knowledge of financial arcana, are plaques from the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans Land Board and a framed letter and photograph of Burkett on the podium with former President George Bush for the dedication of the Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial nearly 10 years ago. I know that there are many In the spring of 1998, Burkett managed to convince Wallace and others that Yandle was a fake. The result is that for more than 25 years, many Americans have thought of Viet vets as jobless, homeless, addicted, suicidal or deranged "victim-heroes.". I've run into a half dozen in the last few years, that were to quick to tell stories of their heroics & actions.Too me IF one says they were a Seal, or a Green Beret, I push a bit. Thailand, Guam and in the deep water Navy, and some statistics on those 'It's some sort of marginal, internal footnote to the Vietnam experience,' said Dr. Arthur Blank, director of the VA's Vietnam Vet Center program, which operates 188 counseling clinics nationwide. The It takes the heart of a Warrior to find deception and take it down. Burkett and Glenna Whitley; No Guts, No Glory: Unmasking Navy SEAL Imposters, by Steve Robinson; and Fake Warriors, by Henry Mark Holzer and Erica Holzer. Burkett -- his parents nicknamed him Jug, in honor of a favorite golf pro -- has spent the past 13 years unmasking hundreds of men around the country who have claimed to be Vietnam veterans, Vietnam heroes, Vietnam- post-traumatic-stress-psychos, the guys you read about in the papers ("Viet Vet Kills 14 in Post Office Rampage") and see on the median strip of Van Ness Avenue, wearing signs over their tattered fatigues that proclaim, "Vietnam Vet -- Will Work for Food. Very few served in Vietnam. ", "This was real people dying real deaths. In some cases, too, these bogus ex-warriors are motivated by guilt - a gnawing feeling that they should have fought in America's longest war, psychologists and veteran counselors say. A judge sentenced Cooley to two years probation, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. Did you get drafted, go in the military? Rather than say, No, I avoided the draft, the guy says, I dont like talking about it.Well, I was in the Army. You serve overseas? Yeah, I was in Vietnam. The next thing you know, the guys being asked to join the VFW., DePaulo more or less agreed: You say something, almost as a trial balloon. What I havent found Last winter, John Maughn contacted a veterans' group in Atlanta and begged for help. The work led to 48. One of the best-known examples was Walter Williams, who claimed to have served in the Confederate army under Gen. John Bell Hood. two, then you didnt have to pay federal income tax for the month so, ferrying used seem to have been gleaned from this 1995 census and it seems that everyone Im a retired Marine of 25 years, Alvarez told the attendees. provide a source, I dont know where to take this. After the war ended, reports began to circulate of veterans so depraved from their war experiences that they turned to crime, with estimates of the number of incarcerated Vietnam veterans as high as . "I lied about serving in Vietnam and I'm sorry," he told Globe magazine this year. Torres came back Monday with a U.S. birth certificate it was fake, but for a good cause, he thought. Maybe creating phony statistics on nonexistent vet imposters was designed to get vets understandably angry so they would send their hard-earned money to scam vet charities like the VVF. "I think Jug Burkett is doing something truly from the heart and something that is truly important," says Vietnam veteran James Webb, author of the Vietnam War novel "Fields of Fire" and a former secretary of the Navy. I got wounded many times by the same guy. magazine so that I have nothing on their sources. It's a touching tribute to all Vietnam veterans, their families and supporters.The Vietnam Memorial Wall arrived in Kernersville Thursday and will remain there until May 1.Those who got an up . census and then to the 2000 census but did not explain this problem. Burkett candidly admits he's not a writer. And they've been tarred and feathered by this terrible image of what's come out of the Vietnam War.". (He was drafted into the Army and did his hitch as a combat engineer in peacetime Germany.) However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam. But we aren't going to discuss this with the news media,' he said. much of this other than there were 2.7 million service members who were In 1995, Burkett helped an Oregon newspaper uncover Republican U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley's false claims of Army service in the Korean War. Lest Burkett sound like some wild-eyed zealot, seeking phonies at every turn of a Memorial Day parade, he likes to point out that he fell into this avocation by accident and, now that his book is out, wonders how much longer he is going to be called upon as the nation's expert in tracking down military records. who couldnt care less and to avoid another long and drawn out but rather pointless Some of the statistics being since 1980.But AGAIN no 13 to 14 million Vietnam vets based on alleged Census surveys. awards and decorations they did not earn. I called, telling this former Ranger that my guy had claimed to be the assistant platoon leader. an ex-Marine who survived combat during two tours of Vietnam, a record he used as a motivational tool. Over 8.7 million Americans served in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam era from 1964 to 1973 (1). I have found references that suggest the number came from the Veterans of We should be tripping over them in daily life.But just to cite my own anecdotal experience, I have never in my life run into anybody claiming to have been a Navy Seal and only one person bragging about their exploits in Vietnam in Special Forces who I strongly suspected of being a bullshitter. Where are all these millions of fakers anyway? wording about the four out of five who claim to be Vietnam vets but are not is The share of veterans ages 50 to 69 is expected to shrink from 36% to 33%, while the share of those 70 and older is predicted to . Network Web site lists U.S. prisoners of war, reviewed all the history project records. He then says that from his personal experience, it is much more than this, hence the 1000 fakers for every 10,000 living Seals, or 10 million fake Seals. You might find it more reliable than the other sites but I say it is just as biased in its way as those you reject.I have suggested that these figures were based on the US Census which did, in fact, ask about service during the Vietnam era (which you, yourself, pointed out), but also on numbers gathered from the DoD, such as the numbers of those actually in country, and on a survey conducted by Captain Scott Beaton.
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