In 1999, Donald R. Nicholson, the police chief of Amelia, Missouri, in the 1980s, admitted that he had lied about being a Vietnam veteran and a prisoner of war to obtain better veterans benefits. 576 (p. 15) has the number of Vietnam era vets as of 1994, listed as 8.246 million. Although identified about 1.7 million Vietnam Veterans still alive at the time of the That in no way suggests dismissing most Roswell witnesses. "I said no such thing. But tracking this back to the US Other still claim to be combat vets as an explanation for emotional problems. facts being unverified. 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. The VA shows on their site https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf That only 3,403,000 served incountry in Vietnam, and that a total of 8,744,000 served in that era world wide. Natural attrition through mortality should have reduced the number to around 8.2 million surviving Vietnam era vets. He said he was a decorated ex-Air Force fighter pilot and former prisoner of war in Vietnam who couldn't get a job. "It . In short order, photographer Ken Lyons and I were sitting in the fellows sun-splashed back yard. For a very long time I couldn't summon up the courage to stop it. Steph Curry killed off the Kings with a smile, On an island of resorts, this Hawaii hotel is the budget option, Des Linden unveils new book, shares race day must-haves, Why every Californian needs an air quality monitor, Things to do in Napa Valley during Bottlerock, plus hotels, Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). sources of data include the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, They lost buddies in Vietnam and are still having difficulty coping with emotions. claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. Burkett candidly admits he's not a writer. designed to serve as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a some study that ran parallel to the census. I said that was funny because I didn't remember seeing him there.Anyway, there are statistics that suggest several million and really comes down to the sources you wish to cite. There are literally millions of them.You can reject, out of hand, the 13 million figure and the military web sites that use it, but I have traced it to its point of origin which was a survey conducted by The Vietnam Veterans Fund and by Captain Scott Beaton so that we have a good source on it. But 80%? Poor or nonexistent record keeping makes such fakery difficult to track much further back in history. An informal survey by United Press International of about a dozen VA facilities, veteran employment services and vet groups found that all had seen fake combat vets in the past year, most in rising numbers. There were an estimated 58,318 U.S. soldier casualties alone. That came from everybody. The numbers cited are from various forums including the United States Census and given the way some of this was written on the sources I visited it was easy to confuse what number came from what source. Before it was revealed, in 2001, that he spent the war teaching history at West Point, for example, Joseph Ellis was known to lecture his students at Mount Holyoke about his experiences in the vicinity of My Lai at the time of the massacre. 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.". Frank Kaufmann provided his discharged documents which we accepted as authentic but later learned that he had forged them. what was claimed in that article is false but there was no warning about the VVA's national office has distanced itself from a nationwide convoy by vets to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. You can reject, out of hand, the 13 million figure and the military web sites that use it, but I have traced it to its point of origin which was a survey conducted by The Vietnam Veterans Fund and by Captain Scott Beaton so that we have a good source on it.I reject out of hand because there is no evidence to support the statistic, certainly not in the source ALWAYS given (U.S. Census). But other men (and women) I've run into over the past 4 decades, thousands of them, have mentioned nothing about being Vietnam vets. 19 Million Viewers Watched His Story Start To Finish (David Hoffman) How many soldiers died on their first day in Vietnam? A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle Interview - CURT COLLINS - Saucers That Time Forgot. I run into far more than my share of World War II fakers, said Sterner. So now I had a purpose and a system and I decided I was going to create a book, so I started researching the gaps.". 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (CENSUS FIGURES). Fakery was reportedly widespread during the Civil War and its long aftermath. DURING THAT SAME CENSUS COUNT, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: 9,492,958. this seems to be correct, I cant find anything in the census figures to Vietnam. During that same Census For the past three years, Burkett has worked behind the scenes with the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General on Operation Stolen Valor, aimed at uncovering people in the Pacific Northwest whove fabricated military service in order to obtain VA benefits. And? It takes the heart of a Warrior to find deception and take it down. . So I turned the television on and checked the local news. As for Burkett, he still gets calls from cops seeking advice on how to run records, or even from skeptical wives and girlfriends who suspect their men may be playing a bit loose with the truth about their exploits in "the 'Nam." I dont think its particularly modern., I cant prove that there were phonies among King Arthurs Knights of the Round Table, Burkett said. Burkett predicted that half would be frauds. He had been a prisoner, but not in Vietnam. Kristofer Goldsmith, the former chief investigator for the Vietnam Veterans of America, spent years researching how disinformation - including Pro-Trump propaganda - has targeted veterans. "In every statistical category that we looked at," he says, "Vietnam veterans were superlative -- their desertion and court martial rates were much lower (than in prior wars) -- and when I started looking at individual cases, I'd find vets who were valedictorians or football stars. I've come across some folks that tell stories that are hard to believe.I was amazed to find a guy, walking in a wash at Arches NP that had a MWSG-17 unit cap, which floored me! Blank says despite the problems, fakes can be screened out, often through military records, sometimes just by having them interviewed by vets. Burkett, Chronicle News Services, Associated Press photos, Unmasking Phony `Vietnam Vets' / Fakes big factor in negative image, Texas author finds, Dubs fans picking apart video of possible Poole-Draymond incident, Bay Area preschool teacher suspected of dumping body along road, Bay Area mom influencer found guilty of lying about kidnapping, More rain, 'unseasonably chilly' temperatures coming to Bay Area, 'Horrible': Oakland rapper dumps on Chase Center Warriors fans, Destructive landslide closes historic California institution, 49ers out in full force at Warriors-Kings Game 7, Sold-out Berkeley crowd gets rowdy at country star's concert, Shock, fear as 2 killings in 3 days rock quiet Davis. 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. He hadn't been trained in intelligence and he hadn't been a master sergeant. But this site also has a political agenda, but since it seems to mirror yours, it is reliable and all the other sites are not.But you might want to look at:http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/07/08/who-are-the-real-vietnam-vets/And while there is a title that says, THOUSANDS WEARING SERVICE RIBBONS NEVER EARNED IN VIETNAM which sort of reinforces my point of view, there are many things in the article that are wrong. Thus the Census provides the total numbers of ALL people claiming to have been active duty veterans during Vietnam, but not the number claiming service in-country. 'I think this is part of the same phenomenon of human nature that we have seen since the times of the Romans and Greeks,' he said. And, oh by the way, a Purple Heart and a few other honors earned. I called, telling this former Ranger that my guy had claimed to be the assistant platoon leader. Reporters often interviewed local veterans of the war, Burkett said, and the things they [the veterans] were saying were just bogus as hell. I could not believe it. but then remembered that if you set foot in a combat zone even for an hour or Here are some notable tales, along with the less glamorous versions found by Burkett: REALITY: He spent the war behind a desk as an intelligence officer, was "wounded" when he got drunk at a party, fell down a ladder and broke his leg. "They give me a blank look.". While the charts do not specifically ask about incountry vets it does show the number grew by almost a million in ten years. But the 10/05/2017 by militaryphonies. How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? Scam artists will try anything, sad to say. (I wondered about this because it made no sense to me connection to a census though the connection is not identified. How Many Vietnam War Veterans Are Still Alive? 'There are a lot of people out there doing this and we'd like to expose every last one of them,' said Ray Ashe, secretary of the VVA chapter. A casual mention of military service. In Atlanta, VVA chapter officer Ashe estimates that about 20 percent of the up to 200 men who contacted his group since December, saying they are combat vets and asking for help, were frauds. "Man, I was scared to death. 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. If that was closer to the true figure, then the 200,000 fakers evaporate.Having found maybe a few thousand fakers is a VERY, VERY LONG way (by a factor of at least one thousand) from the 10+ million claimed in the "Stolen Valor" book, allegedly based on Census data, and endlessly repeated in multiple vet publications, including the websites you linked to. 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. A "Wall of Shame" compiled by former Navy SEAL R.D. 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. According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are not.So AGAIN there is the claim in black and white. Web. 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. The 568) comes from DOD statistics, not any public Census data. 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. and reports. It lasted about three years. You took part in one of the greatest assaults in U.S. military history?. After nearly 20 years of living thousands of miles from his family so he could claim his French army pension, the old soldier is finally being allowed to return to live in his native Senegal. The number of personnel serving in Vietnam year by year (No. Marshal Hanson (and apparently quoted by every vet site as complete gospel), he provides the U.S. Census as the source, just like everybody else:www.veteranstoday.com/2009/02/26/vietnam-facts-vs-fiction/Had you read my post, you would have seen that I quoted this source, including its negative note at the end that was highlighted in yellow and typed in boldface. I would expect that number to apply to everything, including number of claimed Vietnam vets or Roswell witnesses. The story was essentially done at that point, but I said, Sure. Defense, but havent verified it there either. Its all done for personal gain, he said. In fact, he had been assigned as a supply clerk in a Marine brigade on Okinawa, Japan. The universal attitude was, 'Why should we give money for these bums?' 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. However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam. 'You can normally tell who is a phony. organizations., I think In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. Thats eight individuals in the Seattle area, in one bust, said Doug Sterner, a longtime private watchdog who now maintains the Military Times newspapers Hall of Valor database. But they soon discovered that Maughn was a fake, one who had earlier flim-flammed other vet groups, employers and newspapers. parlance of those of us who were there), I found a number of them. 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. was conducted in 1995 which is not to say that the statistics about the fake Vietnam veterans is in that census either. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private The work led to 48. Telling war stories is as old as war itself, says author B.G. I don't think this matter to anyone but us anyway. Daubmanns tale of escape from the colonial hellhole prompted the German government to treat him as a national hero. There is no question that there are a large number of them including women who talk about their combat roles and even how they had been POWs. authentic though I suspect the number is close to accurate. claiming Vietnam service and have been exposed as frauds. In 2007 the project listed 49 Medal of Honor recipients on its Web site. You can read about this here:http://www.war-stories.com/research-hanson-historical-reflections-2000.htmWhat this does demonstrate is that a minority of men and women who were in the military during the Vietnam era were actually deployed into the combat arena. You're a person of value," says B. G. "Jug" Burkett, a Vietnam veteran who was the first to expose military imposters in a systematic way, and who coined the term stolen valor. Who knows? None were real. It's not as widespread as it was the first 10-30 years immediately after the war,its still out there. 'I owe an apology to those who served in Vietnam,' he said. 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. That negative image was fresh in Burketts mind when he decided to help a friend in Dallas raise money for Vietnam veterans a quarter century ago. We don't have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. I still get shaky today just thinking about it," Yandle told Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle. Burkett verified that the movie tough guy was indeed a former Marine but had been discharged in 1963, before any Marines were sent to Vietnam. This office is the working headquarters of a guy who invests other people's millions in the stock market -- and it's his commissions that help bankroll his singular crusade. Lucky me, Id exposed the lie before the story went to press. They have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. Take John M. Iannone, a Pittburgh- area oilman whom family members said had it all and was even more admired for his extensive community service. Point prevalence of PTSD for Vietnam veterans was 9% in the 1980s and for OIF/OEF veterans was 8% (Richardson, Acierno, Frueh, 2010). On this Memorial Day 2021, VA honors their service and recommits itself to . Are there people involved in the Roswell case who lied? The increase in their ranks in recent years corresponds with a positive shift in public sentiment about Vietnam vets and a wave of books, television shows and movies about the war, such as the motion picture 'Platoon. The Medford Mail Tribune, in Medford, Ore., reported in Maythat Castagna has claimed to have fought in Vietnam, but that his military records show he served in Japan. 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. A Commentary on UFOs, Paranormal events, and related topics. In 1997 Wes S. Cooley, a sitting first-term eastern Oregon congressman, was convicted on charges hed lied about his military service in official state voter guides. Local community celebrities appear no less prone to telling such tales. In truth, though, he only was a tail gunner in training. The numbers quoted by me were based on all these sources, though it had been suggested, and I followed suit, that some 13,000,000 had lied on the census form. In 1932 a German, Oscar Daubmann, turned up in his homeland claiming hed been a French prisoner of war for the previous 16 years after his capture at the 1916 Battle of the Somme. This is described as , Statistical Abstract of the United States. I wondered if some of this didnt come from the Department of So he found, in his own backyard, Glenna Whitley, a veteran journalist and senior editor at D, a monthly magazine about Dallas and Fort Worth. People are impressed. According to research by historian William Marvel, published in a 1991 issue of Blue and Gray, Williams would have been too young to have served in the war. 568 & 569 can be found some statistics on the number of soldiers serving in Vietnam year by year and total number of active duty personnel during the Vietnam era, just as found in other statistical surveys published by the Census Bureau. 87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem. There are many sites devoted to Stolen Valor which had exposed thousands figures).. from it to arrive at the 9.4 million. But experts say the figure, whatever it might be, is small compared to the tens of thousands of ex-warriors who still suffer emotional wounds from Vietnam and who would rather not even talk about the war. Burkett might be accused of hyperbole had he not spent the past 25 years uncovering military fakers, often working with authorities whove come to view him as the real authority. Same for number of active duty personnel during this period (in No. Further, if you bothered to read Beatons statistics, as at this webite below, said to be written by Beaton and Cpt. There have been hundreds of fakers exposed in the press in the First, VA facilities and vet groups check perspective patients and members to determine if they are who they claim to be. Burkett, who at the time was verifying records for the Texas State Archives, discovered he could get military records by request. I was a Army platoon leader. The branch insignia: The branch insignias should match. State Vietnam Veterans Vietnam Veterans (per 100k) Utah 42,774 1,272 How [] https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-announces-settlements-vietnam-veterans-charity-and-its-founderNY Atty General: This Organization Took Advantage Of The Good Will Of MILLIONS Yet Failed To Fulfill Nearly All Of Its Promises To Help Those Who Have Sacrificed For Our Nation.If Beaton and the VVF are the original source of the Census claim, they are hardly a good source. In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. 9,492,958, and During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely Nobodys going to care.. For years, before the Yandle campaign and during it, Burkett had been quietly doing research for a book on phony Vietnam veterans. does not seem to be accurate and my review of the census doesnt bear this out. One of the reasons, Burkett and others say, is that the "homeless vet" you see begging on the street may well be a fake, and he's spreading the widely publicized lie. 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,. The efforts of latter-day watch-dogs such as Sterner, Burkett, the Schantags, fake Navy SEALcatcher Steve Robinson and others have given military fakery the appearance of being a modern phenomenon, particularly during the Vietnam era. People want to be a certain kind of person they only wish they could be. His first stop was the U.S. Department of Labor, where an economist dredged up some figures showing that Vietnam veterans, as a group, had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation of any group listed in the department's tables. REALITY: Duke's only military experience was a brief stint in the ROTC while attending Louisiana State University. "I'd say, 'Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran,' and they'd say, 'but you seem so normal.' With the Pentagon Papers revelations, the U.S. public's trust in the government was forever diminished. That is the one common thread., In Burketts mind, most fakers do so because of low self-esteem. He talks too much.'. If you look at the sites and read the information carefully, you will see, as I noted, that some of the information is from ACTUAL Census reports, some from the DoD and some from Beaton's survey.So, you can continue to beat the dead Census reports horse if you so desire, but I believe we (you and I) have corrected the information, we have supplied the links to the web sites and identified the source of the 13 million figure. A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. The census figures do confirm the 8.5 million number. Records showed the actor had spent his 1959-63 stint as a peacetime Marine, playing football for the Corps on Okinawa. In this, he resembles the fake Vietnam vets, whose stories more often concern harm suffered and witnessed than bravery proven. Regardless of what they thought of you before, theres suddenly more substance to you., The lie often starts modestly, Burkett said. pictures to prove it. Probably wouldn't sell more than 2,000.". He had claimed he flew Their personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. 03 North Vietnam sent an estimated 700,000 troops into war. Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Military History. Now, with this book, we have the evidence.". Back at the office, I started typing up my notes, shaking my head at times. Why bother to be a faker unless you are going to brag about it to people you meet? In 1990 and again in 2000, there was a question on the census long form that asked if the respondent was a Vietnam era veteran, and the number generated there was about 8.4 million. ', 'For years, Vietnam vets were portrayed as crazies. Or, in other words, the census did contain some of the information reported and as I said, this, the wording of it, is confusing But Beatons statistics were based on more than just the census. So were 47 claiming to have earned service crosses. magazine so that I have nothing on their sources. An archive compiled by a national prisoner-of-war. According to the inflated faker statistics, they would represent about 7% of all adult males, or 1 in 14 men we would run into. that in the 2000 census the number had jumped to 14 million, but again, this The work led to 48 arrests, the VA recovered $562,888, and authorities levied $1.23 million in fines. It was a sweet assignment right up my writing alley: A narrative about the D-Day invasion to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Allied attack that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. There is no more to be said. Very rare and usually done by people looking for high profile jobs. (He is in constant demand as a speaker and recently gave a seminar to wide-eyed FBI agents who apparently had had little experience rummaging through the labyrinth of decades-old military records.). At the same time, she said, I think it is possible that in some cases, theyve told the lie for so long, and its so integrated into their perceptions of their life experiences, that, psychologically, its almost like a truth, because if theyve been telling the lie for a long time, then they dont have the challenge of someone whos making it up for the first time.. who couldnt care less and to avoid another long and drawn out but rather pointless not SEALs. Most claim to have been on a ship in the South China Sea, but never got near the country. the giveaway as to their agenda because, as a Vietnam Vet I know that most of At about 11 p.m., I remembered that local enthusiasts were reenacting the Normandy invasion on the beach at Fort Story, an Army base nearby. But he'd like it if some of this eased up. During the war, more than 58,000 servicemen and women lost their lives. Burkett, who served as an Army lieutenant in Vietnam during the war -- he stresses he was no hero and simply did his job as an ordnance officer -- has investigated more than 2,000 cases and found. In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. Published Sep 24, 2018. There can be problems, however. One of the best-known examples was Walter Williams, who claimed to have served in the Confederate army under Gen. John Bell Hood. Burkett also exposed actor Brian Dennehy's phony claims, in various interviews, of having been wounded as a Marine in Vietnam. Because of the homecoming we got I never brought up Vietnam let alone wore a hat with Vietnam vet on it. 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 'It pretty difficult to fabricate a war history because it is relatively easy for someone who was there to see through it,' says Blank. Marshal Hanson (and apparently quoted by every vet site as complete gospel), he provides the U.S. Census as the source, just like everybody else:www.veteranstoday.com/2009/02/26/vietnam-facts-vs-fiction/ Interesting CENSUS STATS and Been There Wanabees: a. As for the issue of phony vets: 'Those people have a mental problem. last few years. Whitley, 43, is of a generation that, as she said, learned about the war largely through their TV sets. 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds. The following year, Alvarez was sentenced to more than 400 hours of community service, three months probation and fined $5,000 for violating the Stolen Valor Act a 2005 federal law named for Burketts book. How many Vietnam era veterans are there? By fits and starts, Burkett learned how to investigate. I did provide some information from reliable sources about the large number of fakers and all you need to do is type Stolen Valor into your search engines and you'll find name after name.Shipley's web site and other sources supports the idea that there are, literally, thousands claiming to be SEALs who were not. David Rudiak was right about that. 'It tears you up inside to see this sort of thing.'. think I have been able to deduce what has happened. Any number of personality flaws might drive someone to fabricate a military background, no matter what their station in life. 'My pretense took on a life of its own and almost became real. 05 The total casualties of the war number over 1 million. Bill English claimed to be a Special Forces captain who served in Vietnam but he was a PFC who did not he lead us to the Roswell nuns. ago. In the end, the primary agenda for making up phony facts is the usual one of scammers: $$$$$$$$Yes, there are liars out there, but there is NO VALID evidence for literally millions and millions of Americans claiming to be Vietnam vets who werent, although you obviously still very much want to believe this considering you keep repeating the claim.
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