'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. You know, you could get yourself a sword and say, Hey, Im home from starving in the Mideast with the Crusaders.. Burkett, author of the acclaimed 1998 expos Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History. Thats a big number approximately 23.6 million. Moreover, 30-50% of those meeting criteria for PTSD had mild . ), It seems, Perhaps the idea that the lie about military service ultimately becomes a truth in the phony veterans mind explains what happened with my aspiring D-Day Ranger about two weeks after Id caught him lying. I asked the spokesman if he had a unit roster of some sort. 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. Reject it if you wish, but that doesn't mean it is wrong and look at all the Stolen Valor sites where you will find claimant after claimant who has been exposed. Some records burned; those that survived give no hint that he ever left the United States. The branch insignia: The branch insignias should match. Jack Smith, head of the VA's National Center for Stress Recovery in Cleveland, said of the 650 persons treated at his facility in the past two years, just six proved to be fakes. 'You can normally tell who is a phony. Foreign Wars (VFW) magazine and from the Reserve Officers Association magazine which 'My pretense took on a life of its own and almost became real. REALITY: He was a Marine football player in Okinawa. (I will note that this is also a politically driven France lets aged African army veterans finally 'go home' Point prevalence of PTSD for Vietnam veterans was 9% in the 1980s and for OIF/OEF veterans was 8% (Richardson, Acierno, Frueh, 2010). 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. That launched the financial planner into a new career. Of those who said they were in-country most appear to be fake. In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. A long time ago, I had at least one case of a World War I guy, claiming a Medal of Honor that hed received.. looked at. and Capt. If you are also in a position of power or authority or prestige, then you might also feel less vulnerable, because you think that people wont challenge you, she said. Vietnam Veterans represent the largest cohort of American Veterans in . Since you are so death on fraudulent Roswell witnesses, as you should be, I think you would be equally outraged by phony, clearly fabricated statistics, fraudulent references given in support (U.S. Census), and fraudulent veterans charities taking advantage of veterans. And 97 percent of Vietnam veterans received honorable discharges, exactly the same rate for the military in the peaceful 10 years prior to the war. fight over the statistics but there is too much information here. 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. ", Burkett has found, to put it simply, that most of these men are frauds and that their fraudulent claims have been swallowed whole, and without question, by reputable news organizations, politicians, generals, police departments and federal agencies, all willing -- depending on the case at hand -- to free someone from prison, offer them veterans benefits or simply go easy on them when they land in trouble. He apparently fabricated documents claiming hed been awarded the Medal of Honor during his Vietnam War service. I run into far more than my share of World War II fakers, said Sterner. might have found, in those census figures somewhere, a report that suggested 12 Regardless of what they thought of you before, theres suddenly more substance to you., The lie often starts modestly, Burkett said. These are old friends from high school and a relative. Never in combat, a Marine Times photograph depicts McClanahan spangled with three Silver Stars, two Purples Hearts, and the Legion of Merit. He said that his unit was 100% anti-war, which I doubt, and in my experience very few of us in Vietnam could be considered anti-war (though I did burn my draft card in Vietnam I figured if everyone else was doing it, I should too but I digress.) 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. The Times Herald reported that Williams was a Vietnam veteran; one of the paper's columnists wondered whether "Vietnam did that to him." On a whim, Burkett filed a Freedom of Information Act. Reporters often interviewed local veterans of the war, Burkett said, and the things they [the veterans] were saying were just bogus as hell. '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. I could not believe it. 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. Fake Vietnam combat vets UPI NewsFeature - UPI Archives What did you do?, I was in the Army, the voice replied. For years, there had been tales in the Army of "wannabes and fakers," Bateman said, "something that a lot of veterans knew, but it was usually anecdotal. Military discharge records can be obtained through the Pentagon. used seem to have been gleaned from this 1995 census and it seems that everyone Other careers, in a variety of fields, have been damaged by similar disclosures. "I said no such thing. Well-known actor Brian Dennehy often shared stories of his service with the Marines in Vietnam. There can be problems, however. However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam. 05 The total casualties of the war number over 1 million. "I lied about serving in Vietnam and I'm sorry," he told Globe magazine this year. Everybody else I know who said they served in Vietnam actually served there. what I think happened. Report comments that violate these rules. actually in Vietnam and that about 8.5 million served during the Vietnam era. It was Saturday night as the newspaper prepared my D-Day story for the Sunday edition. These are a This is well within the range of possibility. There they can find independent confirmation of my service as a helicopter pilot and aircraft commander.The other thing is that if you ask the impostor for names of places, unit designations, or other information, they are often hard pressed to come up with any sort of intelligent answer. (At other sites, the claim is the 1990 or 2000 CENSUS) I just posted a link with results to the 1995 Census Statistical Abstract of the United States, upon which Beaton claims the statistics resides, and as proven by the Census document itself, there is NO SUCH NUMBER, only the number of living active duty vets during Vietnam. Like many people who had never served in the military -- a growing number in this country, given that the draft ended on June 30, 1973 -- Whitley had only a vague and disconnected notion of a war in Southeast Asia that was tearing the nation apart when she was growing up. 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. Military fakery is hardly limited to the down-and-out, however. State Vietnam Veterans Vietnam Veterans (per 100k) Utah 42,774 1,272 How [] Last year, he said, 12 Princeton seniors went into the service. 'I'm not going to get into that. 9,492,958, and During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely I believe we can put all this behind us and return to UFOs, treasure hunting, and other areas of strangeness that interests us. 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. According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. David Rudiak was right about that. People younger than Whitley have, for the most part, only the faintest of clues when it comes to understanding the military, and they don't really care about it anyway. the same that has been used at many of the sites that I visited. David, David, David I tried to end this diplomatically but you just cant let it go. Once you start getting away with it, then I think you get more emboldened. I was thinking, Theres something wrong here.. 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. But as I soon learned, this fellow was hardly the only person who has fabricated or exaggerated wartime exploits. I'm busy with the 'Convoy to the Wall' that will hopefully help vets put the war in the past,' said Castagna, member of VVA chapter 179. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D. C. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle. have been able to find reliable statistics on the number of men and women who Still, Yandle and veterans groups convinced the Globe and, later, Mike Wallace of the CBS News program "60 Minutes" and then-Massachusetts Gov. 02 Up to 2 million civilians died in the war. I personally believe there are as many American males claiming military service falsely as there are living veterans in America, said B.G. 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.
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