Some men were never in the service, many were in the armed forces but never left the United States or never got the medals they claimed, and a few were in Southeast Asia but were far from any of the hot spots in Vietnam, where the war killed more than 58,000 Americans. 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. How Many Vietnam War Veterans Are Still Alive? 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. 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. But the "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. Everybody else I know who said they served in Vietnam actually served there. combat air patrols over Vietnam but all he had done was fly repaired or new and Capt. Of those who said they were in-country most appear to be fake. 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. Women Vietnam Veterans and PTSDAnother paper using data from the HealthVIEWS study, published in 2015, found that 20.1 percent of women Veterans who served in Vietnam have . Like the nonexistent Census data of 10 million fakers, this seems to be all totally made up by Shipley to push his own agenda. "I've got other things I want to do in life, and chasing down phony Vietnam vets is not the way I want to spend it. Whenever I mention Vietnam service, I always point them to the 187th AHC web page. 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. And there he was, my false ranger, holding his shadow box of medals as he repeated his fake story. Senator Richard Blumenthal misrepresented his record of military service during the Vietnam War. The figures for those who served in the Vietnam era were 5. Who knows? 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. After killing a prison guard, he said, hed been transferred to a labor camp in French-governed Algeria, where, after years of torture, good behavior had earned him a job as a prison tailor. And you think, Oh, no ones ever going to catch me. DURING THIS CENSUS COUNT, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. The only number coming out of the census was 8.5 million Vietnam era In 2007 the project listed 49 Medal of Honor recipients on its Web site. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1395584&mpage=1&key=�. Records showed the actor had spent his 1959-63 stint as a peacetime Marine, playing football for the Corps on Okinawa. 1991: Established that, in Vietnam Veterans, there does not appear to be a causal relation between homelessness and military service, including exposure to combat; . I was thinking, Theres something wrong here.. Other still claim to be combat vets as an explanation for emotional problems. I don't need to pretend to be some super secret squirrel sniper badass force recon dude. 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. 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. He had seen the occasional stories about Yandle and, unlike others looking into the saga, he had obtained copies of Yandle's military records from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. 'I'm not going to say we don't care. Vets, which claimed that 90% never saw combat and most were anti-war. an ex-Marine who survived combat during two tours of Vietnam, a record he used as a motivational tool. 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. Scam artists will try anything, sad to say. I got wounded many times by the same guy. Telling war stories is as old as war itself, says author B.G. Yep, that was my outfit, he said. But we aren't going to discuss this with the news media,' he said. Well, to cite my own anecdotal experience, I have run into many people claiming to be Vietnam vets. For further reading, William McMichael recommends: Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History, by B.G. David Rudiak was right about that. Any number of personality flaws might drive someone to fabricate a military background, no matter what their station in life. Burkett was able to prove that Yandle had never been in combat. ', 'For years, Vietnam vets were portrayed as crazies. Its all done for personal gain, he said. The United States Vietnam War Commemoration is hosting a "welcome home" event in Washington DC. 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. count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: A military impostor is a person who makes false claims about their military service in civilian life. Really?As for another claimed but phony reference used by vet websites, the Census Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1995, that allegedly has that 13+ million Vietnam veterans statistic, that Census Report can be found here:www.census.gov/library/publications/1995/compendia/statab/115ed.htmlThis provides a link to Section 11 pertaining to military and veteran statistics:www2.census.gov/library/publications/1995/compendia/statab/115ed/tables/defense.pdfWhere, AGAIN, nowhere can be found anything like 13 or 14 million people that allegedly the U.S. Census documented people saying they were Vietnam Vets. 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,. 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. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 'Three years ago, I didn't see any. Farmer, 26, appeared on Fox's "American Idol" in 2013, claiming he was severely injured by an IED explosion in Iraq. As it was my unit & he was there after me & knew about a pizza shop that had been setup at the air strip in DaNang. I was a Ranger. Point prevalence of PTSD for Vietnam veterans was 9% in the 1980s and for OIF/OEF veterans was 8% (Richardson, Acierno, Frueh, 2010). According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. In Sterners experience, its all about the financial advantages fakers can obtain. Torres came back Monday with a U.S. birth certificate it was fake, but for a good cause, he thought. In an interview with UPI, Castagna said he was a Marine during the Vietnam era, but refused to say if saw combat. Foreign Wars (VFW) magazine and from the Reserve Officers Association magazine which "It . In this, he resembles the fake Vietnam vets, whose stories more often concern harm suffered and witnessed than bravery proven. You can find the figures here:https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf Using both the census and the DoD numbers, Navy Captain Scott Beaton conducted a survey for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. REAL Vietnam War veterans are all those who are officially authorized the Vietnam Service medal and possess official military-issued documentation to confirm their medal authorization. Very few served in Vietnam. The same vet websites Kevin links to also give a ~9.1 million figure for "military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era." In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. 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. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source. This I know that there are many Military discharge records can be obtained through the Pentagon. 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. Although it was said that no reputable site had posted A casual mention of military service. I dont even know if it is bogus or The work led to 48. to 14 million had claimed to be Vietnam Veterans and subtracted the true number Now, they are being seen as heroes,' said Dr. Betsy Tolstedt of the Veteran Administration's outreach clinic in Chicago. Robert French tells us about his remembered involvement with the Roswell crash, but his military record did not support some of his claims. last few years. The Vietnam War was the nation's longest and costliest conflict of the Cold War. Im not sure why this has become such an issue here but I (Video) A Vietnam Vet. Stolen Valor. The 1990 census shows 7,646,908 claim to be Vietnam era vets. 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 couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. 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. For years, before the Yandle campaign and during it, Burkett had been quietly doing research for a book on phony Vietnam veterans. In 2019, approximately 3.4 million Vietnam War Veterans were enrolled for Veterans Health Administration services (12). That launched the financial planner into a new career. I cant find good numbers on The medals and ribbons placement: Imposters like to showcase all their medals and ribbons. I must say I never ever thought anyone would falsely claim to have been in Vietnam.
