'You can normally tell who is a phony. Mr . On this Memorial Day 2021, VA honors their service and recommits itself to . By Elizabeth Becker . 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. 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. however, that the information is not drawn from the 1990 census and might be related to one that Dennehy did play football for a Corps team on Okinawa, Burkett reported. 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.) Oddly, his charitable endeavors included involvement with local Vietnam veterans groups, which ended in 1994 when he disappeared, only to resurface years later as a con man. 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. and Capt. Because of the homecoming we got I never brought up Vietnam let alone wore a hat with Vietnam vet on it. The real Daubmann had been killed in the war. bio to reflect his service in the Vietnam era and before anyone says much VA facilities and vet groups check perspective patients and members to determine if they are who they claim to be. I retired in the year 2001. Veterans overcome by emotions as Vietnam Moving Memorial Wall makes That is the one common thread., In Burketts mind, most fakers do so because of low self-esteem. PDF Sobering Statistics Concerning Vietnam Vets As of April 2016 "It . I Their lies collectively cost the VA $1.4 million. 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. that. The project, it would turn out, had a profound effect on her. 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. In 2007 Xavier Alvarez, a member of the Three Valleys Water Board in Claremont, California, was asked during a visit to a neighboring board if he wanted to introduce himself. How to Spot a Military Impostor | The New Yorker I wish a month of my pay could afford a new basic Rolex.. (not the specialty models like this guy could afford). Burkett, but flights of fancy can also be shot down. A Different Perspective: Vietnam Faker Statistics - Blogger He brought out a shadow box filled with decorations and a folded flag; his kids had made it for him, he said. 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). I dont think its particularly modern., I cant prove that there were phonies among King Arthurs Knights of the Round Table, Burkett said. 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. 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). How many Vietnam veterans are dying each day? 9,492,958, and During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely He had served time in Georgia for auto theft. Poor or nonexistent record keeping makes such fakery difficult to track much further back in history. 1999-08-13 04:00:00 PDT Dallas -- Jug Burkett's cozy office high up in a big glass-and- steel tower looks more like the cluttered, haphazard digs of a college professor than the lair of a successful stockbroker. (Video) A Vietnam Vet. He was a stateside Marine. Members of chapter 239 of the Vietnam Veterans of America rushed to his aid. Military fakery is hardly limited to the down-and-out, however. Don Shipley at his SEALs website Many weren't even the military. Politicians and Their Fake War Stories - The New York Times Natural attrition through mortality should have reduced the number to around 8.2 million surviving Vietnam era vets. 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. 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. And? 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. does not seem to be accurate and my review of the census doesnt bear this out. 5. My newspaper, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, published an open invitation for those who had taken part in the grand and awful amphibious assault to contact us and share their stories. But his fans think he's on to something. 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. Vietnam veterans welcome home commemoration : This ain't Hell, but you 'It tears you up inside to see this sort of thing.'. The trouble is I dont know where that 12 The only number coming out of the census was 8.5 million Vietnam era veterans of which according to other sources, about 2.7 actually served in Vietnam. I think I have finally unraveled the great Vietnam Veteran impostors statistics. 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. 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. None were real. John Martin, a volunteer at at a make-shift POW information center in Washington, D.C., near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, figures he has seen a half-dozen pretenders in the past month alone. 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. Report comments that violate these rules. First, During the war, more than 58,000 servicemen and women lost their lives. ". Without But other men (and women) I've run into over the past 4 decades, thousands of them, have mentioned nothing about being Vietnam vets. I called my alleged Ranger back, said I wanted to clear up the unit name and asked him twice to repeat it. the extreme figures on phonies claiming service in Vietnam (in-country in the REALITY: Cooley's Army records indicated no Korean service - he did not even finish training until after the war ended. Whenever I mention Vietnam service, I always point them to the 187th AHC web page. $174k/yr for a new Daytona in a month. He deployed to Iraq, near Fallujah, in 2009. "I said no such thing. I doubt there are 10 million of them, but it appears to me there are a lot of fakes. Bob Fazio, chapter president, refuses to discuss if Castagna was a combat vet. France lets aged African army veterans finally 'go home' How to Spot a Military Impostor? - The Most Effective Method It was Saturday night as the newspaper prepared my D-Day story for the Sunday edition. 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. David Rudiak was right about that. The work led to 48 arrests, the VA recovered $562,888, and authorities levied $1.23 million in fines. In short order, photographer Ken Lyons and I were sitting in the fellows sun-splashed back yard. I did find a claim Stolen Valor. 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. More than a few 20th century men tried to pass themselves off as the last surviving veterans of the Civil War. Although 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. The alleged 13.8 million fakers or four out of five who claim to be Vietnam vets is CLEARLY stated as being based on U.S. CENSUS DATA, not some independent survey. How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? And he describes the hostile reaction directed at veterans coming back from Vietnam, intimating that he was among them. He talks too much.'. Daubmanns tale of escape from the colonial hellhole prompted the German government to treat him as a national hero. Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. used seem to have been gleaned from this 1995 census and it seems that everyone In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. The source of this data is explained thusly: Data were estimated starting with veterans place of residence as of April 1, 1980, based on 1980 Census of Population data, extended to later years on the basis of estimates of veteran interstate migration, separations from the Armed Forces, and mortality; not directly comparable with earlier estimates previously published by the VA.So the number is only partially based on actual Census data from 1980 plus estimates of normal mortality, migration, etc. Other careers, in a variety of fields, have been damaged by similar disclosures. People are impressed. IF one was there & received the home coming I did, one would not bother. What did you do?, I was in the Army, the voice replied. Too good to be true! A casual mention of military service. "But, you know, maybe I'll do a book on all the heroes of Vietnam. 6.1 million VA continues to serve Vietnam Veterans VA's Veteran Population Projection Model estimates the number of living Vietnam War-era Veterans to be 6.1 million (11). I certainly haven't come across it personally. Approximately 2.7 million American men and women served in Vietnam. "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. Did Senator Richard Blumenthal Misrepresent His Military Service? Posted by KRandle at 6:27 PM. a regular post. I have searched in vain for this alleged FBI study. During that same Census Someone 'Some are desperate. I would think of as reliable sources except I do not have copies of either 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. "I'd say, 'Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran,' and they'd say, 'but you seem so normal.' Along the way, Burkett has picked up a few enemies: "There had been some threats, and the brokers and secretaries were afraid of being killed, so they moved me way down the hall to this office." Projections also indicate that the veteran population will become slightly younger, with 33% of veterans being younger than 50 in 2046 compared with 27% in 2021, even as the overall U.S. population continues to age. To date, he says (and a check of court records appears to confirm it), nobody has sued him over the book. of other fakers. 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. [2] [3] [4] This includes claims by people that have never been in the military as well as lies or embellishments by genuine veterans. I did not look at those sites that required registration, a fee or He also claimed the Medal of Honor. Moreover, 30-50% of those meeting criteria for PTSD had mild . Fake War Stories Exposed - CBS News Published Sep 24, 2018. Kristofer Goldsmith, the former chief investigator for the Vietnam Veterans of America, spent years researching how disinformation - including Pro-Trump propaganda - has targeted veterans. provide a source, I dont know where to take this. Good grief, I thought. 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. 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. ", Finally, after years of scrambling for money, Burkett's group got their memorial. 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. 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. By this census, FOUR '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. By fits and starts, Burkett learned how to investigate. organizations., I think However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam. There have been cases too, such as with Maughn, where once a vet gets a copy of his form, he doctors it to show combat service. 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. You took part in one of the greatest assaults in U.S. military history?. (If you are interested in pursuing this, just type Stolen Valor into your search engine and see the numbers of those caught pretending to be what they are not.). Torres came back Monday with a U.S. birth certificate it was fake, but for a good cause, he thought. The news must have been slow that day, because the reenactment was the lead story. Some records burned; those that survived give no hint that he ever left the United States. I then told him what Id learned and asked, Did you lie to me?, In a voice that suddenly sounded creaky and 10 years older yet sort of childlike, as though fearing a reprimand he replied, slowly, Yes.. SF tourists go in droves to In-N-Out. 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. What I havent found combat air patrols over Vietnam but all he had done was fly repaired or new He says most imposters are spotted before they are admitted to a VA facility. Burkett candidly admits he's not a writer. 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. This has become pointless and I just dont any more time to devote to it. That guy, the real Ranger told me, got killed on D-Day. 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 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. David, David, David I tried to end this diplomatically but you just cant let it go. Vietnam Veterans - Veterans Affairs '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. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source. This Vets, which claimed that 90% never saw combat and most were anti-war. On the US Census web site www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/cp2/cp-2-1.pdf on page 45 there is a chart that lists veterans and which era they served in. Vietnam Veterans Against the War: Commentary: Fake Vets Chasing Fame - VVAW Vietnam veteran being told how much his Rolex watch is worth I guess the spell has broken and we are dropping like flies now. Web. I believe the numbers.If I can meet that many phonies in my very small community, I believe the numbers completely. of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census As a Massachusetts state representative, Royall Switzler portrayed himself as former member of the Army special forces in Vietnam. Blumenthal's Words Differ From His History - The New York Times 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.". 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. 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. Further, if you bothered to read Beatons statistics, as at this webite below, said to be written by Beaton and Cpt. Like the nonexistent Census data of 10 million fakers, this seems to be all totally made up by Shipley to push his own agenda. The census count in 1995 apparently Still, Yandle and veterans groups convinced the Globe and, later, Mike Wallace of the CBS News program "60 Minutes" and then-Massachusetts Gov. On the other side of the coin the VA on their site www.va.gov/vetdata/veteran_population.asp offers a Excel worksheet that shows only 6,673,279 Vietnam era vets believed still living as of 2014. statement. Probably wouldn't sell more than 2,000.". He also had claimed recon DePaulo says its not surprising a person already held in high esteem would choose to fabricate a military background. A total of 9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam era, with over 2,709,000 Americans serving in Vietnam, about 9.7% of the generation.Vietnam Veterans by State 2022. 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. Their overall agenda makes their warning suspicious and That launched the financial planner into a new career. The Pentagon has no definitive list on who was a POW or even an estimate on how many Americans were in combat. Vietnam veteran - Wikipedia William Weld, that Yandle was fit to be released. 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. He eventually amended his senate Now, they are being seen as heroes,' said Dr. Betsy Tolstedt of the Veteran Administration's outreach clinic in Chicago. Here Id called him on his lie, and he had the gumptionthe beliefthe desire to somehow lie again, as if by lying many mines, the lie would turn true. They are NOT to be used for official government findings He apparently fabricated documents claiming hed been awarded the Medal of Honor during his Vietnam War service. Stolen Valor Joining is simple and . Instead the standard Census question on the long form is whether somebody has ever been active duty military and lists multiple war and peace eras, including the Vietnam era from 1964-1975. It is headed by Bob Castagna of Talent, Ore., whose been accused of being a bogus combat vet himself. All you need to do is look at the numbers he supplies and his agenda is sort of like mine it annoys me that the fakers are out there spouting their nonsense. Census is not something that I was able to do. Same for number of active duty personnel during this period (in No. It's not just Vietnam fakers: there was a USA Today story some years back about phony Gulf War vets. Fakery was reportedly widespread during the Civil War and its long aftermath. 'It was out of the high esteem that I hold for you that I took your honor as my own and in doing so did you a grave injustice.'. At Pointe du Hoc., As you might imagine, I almost fell out of my chair. Smith calls the phenomenon the 'Tail-Gunner Joe Syndrome,' named for Joe McCarthy, the former flag-waving senator from Wisconsin who tried to rid America of communists in the 1950s. He does claim an "FBI study" "a few years ago" estimated 300 fakers for every real living Seal. 'I have always attempted to be the best at whatever I undertook, but in this instance, I guess I felt what I actually did was not enough, so I pretended to be something I wasn't,' Switzler said. Of those who said they were in-country most appear to be fake. 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 . But I know this didnt just occur starting with the modern wars. CHECKED. But as I soon learned, this fellow was hardly the only person who has fabricated or exaggerated wartime exploits. They are all repeating the same phony "statistic" of the Stolen Valor book, claiming it is based on Census data. 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. 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds. "Pressure is Vietnam,". Marshal Hanson, USNR (Ret.) How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? But tracking this back to the US The only number coming out of the census was 8.5 million Vietnam era You have extrapolated meaning into somewhat innocuous sentences. 'My pretense took on a life of its own and almost became real. 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. Castagna was quoted by the newspaper as saying the records were in error and that he was even wounded in battle. Since the . Strewn about the floor, piled crazily on a chair, slopping over the edge of a credenza, teetering on top of his desk are stacks and stacks of file folders containing Xeroxed personnel records from the Vietnam War and tattered news clippings. Yandle apologized publicly and was returned to prison. "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. What Medals Can A Vietnam Era Veteran Wear? - CLJ It's not as widespread as it was the first 10-30 years immediately after the war,its still out there. The My Lai Massacre and other news stories created for some a public image of troops as baby killers, an image since exacerbated by films such as 1986s Platoon. The post-Vietnam period recorded countless news accounts of hundreds of thousands of angry and sometimes homeless and desperate veterans. Lucky me, Id exposed the lie before the story went to press. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1395584&mpage=1&key=�. 'I'm not going to say we don't care. 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. Im not sure why this has become such an issue here but I Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation. Richard Blumenthal Not the First Public Official to Misstate Military He wasnt a Vietnam veteran, Burkett said.

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