how many fake vietnam veterans are there

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. It is noted that these dates may differ from those used to define various veterans benefits. They said, All credit and research to: Capt. confusing and contradictory, but I think they were referring first to the 1995 Nor has military fakery been limited to Americans. "Pressure is Vietnam,". 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. Like the nonexistent Census data of 10 million fakers, this seems to be all totally made up by Shipley to push his own agenda. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. I explained that given the way some of this was explained on the various sites was somewhat misleading and I was mislead, but you have nothing to prove that it is wrong other than your own beliefs. After one local vagrant killed a policeman, the next days headline read, VIETNAM VETERAN GOES BERSERK. The event will include displays related to the Vietnam War, a jump by the Golden Knights (Army parachuting team . however, that the information is not drawn from the 1990 census and might be related to one that This alone falsifies the claim that the Census data shows 10 million fake Vietnam vets.The ONLY possible evidence in Census data I have found of POSSIBLE fakery was the 2000 Census, which found 8.4 million saying they were Vietnam ERA vets out of the actual 8.7 million figure of the Pentagon. In 2019, approximately 3.4 million Vietnam War Veterans were enrolled for Veterans Health Administration services (12). 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. He brought out a shadow box filled with decorations and a folded flag; his kids had made it for him, he said. 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.". 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. How many REAL Vietnam vets are alive today? - American War Library Castagna was quoted by the newspaper as saying the records were in error and that he was even wounded in battle. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private 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,. More than 3.4 million deployed to Southeast Asia (1) and approximately 2.7 million of those served in the Republic of Vietnam (2). 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. But he'd like it if some of this eased up. Between March 1, 2008, and Feb. 25, 2009, the VA investigated 96 cases of stolen valor fraud, according to James ONeill, assistant inspector general for investigations. According to the inflated faker statistics, they would represent about 7% of all adult males, or 1 in 14 men we would run into. There were an estimated 58,318 U.S. soldier casualties alone. A casual mention of military service. How many Vietnam era veterans are there? A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle Interview - CURT COLLINS - Saucers That Time Forgot. Vets, which claimed that 90% never saw combat and most were anti-war. VA experts says others fabricate stories to grab attention, or in an effort to get disability benefits for bogus combat injuries or fake post-war stress. People want to be a certain kind of person they only wish they could be. Well, to cite my own anecdotal experience, I have run into many people claiming to be Vietnam vets. 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. People are impressed. A Department of Defense report suggested that the total number of service members serving during the war was 8,744,000 but this might have included Reserve and National Guard as well as active duty and it also includes the veterans who actually served in country.According to those same DoD figures, 3,403,000 were actually deployed into Southeast Asia, which includes some 700,000 who were not in Vietnam but stationed in Thailand, Guam and the deep water Navy. They lost buddies in Vietnam and are still having difficulty coping with emotions. Type falsify military service into an online search engine window, and one yields tens of thousands of hits relating case after case in which someone has either exaggerated or completely fabricated their military service. 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. Poor or nonexistent record keeping makes such fakery difficult to track much further back in history. 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. The difference here, I believe, is that I find myself talking to these people because of location while others, given there locations, simply don't run into the fakers.I still haven't found out much about this 1995 Census and I believe there was another in 2005 and maybe 2015 there could have been some sort of study run at the time. ALL STATISTICSHAVE NOT BEEN VERIFIEDOR FACT [2] [3] [4] This includes claims by people that have never been in the military as well as lies or embellishments by genuine veterans. 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. 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. "It . Fake War Stories Exposed - CBS News 'I'm not going to say we don't care. Yandle said he was at the infamous 1968 siege at Khe Sanh, surrounded and attacked for 77 days. 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. 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. much of this other than there were 2.7 million service members who were . "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. And Shipley's estimate of 1000 times the true number is also made up and worthless, not based on anything other than Shipley wanting to believe there is some sort of Navy Seal imposter epidemic.Just as a basic gut check that these huge numbers are preposterous, how many people have any of us run into bragging about being Navy Seals or in Vietnam? CHECKED. Military impostor - Wikipedia According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. the same that has been used at many of the sites that I visited. Other still claim to be combat vets as an explanation for emotional problems. They werent. and Capt. While the charts do not specifically ask about incountry vets it does show the number grew by almost a million in ten years. 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. 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. Thank you for acknowledging that the actual U.S. Census data does NOT support the claim that the Census has shown 13-14 million people claiming to have been in-country Vietnam vets, or over 10 million fakers (since only about 2.7 million served in-country).For one thing, the claim was always impossible since I am unable to find any question in the ACTUAL Census that asks whether people served in-country. By this census, FOUR 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. But as I soon learned, this fellow was hardly the only person who has fabricated or exaggerated wartime exploits. 'In Vietnam, it just took longer to emerge.'. I certainly haven't come across it personally. statement. The number of personnel serving in Vietnam year by year (No. 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. 'It tears you up inside to see this sort of thing.'. Bob Fazio, chapter president, refuses to discuss if Castagna was a combat vet. He also claimed the Medal of Honor. Burkett's quest for that evidence started in 1986, when he was asked to help raise funds from private donors for the Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation. Politicians and Their Fake War Stories - The New York Times Lucky me, Id exposed the lie before the story went to press. In short order, photographer Ken Lyons and I were sitting in the fellows sun-splashed back yard. Seven years later, Chuck and Mary Schantag, whose P.O.W. '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. 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. To date, he says (and a check of court records appears to confirm it), nobody has sued him over the book. 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. Any number of personality flaws might drive someone to fabricate a military background, no matter what their station in life. The United States Vietnam War Commemoration is hosting a "welcome home" event in Washington DC. The article cited a VA document that reported 80 people had claimed POW benefits for having been captured during the Gulf War, when there were only 21 POWs. 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. 1991: Established that, in Vietnam Veterans, there does not appear to be a causal relation between homelessness and military service, including exposure to combat; . Vietnam veteran - Wikipedia Tag Archives: Fake Vietnam Veteran - militaryphony.com magazine so that I have nothing on their sources. I think I have finally unraveled the great Vietnam Veteran impostors statistics. 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. figures).. 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. I would think of as reliable sources except I do not have copies of either '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. 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. He wasn't even sent overseas until September 1968, six months after the Khe Sanh siege was over. IF one was there & received the home coming I did, one would not bother. "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. 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. His words were recorded. Or maybe you dont even mean it consciously as a trial balloon, but you put something out there, and it works and maybe gets a good reaction. I wondered if some of this didnt come from the Department of They want to be around real vets,' said Martin. The news must have been slow that day, because the reenactment was the lead story. Yep, that was my outfit, he said. I had decided that I would fight over the statistics but there is too much information here. How many Vietnam veterans are still alive? (2023) 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. Too good to be true! And he describes the hostile reaction directed at veterans coming back from Vietnam, intimating that he was among them.

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