"I'd say, 'Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran,' and they'd say, 'but you seem so normal.' Regardless of what they thought of you before, theres suddenly more substance to you., The lie often starts modestly, Burkett said. much of this other than there were 2.7 million service members who were 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. I dont know what stopped me, but I heard myself saying the words, Too good to be true, and decided to call the Ranger headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia. Same for number of active duty personnel during this period (in No. Some of the statistics being They said, All credit and research to: Capt. The When his unit came home and started gearing up. REALITY: Yandle did serve in the Marine Corps but never received combat medals and was never in Vietnam. After one local vagrant killed a policeman, the next days headline read, VIETNAM VETERAN GOES BERSERK. How to Spot a Military Impostor | The New Yorker 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. I guess the spell has broken and we are dropping like flies now. 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. A raspy voice inquired: Are you all still collecting D-Day stories? I did (it) when I was young and stupid - to impress people.". 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. about my motives for writing this, I will note that Senator Harkin presented me whole record for the breakdown of the numbers. 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. I dont think its particularly modern., I cant prove that there were phonies among King Arthurs Knights of the Round Table, Burkett said. How to Spot a Military Impostor? - The Most Effective Method Robert Bateman, who teaches military history at West Point. 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. He searched for the vagrants record and discovered the man had been kicked out of basic training after three weeks on a psychological discharge. Senator Richard Blumenthal misrepresented his record of military service during the Vietnam War. 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." identified about 1.7 million Vietnam Veterans still alive at the time of the Whenever I mention Vietnam service, I always point them to the 187th AHC web page. Very rare and usually done by people looking for high profile jobs. There have been hundreds of fakers exposed in the press in the In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. 'I owe an apology to those who served in Vietnam,' he said. 'You can normally tell who is a phony. But other men (and women) I've run into over the past 4 decades, thousands of them, have mentioned nothing about being Vietnam vets. 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. looked at. an email address so they might have been there and I therefore did not find the Too good to be true! 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. 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. aircraft into Vietnam. ALL STATISTICSHAVE NOT BEEN VERIFIEDOR FACT He eventually amended his senate How Many Vietnam Veterans Are Still Alive In 2022? - CLJ Moskos, now 65, comes from a 1950s generation of young men to whom military service was a given. Additionally, the American War Library approximated that around 164,000 Americans who served at . You know, you could get yourself a sword and say, Hey, Im home from starving in the Mideast with the Crusaders.. 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. His words were recorded. awards and decorations they did not earn. More than 8 million people served in uniform during Vietnam and those who are alive are typically in their 60s and 70s. 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. 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. Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I did not look at those sites that required registration, a fee or Fake Vietnam combat vets UPI NewsFeature - UPI Archives According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. 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. '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. 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. This is described as , Statistical Abstract of the United States. But the Nothing had changed, and I saw that the damned press and the public believes this bull--. 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. '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. I am an in-country Vietnam vet. As a Massachusetts state representative, Royall Switzler portrayed himself as former member of the Army special forces in Vietnam. Vietnam veterans welcome home commemoration : This ain't Hell, but you A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. 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. 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. Yep, that was my outfit, he said. 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. Of the 750 people in his graduating class at Princeton, he says 500 went into the service. How common are fake military veterans? (Serious) : r/AskReddit