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. 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. Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. aircraft into Vietnam. For the past three years, Burkett has worked behind the scenes with the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General on Operation Stolen Valor, aimed at uncovering people in the Pacific Northwest whove fabricated military service in order to obtain VA benefits. REALITY: Duke's only military experience was a brief stint in the ROTC while attending Louisiana State University. I have searched in vain for this alleged FBI study. In Sterners experience, its all about the financial advantages fakers can obtain. 568) comes from DOD statistics, not any public Census data. "Lots of people think I'm obsessed, but I'm not," he says, shortly before rushing off to the Xerox machine to make copies of a sheaf of military records. Frank Kaufmann provided his discharged documents which we accepted as authentic but later learned that he had forged them. 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. Before it was revealed, in 2001, that he spent the war teaching history at West Point, for example, Joseph Ellis was known to lecture his students at Mount Holyoke about his experiences in the vicinity of My Lai at the time of the massacre. I I did (it) when I was young and stupid - to impress people.". The census count in 1995 apparently 'Vietnam veterans? How many times do these real FACTS have to be repeated?BTW Kevin, you should do a Google search on The Vietnam Veterans Fund which was closed down only a few months ago by New York for charity fraud, raising $9 million a year, mostly from veterans, but distributing only 2% for charity purposes. I have found a legitimate source for the large number of imposters which was based on an actual survey so the only error is suggesting the number came from a census, though I have still not found good figures for the 1995 interim census. 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. Because of the homecoming we got I never brought up Vietnam let alone wore a hat with Vietnam vet on it. Claims/Comments; Bill Williamson from Maitland, Florida arose the suspiciousness of a Red Cross Photographer who was assigned to Vietnam in 1967. two, then you didnt have to pay federal income tax for the month so, ferrying a regular post. Marshal Hanson (and apparently quoted by every vet site as complete gospel), he provides the U.S. Census as the source, just like everybody else:www.veteranstoday.com/2009/02/26/vietnam-facts-vs-fiction/Had you read my post, you would have seen that I quoted this source, including its negative note at the end that was highlighted in yellow and typed in boldface. veterans of which according to other sources, about 2.7 actually served in The census figures do confirm the 8.5 million number. The Where are all these millions of fakers anyway? If fact it is close to the total that served and suggests that Viet vets don't die as quickly as others.Either the 2010 figures haven't been digested yet or I could not find them. Burkett also exposed actor Brian Dennehy's phony claims, in various interviews, of having been wounded as a Marine in Vietnam. 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. guide to other statistical publications and sources both in print and on the Dennehy later gave a public apology. However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam. Now, extrapolate that across the nation, and imagine the millions of dollars that this runs into.. '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. 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. He is back in prison. authentic though I suspect the number is close to accurate. Whenever I mention Vietnam service, I always point them to the 187th AHC web page. 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. A Commentary on UFOs, Paranormal events, and related topics. Report comments that violate these rules. 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. 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. Im a retired Marine of 25 years, Alvarez told the attendees. Last year, he dropped out of the state's gubernatorial race, admitting he never got closer to Vietnam than peacetime Korea. They got in the door with computer-generated or -altered discharge papers known as DD 214 forms. 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. And you think, Oh, no ones ever going to catch me. In 2000, upon hearing that the Library of Congress had launched its Veterans History Project, Burkett asked administrators if they were verifying any of the vets records. I run into far more than my share of World War II fakers, said Sterner. Other still claim to be combat vets as an explanation for emotional problems. To date, he says (and a check of court records appears to confirm it), nobody has sued him over the book. B.G. 569).No. 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. to an Illinois judge who claimed he had been awarded the Medal of Honor though he In truth, though, he only was a tail gunner in training. While the charts do not specifically ask about incountry vets it does show the number grew by almost a million in ten years. claiming Vietnam service who were not there and that there are many claiming In an interview with UPI, Castagna said he was a Marine during the Vietnam era, but refused to say if saw combat. "It all started when I was shooting my mouth off in bars 35 years ago . You know, you could get yourself a sword and say, Hey, Im home from starving in the Mideast with the Crusaders.. But his fans think he's on to something. Starting on page 12 of this pdf in parts No. They're all around you. Since the . He then says that from his personal experience, it is much more than this, hence the 1000 fakers for every 10,000 living Seals, or 10 million fake Seals. ", In the military, the book has become something of a cult classic, according to Army Capt. 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. It's not as widespread as it was the first 10-30 years immediately after the war,its still out there. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. He says most imposters are spotted before they are admitted to a VA facility. Torres came back Monday with a U.S. birth certificate it was fake, but for a good cause, he thought. When his unit came home and started gearing up. Poor or nonexistent record keeping makes such fakery difficult to track much further back in history. You took part in one of the greatest assaults in U.S. military history?. Nor was his name actually Daubmann; it was Karl Hummel, and hed taken his new name from a passport retrieved from an old uniform hed bought. to 14 million had claimed to be Vietnam Veterans and subtracted the true number So were 47 claiming to have earned service crosses. Joining is simple and . Vietnam Veterans represent the largest cohort of American Veterans in . But he'd like it if some of this eased up. These wording about the four out of five who claim to be Vietnam vets but are not is 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. It was endless," he says. The work led to 48. He deployed to Iraq, near Fallujah, in 2009. It's a touching tribute to all Vietnam veterans, their families and supporters.The Vietnam Memorial Wall arrived in Kernersville Thursday and will remain there until May 1.Those who got an up . After one local vagrant killed a policeman, the next days headline read, VIETNAM VETERAN GOES BERSERK. Moreover, 30-50% of those meeting criteria for PTSD had mild . 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. 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. 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. count, though I have not found any record of this in the census figures I I said that was funny because I didn't remember seeing him there.Anyway, there are statistics that suggest several million and really comes down to the sources you wish to cite. Everybody else I know who said they served in Vietnam actually served there. This has become pointless and I just dont any more time to devote to it. 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. But at the dedication ceremony, despite the hundreds of "normal-looking" vets in the audience -- suits, jackets, neckties on some -- the television news teams immediately gravitated toward "the guys in fatigues and boony hats, the bearded bums. Its all done for personal gain, he said. I would think of as reliable sources except I do not have copies of either At Pointe du Hoc., As you might imagine, I almost fell out of my chair. On this Memorial Day 2021, VA honors their service and recommits itself to . Heres Very few of those guys were real veterans, but it's automatic and it's photogenic. At the same time, she said, I think it is possible that in some cases, theyve told the lie for so long, and its so integrated into their perceptions of their life experiences, that, psychologically, its almost like a truth, because if theyve been telling the lie for a long time, then they dont have the challenge of someone whos making it up for the first time.. 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. Aren't those the guys who are unemployed and on drugs? DURING THAT SAME CENSUS COUNT, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: 9,492,958. "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. In 2019, approximately 3.4 million Vietnam War Veterans were enrolled for Veterans Health Administration services (12). After the show aired, several Iraq veterans wrote to the Guardian of Valor. REALITY: Johnson -- whose public mea culpa last November was too recent to be included in Burkett's book -- never served in Vietnam and never saw combat. Slessler said many of the imposters he sees suffer from 'survivor guilt.' It starts off simple enough. I was thinking, Theres something wrong here.. This is described as , Statistical Abstract of the United States. "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. I called, telling this former Ranger that my guy had claimed to be the assistant platoon leader. This is all based on his say-so with nothing to back it up. 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). How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? The increase in their ranks in recent years corresponds with a positive shift in public sentiment about Vietnam vets and a wave of books, television shows and movies about the war, such as the motion picture 'Platoon. 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. 'I owe an apology to those who served in Vietnam,' he said. 03 North Vietnam sent an estimated 700,000 troops into war. The second you tell people that you are a veteran, they look at you differently. An archive compiled by a national prisoner-of-war. I think I have finally unraveled the great Vietnam Veteran impostors statistics. It also notes that information on total personnel abroad (Vietnam and elsewhere) was not available.Finally No. It is noted that these dates may differ from those used to define various veterans benefits. The universal attitude was, 'Why should we give money for these bums?' He talks too much.'. A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle Interview - CURT COLLINS - Saucers That Time Forgot. (I wondered about this because it made no sense to me I guess the spell has broken and we are dropping like flies now. 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. Burkett predicted that half would be frauds. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are not.So AGAIN there is the claim in black and white. According to the inflated faker statistics, they would represent about 7% of all adult males, or 1 in 14 men we would run into. "Man, I was scared to death. Cooley had claimed Korean War service with Army Special Forces. A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. few: http://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/, http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,84591,00.html, http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/02/26/vietnam-facts-vs-fiction/. bio to reflect his service in the Vietnam era and before anyone says much 02 Up to 2 million civilians died in the war. "It . last few years. Burkett, who at the time was verifying records for the Texas State Archives, discovered he could get military records by request. Foreign Wars (VFW) magazine and from the Reserve Officers Association magazine which Lucky me, Id exposed the lie before the story went to press. Records showed the actor had spent his 1959-63 stint as a peacetime Marine, playing football for the Corps on Okinawa. 'Some are desperate. All societies in history have revered the warrior, he said. The United States Vietnam War Commemoration is hosting a "welcome home" event in Washington DC. Military fakery is hardly limited to the down-and-out, however. As were 45 claiming to have been prisoners of war. 'We're becoming more and more. 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. That same web site published an article, Who Are the Real Viet Regardless of what they thought of you before, theres suddenly more substance to you., The lie often starts modestly, Burkett said. 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. He also claimed the Medal of Honor. By Elizabeth Becker . 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. Kristofer Goldsmith, the former chief investigator for the Vietnam Veterans of America, spent years researching how disinformation - including Pro-Trump propaganda - has targeted veterans. b. ElbertAlfie 8 mo. I had decided that I would not SEALs. IF one was there & received the home coming I did, one would not bother. shows that much of what they print is politically driven. I was a Ranger. So it becomes count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: 04 Both South Vietnam and the United States of America committed nearly 5 million troops into war. SF tourists go in droves to In-N-Out. Reporters often interviewed local veterans of the war, Burkett said, and the things they [the veterans] were saying were just bogus as hell. 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. I called my alleged Ranger back, said I wanted to clear up the unit name and asked him twice to repeat it. He said that 90% of the Vietnam Veterans never saw combat but that is probably based on the idea that for every service member in combat there were nine supporting him. I cant find good numbers on (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.). support it. the same that has been used at many of the sites that I visited. He said he was a decorated ex-Air Force fighter pilot and former prisoner of war in Vietnam who couldn't get a job. DePaulo says its not surprising a person already held in high esteem would choose to fabricate a military background. The real Daubmann had been killed in the war. Last winter, John Maughn contacted a veterans' group in Atlanta and begged for help. They werent. . The Blue Jays fired him in March. 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. 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.". 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. This is According to a January 1893 article about veterans pensions in Harpers New Monthly Magazine, during a three-year period ending in 1879, out of 4,397 affidavits filed for wartime pensions, 3,084 were false at a cost to the government of more than a half million dollars. 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. I am an in-country Vietnam vet. The suspicion, however, is that it has probably been around as long as people have been on the planet. actually in Vietnam and that about 8.5 million served during the Vietnam era. Don Shipley at his SEALs website He has a weekly caseload of about two dozen real vets. Probably wouldn't sell more than 2,000.". looked at. Robert Bateman, who teaches military history at West Point. Any number of personality flaws might drive someone to fabricate a military background, no matter what their station in life. ), It seems, 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. These are a 10/05/2017 by militaryphonies. 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. 9,492,958, and During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely 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. Blank says despite the problems, fakes can be screened out, often through military records, sometimes just by having them interviewed by vets. I dont even know if it is bogus or He hadn't been trained in intelligence and he hadn't been a master sergeant. Burkett, but flights of fancy can also be shot down. I myself have met over a hundred "Navy Seals". 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. A long time ago, I had at least one case of a World War I guy, claiming a Medal of Honor that hed received.. in the census documents is a number for those falsely claiming Vietnam service. 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. what was claimed in that article is false but there was no warning about the And, oh by the way, a Purple Heart and a few other honors earned. 'I'm not going to say we don't care. It is headed by Bob Castagna of Talent, Ore., whose been accused of being a bogus combat vet himself. 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). Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private Very few served in Vietnam. An Oregon newspaper learned that Cooley hadnt finished training until nearly a month after the signing of the 1953 armistice. 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. 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. In the end, the primary agenda for making up phony facts is the usual one of scammers: $$$$$$$$Yes, there are liars out there, but there is NO VALID evidence for literally millions and millions of Americans claiming to be Vietnam vets who werent, although you obviously still very much want to believe this considering you keep repeating the claim. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. pictures to prove it. 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. 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. 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (CENSUS FIGURES). They want to be around real vets,' said Martin. 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 . found it which, I think, adds some legitimacy to the figures and does suggest a Many weren't even the military. 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. There is no more to be said. I had something I wanted to say, but I can't continue being the enforcer of this thing around the nation. But mistakes have been made. I retired in the year 2001. To subscribe, click here. from it to arrive at the 9.4 million. The trouble is I dont know where that 12 But the Bill Williamson US Army Vietnam Veteran, Blog of shame. Are there people involved in the Roswell case who lied? "I lied about serving in Vietnam and I'm sorry," he told Globe magazine this year. Telling war stories is as old as war itself, says author B.G. "I said no such thing. Yep, that was my outfit, he said. As for the issue of phony vets: 'Those people have a mental problem. 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.
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