how many fake vietnam veterans are there how many fake vietnam veterans are there

Are there people involved in the Roswell case who lied? Prompted by the support of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Weld recommended Yandle's release, and in October 1995, after 23 years behind bars, Yandle walked free. Telling war stories is as old as war itself, says author B.G. Joining is simple and . 'One observation made in a number of cases is that the individual who is posing as a vet, in fact, does have conflicts about Vietnam war, which are being expressed in this indirect and disguised fashion,' Blank said. Census is not something that I was able to do. To subscribe, click here. And they've been tarred and feathered by this terrible image of what's come out of the Vietnam War.". 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. Although It was much easier to do before. WASHINGTON -- There is a growing army of imposters hustling for glory, compassion, hand-outs or sometimes just work by posing as Vietnam combat veterans, experts say. I found out quickly IF I listed military service, early on for jobs, I did not get the job!Its only since 9/11, that I did start seeing 'Nam unit hats!When I see one or a bumper sticker & the vast majority seem to be genuine. If you look at the sites and read the information carefully, you will see, as I noted, that some of the information is from ACTUAL Census reports, some from the DoD and some from Beaton's survey.So, you can continue to beat the dead Census reports horse if you so desire, but I believe we (you and I) have corrected the information, we have supplied the links to the web sites and identified the source of the 13 million figure. I did provide some information from reliable sources about the large number of fakers and all you need to do is type Stolen Valor into your search engines and you'll find name after name.Shipley's web site and other sources supports the idea that there are, literally, thousands claiming to be SEALs who were not. Burkett, who served as an Army lieutenant in Vietnam during the war -- he stresses he was no hero and simply did his job as an ordnance officer -- has investigated more than 2,000 cases and found that some 1,500 were frauds on either a large or a small scale. Senator Richard Blumenthal misrepresented his record of military service during the Vietnam War. But, the former Ranger said, call this other former Ranger down in Pennsylvania; he was in that unit. In 1995, Burkett helped an Oregon newspaper uncover Republican U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley's false claims of Army service in the Korean War. Local community celebrities appear no less prone to telling such tales. authentic though I suspect the number is close to accurate. I run into far more than my share of World War II fakers, said Sterner. 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. That negative image was fresh in Burketts mind when he decided to help a friend in Dallas raise money for Vietnam veterans a quarter century ago. David, David, David I tried to end this diplomatically but you just cant let it go. How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? 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. 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. veterans of which according to other sources, about 2.7 actually served in Bob Fazio, chapter president, refuses to discuss if Castagna was a combat vet. 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. Burkett predicted that half would be frauds. How many fake Vietnam veterans are there? Records showed the actor had spent his 1959-63 stint as a peacetime Marine, playing football for the Corps on Okinawa. Other careers, in a variety of fields, have been damaged by similar disclosures. Last year, he dropped out of the state's gubernatorial race, admitting he never got closer to Vietnam than peacetime Korea. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. '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. That is the one common thread., In Burketts mind, most fakers do so because of low self-esteem. When I started noticing all the Vietnam Veteran hats I was perplexed. "The ones who always hit me up on the streets, I ask them, 'What was your MOS?' 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (CENSUS FIGURES). A Commentary on UFOs, Paranormal events, and related topics. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. with the Bronze Star Medal for actions during my tour in Iraq and I have the the extreme figures on phonies claiming service in Vietnam (in-country in the 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. wording about the four out of five who claim to be Vietnam vets but are not is You have extrapolated meaning into somewhat innocuous sentences. '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. 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. 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. Men in period uniforms scrambled across the beach between mock explosions, as the reporter interviewed D-Day veterans who came to watch. Someone says, Hey, Joe, youre of the age for Vietnam. 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. In this, he resembles the fake Vietnam vets, whose stories more often concern harm suffered and witnessed than bravery proven. Good grief, I thought. Overall, about 3.5 million Americans served in Southeast Asia during the war. ", Finally, after years of scrambling for money, Burkett's group got their memorial. 'In Vietnam, it just took longer to emerge.'. A military impostor is a person who makes false claims about their military service in civilian life. Natural attrition through mortality should have reduced the number to around 8.2 million surviving Vietnam era vets. There is no more to be said. 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. Heres Dennehy later gave a public apology. 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. Although it was said that no reputable site had posted I'm interested in real vets who have their own problems.'. an email address so they might have been there and I therefore did not find the He had served time in Georgia for auto theft. A judge sentenced Cooley to two years probation, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. 'Some claim to be vets just out of a need to be macho.'. It doesn't seem to exist. You'd need to make $108k/yr after-tax annually to afford a Datejust in a month's time. By fits and starts, Burkett learned how to investigate. served in-country, on those who served in areas surrounding Vietnam such as used seem to have been gleaned from this 1995 census and it seems that everyone 'A lot of them are groupies. bio to reflect his service in the Vietnam era and before anyone says much for the last few years I have started asking those wearing the hats where they served in Vietnam. The medals and ribbons placement: Imposters like to showcase all their medals and ribbons. They have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. Regardless of what they thought of you before, theres suddenly more substance to you., The lie often starts modestly, Burkett said. does not seem to be accurate and my review of the census doesnt bear this out. ', 'For years, Vietnam vets were portrayed as crazies. As for Burkett, he still gets calls from cops seeking advice on how to run records, or even from skeptical wives and girlfriends who suspect their men may be playing a bit loose with the truth about their exploits in "the 'Nam." parlance of those of us who were there), I found a number of them. REALITY: Duke's only military experience was a brief stint in the ROTC while attending Louisiana State University. They got in the door with computer-generated or -altered discharge papers known as DD 214 forms. I never saw it, but returning friends told me about it.All this to say, for me, its weird. It takes the heart of a Warrior to find deception and take it down. Daubmanns tale of escape from the colonial hellhole prompted the German government to treat him as a national hero. More than a few 20th century men tried to pass themselves off as the last surviving veterans of the Civil War. Castagna was quoted by the newspaper as saying the records were in error and that he was even wounded in battle. I myself have met over a hundred "Navy Seals". copies of the VFW magazine or the ROA magazine so that we can see if they I certainly haven't come across it personally. combat air patrols over Vietnam but all he had done was fly repaired or new I called my alleged Ranger back, said I wanted to clear up the unit name and asked him twice to repeat it. 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. 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.". 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. "It . Don Shipley at his SEALs website U.S. I know that there are many A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. So were 47 claiming to have earned service crosses. He wasn't even sent overseas until September 1968, six months after the Khe Sanh siege was over. Like the nonexistent Census data of 10 million fakers, this seems to be all totally made up by Shipley to push his own agenda. connection to a census though the connection is not identified. Network Web site lists U.S. prisoners of war, reviewed all the history project records. REALITY: Yandle did serve in the Marine Corps but never received combat medals and was never in Vietnam. In the spring of 1998, Burkett managed to convince Wallace and others that Yandle was a fake. And there he was, my false ranger, holding his shadow box of medals as he repeated his fake story. 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. The numbers quoted by me were based on all these sources, though it had been suggested, and I followed suit, that some 13,000,000 had lied on the census form. 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. ElbertAlfie 8 mo. 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. And, oh by the way, a Purple Heart and a few other honors earned. 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. 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. Veterans Today site also wrote, in big letters, . "It all started when I was shooting my mouth off in bars 35 years ago . Some of the statistics being 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. 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/ Interesting CENSUS STATS and Been There Wanabees: a. Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Military History. 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. With the Pentagon Papers revelations, the U.S. public's trust in the government was forever diminished. REALITY: He was a Marine football player in Okinawa. 10/05/2017 by militaryphonies. It's not just Vietnam fakers: there was a USA Today story some years back about phony Gulf War vets. You took part in one of the greatest assaults in U.S. military history?. He said he was a decorated ex-Air Force fighter pilot and former prisoner of war in Vietnam who couldn't get a job. These are old friends from high school and a relative. What I havent found Blumenthal made a handful of false and misleading statements about having . 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. 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. census and then to the 2000 census but did not explain this problem. I don't need to pretend to be some super secret squirrel sniper badass force recon dude. magazine so that I have nothing on their sources. think I have been able to deduce what has happened. Starting on page 12 of this pdf in parts No. The census figures do confirm the 8.5 million number. He is back in prison. this seems to be correct, I cant find anything in the census figures to The event will include displays related to the Vietnam War, a jump by the Golden Knights (Army parachuting team . I would think of as reliable sources except I do not have copies of either According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. 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. (At other sites, the claim is the 1990 or 2000 CENSUS) I just posted a link with results to the 1995 Census Statistical Abstract of the United States, upon which Beaton claims the statistics resides, and as proven by the Census document itself, there is NO SUCH NUMBER, only the number of living active duty vets during Vietnam. Aren't those the guys who lost the war?' The news must have been slow that day, because the reenactment was the lead story. He deployed to Iraq, near Fallujah, in 2009. 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). guide to other statistical publications and sources both in print and on the As it turned out, my guy wasnt on the list. The point is the magazine has a political agenda. That same year, however, American journalist Lowell K. Bridwell wrote that he couldnt find one single scrap of evidence to verify Williams age or veteran status. It's not as widespread as it was the first 10-30 years immediately after the war,its still out there. claiming Vietnam service who were not there and that there are many claiming count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: As for the issue of phony vets: 'Those people have a mental problem. 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. sources of data include the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, At Pointe du Hoc., As you might imagine, I almost fell out of my chair. "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. 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. and reports. Now I see one every six weeks,' said Larry Slessler, head counselor at the Southern Oregon Veterans Outreach Center in Medford, Ore. I have run into many of them and I don't get out all that much. They range from the one time publisher of a Phoenix newspaper And he describes the hostile reaction directed at veterans coming back from Vietnam, intimating that he was among them. Many weren't even the military. Who knows? fight over the statistics but there is too much information here. Web. In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. I doubt there are 10 million of them, but it appears to me there are a lot of fakes. In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. "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. 1991: Established that, in Vietnam Veterans, there does not appear to be a causal relation between homelessness and military service, including exposure to combat; . Cooley was forced from office in 1996 and was later convicted of a felony for lying in Oregon's voters' pamphlet. In Sterners experience, its all about the financial advantages fakers can obtain. ), It seems, Torres came back Monday with a U.S. birth certificate it was fake, but for a good cause, he thought. Poor or nonexistent record keeping makes such fakery difficult to track much further back in history. Members of chapter 239 of the Vietnam Veterans of America rushed to his aid. 05 The total casualties of the war number over 1 million. An Oregon newspaper learned that Cooley hadnt finished training until nearly a month after the signing of the 1953 armistice. It lasted about three years. Very rare and usually done by people looking for high profile jobs. He eventually amended his senate 'My sense is that it has been steadily increasing over the past five years,' said Dr. Greg Andersen, assistant director of the VA hospital in Menlo, Park, Calif. 'They generally fall into two categories: Those who want to enhance the image of themselves, and those trying to prey off the public.'. 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. Now, extrapolate that across the nation, and imagine the millions of dollars that this runs into.. Some individuals who do this also wear privately obtained uniforms or medals which were never officially . All others should not be accepted to have served either on land or at sea in Vietnam. I did (it) when I was young and stupid - to impress people.". (Video) A Vietnam Vet. Robert Bateman, who teaches military history at West Point. ", In the military, the book has become something of a cult classic, according to Army Capt. 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. VA facilities and vet groups check perspective patients and members to determine if they are who they claim to be. 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 . to 14 million number originated, how it was collected, or if it was part of Burkett, who served as an Army lieutenant in Vietnam during the war -- he stresses he was no hero and simply did his job as an ordnance officer -- has investigated more than 2,000 cases and found. 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. This has become pointless and I just dont any more time to devote to it. The Blue Jays fired him in March. 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). I believe the numbers.If I can meet that many phonies in my very small community, I believe the numbers completely. We have been reduced to repeating ourselves and you actually point me to a source that I pointed you to in the beginning. 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. 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. 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. . People want to be a certain kind of person they only wish they could be. Back at the office, I started typing up my notes, shaking my head at times. Frank Kaufmann provided his discharged documents which we accepted as authentic but later learned that he had forged them. Very few served in Vietnam. Without of other fakers. 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. After nearly 20 years of living thousands of miles from his family so he could claim his French army pension, the old soldier is finally being allowed to return to live in his native Senegal. 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. But 80%? 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. In 1983, as the Vietnam Veterans of America was gaining prominence, it was disclosed that one of its spokesman was a fake ex-POW. I retired in the year 2001. Researching the book made her spend time, she said, "with the real citations -- learning about a man who received the Distinguished Service Cross at the cost of his life, and finding out that some phony had modeled his citation on that one.