how many fake vietnam veterans are there

The work led to 48 arrests, the VA recovered $562,888, and authorities levied $1.23 million in fines. "I'd say, 'Well, I'm a Vietnam veteran,' and they'd say, 'but you seem so normal.' whole record for the breakdown of the numbers. Although 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. 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. 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. We don't have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. Seven years later, Chuck and Mary Schantag, whose P.O.W. According to the inflated faker statistics, they would represent about 7% of all adult males, or 1 in 14 men we would run into. Vets, which claimed that 90% never saw combat and most were anti-war. figures).. For a very long time I couldn't summon up the courage to stop it. [2] [3] [4] This includes claims by people that have never been in the military as well as lies or embellishments by genuine veterans. Claims/Comments; Bill Williamson from Maitland, Florida arose the suspiciousness of a Red Cross Photographer who was assigned to Vietnam in 1967. (He was drafted into the Army and did his hitch as a combat engineer in peacetime Germany.) Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Military History. The census count in 1995 apparently 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 . I wondered if some of this didnt come from the Department of After the show aired, several Iraq veterans wrote to the Guardian of Valor. A Commentary on UFOs, Paranormal events, and related topics. aircraft into Vietnam had a financial incentive.) 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. He also had claimed recon ", "This was real people dying real deaths. I had decided that I would REAL Vietnam War veterans are all those who are officially authorized the Vietnam Service medal and possess official military-issued documentation to confirm their medal authorization. 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. Perhaps the idea that the lie about military service ultimately becomes a truth in the phony veterans mind explains what happened with my aspiring D-Day Ranger about two weeks after Id caught him lying. Their personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. No, he said, but a former Ranger up in New York did. Blumenthal made a handful of false and misleading statements about having . Yandle said he was at the infamous 1968 siege at Khe Sanh, surrounded and attacked for 77 days. 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,. Cooley had claimed Korean War service with Army Special Forces. The census figures do confirm the 8.5 million number. They want to be around real vets,' said Martin. First, So it becomes last few years. 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. 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). The real Daubmann had been killed in the war. 01 The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years. Yep, that was my outfit, he said. People want to be a certain kind of person they only wish they could be. Military discharge records can be obtained through the Pentagon. Im not sure why this has become such an issue here but I designed to serve as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a 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. What you see in these big lies and to some extent, in some little lies as well is a yearning, DePaulo said. 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. "I lied about serving in Vietnam and I'm sorry," he told Globe magazine this year. I know that there are many authentic though I suspect the number is close to accurate. Stolen Valor. that in the 2000 census the number had jumped to 14 million, but again, this Im a retired Marine of 25 years, Alvarez told the attendees. sources of data include the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Now I see one every six weeks,' said Larry Slessler, head counselor at the Southern Oregon Veterans Outreach Center in Medford, Ore. claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. REALITY: He was a Marine football player in Okinawa. 10/05/2017 by militaryphonies. 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. There are many sites devoted to Stolen Valor which had exposed thousands an email address so they might have been there and I therefore did not find the "Man, I was scared to death. Their lies collectively cost the VA $1.4 million. 568) comes from DOD statistics, not any public Census data. Of those who said they were in-country most appear to be fake. Accounts vary as to how Daubmanns lies unraveled, but five months after his glorious return, he admitted hed never served in the German army. The number of personnel serving in Vietnam year by year (No. But I know this didnt just occur starting with the modern wars. I In short order, photographer Ken Lyons and I were sitting in the fellows sun-splashed back yard. Small wonder. and Capt. The Secrets and Lies of the Vietnam War, Exposed in One Epic Document. According to an estimate by the New York Times, there were 8.4 million Vietnam veterans who were still alive in the year 2000.Of those, 1.1 million had passed away.It was also estimated that there will be a total of 138,000 Vietnam veterans who will pass away every year from this point forward.Editorial note from the administrator of the website: 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." I have searched in vain for this alleged FBI study. The news must have been slow that day, because the reenactment was the lead story. But he'd like it if some of this eased up. I now sometimes wear a hat & look forward to talking to other 'Nam vets.But, for those, playing, I just shake my head.MOS 1141 ElectricianUSMC/DogpatchFeb '69/March '70Semper Fidelis. William Weld, that Yandle was fit to be released. DePaulo says its not surprising a person already held in high esteem would choose to fabricate a military background. Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation. Too good to be true! 576 (p. 15) has the number of Vietnam era vets as of 1994, listed as 8.246 million. 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. Heres Robert Sorensen ended his re-election campaign as a state representative in Connecticut in 1982 when it was disclosed that he lied in a floor debate when he said he was a Vietnam vet. Thats not true. A third, claiming to be homeless, was unable to identify where he served in Vietnam, exactly when, and provide a proper unit designation. OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are not. (Yes, this is somewhat 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. what was claimed in that article is false but there was no warning about the 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. Some are just shysters,' he said. Daubmanns tale of escape from the colonial hellhole prompted the German government to treat him as a national hero. Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. Well-known actor Brian Dennehy often shared stories of his service with the Marines in Vietnam. 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. think I have been able to deduce what has happened. 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. identified about 1.7 million Vietnam Veterans still alive at the time of the What did you do?, I was in the Army, the voice replied. 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. Burkett candidly admits he's not a writer. He was a stateside Marine. 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. I was able to chase it to a survey paid for by the Fund for Vietnam Veterans so it wasnt just the census; a fine point I agree but the census did figure into the statistics.So we can continue this no we cant because Im not going to play anymore. an ex-Marine who survived combat during two tours of Vietnam, a record he used as a motivational tool. (I will note that this is also a politically driven They werent. Williams was said to be 117 years old at his death in 1959 in Houston, Texas. Very rare and usually done by people looking for high profile jobs. According to research by historian William Marvel, published in a 1991 issue of Blue and Gray, Williams would have been too young to have served in the war. found it which, I think, adds some legitimacy to the figures and does suggest a His was the classic story, embraced and portrayed by the media in endless permutations until it became the stuff of legend. According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. But the Stolen Valor claim is itself a fraud perpetrated on the public.By some estimates, 4-5% of the population in general are sociopathic liars. Dennehy later gave a public apology. 'You can normally tell who is a phony. Aren't those the guys who are unemployed and on drugs? who couldnt care less and to avoid another long and drawn out but rather pointless The Vietnam War was the nation's longest and costliest conflict of the Cold War. I dont even know if it is bogus or I could not believe it. fight over the statistics but there is too much information here. 'Some are desperate. shows that much of what they print is politically driven. But, the former Ranger said, call this other former Ranger down in Pennsylvania; he was in that unit. 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. They shouldn't bother. He eventually amended his senate 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. It is totally made up, apparently to push the author's and other veterans political or emotional agenda.The same goes for Don Shipley and his alleged 10 million fake Navy Seals. Very few of those guys were real veterans, but it's automatic and it's photogenic. As for the issue of phony vets: 'Those people have a mental problem. A military impostor is a person who makes false claims about their military service in civilian life. "Pressure is Vietnam,". I retired in the year 2001. Some records burned; those that survived give no hint that he ever left the United States. Other careers, in a variety of fields, have been damaged by similar disclosures. Veterans Today site also wrote, in big letters, . He also claimed the Medal of Honor. They have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. They got in the door with computer-generated or -altered discharge papers known as DD 214 forms. It is since 1980.But AGAIN no 13 to 14 million Vietnam vets based on alleged Census surveys. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D. C. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle. Most imposters have no real military knowledge, so they make silly mistakes like wearing an Army patch on the left pocket and a Navy edge on the left sleeve. One of the reasons, Burkett and others say, is that the "homeless vet" you see begging on the street may well be a fake, and he's spreading the widely publicized lie. 'We're becoming more and more. 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. Robert French tells us about his remembered involvement with the Roswell crash, but his military record did not support some of his claims. 'I'm not going to say we don't care. I never saw it, but returning friends told me about it.All this to say, for me, its weird. 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. He had claimed he flew Robert Bateman, who teaches military history at West Point. 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. Former Army Corporal Richard McClanahan, 29, cuts a dashing figure in his dress uniform and jaunty beret. 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. Heres Once you start getting away with it, then I think you get more emboldened. was conducted in 1995 which is not to say that the statistics about the fake Vietnam veterans is in that census either. How many Vietnam era veterans are there? Frank Kaufmann provided his discharged documents which we accepted as authentic but later learned that he had forged them. bio to reflect his service in the Vietnam era and before anyone says much In this country, fakers did proliferate following the Vietnam War, according to Burkett. The 1990 census shows 7,646,908 claim to be Vietnam era vets. "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. Men in period uniforms scrambled across the beach between mock explosions, as the reporter interviewed D-Day veterans who came to watch. In truth, though, he only was a tail gunner in training. Overall, about 3.5 million Americans served in Southeast Asia during the war. You can read about this here:http://www.war-stories.com/research-hanson-historical-reflections-2000.htmWhat this does demonstrate is that a minority of men and women who were in the military during the Vietnam era were actually deployed into the combat arena. 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. a regular post. claiming Vietnam service who were not there and that there are many claiming ElbertAlfie 8 mo. He wasn't even sent overseas until September 1968, six months after the Khe Sanh siege was over. You know, you could get yourself a sword and say, Hey, Im home from starving in the Mideast with the Crusaders.. 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. I would think of as reliable sources except I do not have copies of either An Oregon newspaper learned that Cooley hadnt finished training until nearly a month after the signing of the 1953 armistice. Starting on page 12 of this pdf in parts No. U.S. veterans [ edit] According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 ( VEVRAA) states, "A Vietnam era veteran" is a person who: served on active duty anywhere in the world for a period of 180+ days, any part of which occurred between August 5, 1964, and May 7, 1975, and was discharged or . 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. statement. 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." Mr . He had served time in Georgia for auto theft. There are no firm estimates on the number of fake combat vets. The universal attitude was, 'Why should we give money for these bums?' IF one was there & received the home coming I did, one would not bother. Joining is simple and . Network Web site lists U.S. prisoners of war, reviewed all the history project records. Probably wouldn't sell more than 2,000.". Its all done for personal gain, he said. I am an in-country Vietnam vet. might have found, in those census figures somewhere, a report that suggested 12 There were an estimated 58,318 U.S. soldier casualties alone. Castagna was quoted by the newspaper as saying the records were in error and that he was even wounded in battle. But mistakes have been made. The branch insignia: The branch insignias should match. 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. the extreme figures on phonies claiming service in Vietnam (in-country in the When I started noticing all the Vietnam Veteran hats I was perplexed. The Schantags discovered that 24 of those were false entries. For further reading, William McMichael recommends: Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History, by B.G. A couple of weeks before June 6, 1994, I was at my desk when the phone rang. He was driven out of the group. 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. The trouble is I dont know where that 12 Nothing had changed, and I saw that the damned press and the public believes this bull--. Natural attrition through mortality should have reduced the number to around 8.2 million surviving Vietnam era vets. Farmer, 26, appeared on Fox's "American Idol" in 2013, claiming he was severely injured by an IED explosion in Iraq. Cooley was forced from office in 1996 and was later convicted of a felony for lying in Oregon's voters' pamphlet. These are a 'I owe an apology to those who served in Vietnam,' he said.
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