Why beat yourself up over something that you can not know? He may have been very proud of you regardless of your sexual orientation. It’s not fair to you and especially him to second guess his acceptance.
While we are sort of on the topic of Viet Nam phonies, it is worth noting that the pretend veteran has been a staple of American life for a long time. As far as I know it is also a feature in every other country that has a history that causes less than honest people to want to pick up a little reflected glory.
Consider Senator Joe McCarthy, who passed himself off as a WWII bomber crewman under the nickname “Tail gunner Joe.” Of course he was never close to being shot at. That did not stop him and didn’t stop a lot of people from accepting his claims at face value. After WWI, how many con men in and around NYC passed themselves off as a member of the “Lost Battalion?” How many old men claimed to be the sole survivor of the Alamo, or of Custer’s battalion at the Little Big Horn? One old guy from Wisconsin managed to lobby himself the Congressional Metal of Honor, back when the award was a political plum, for supposedly heroic stuff he did as a member of Major Reno’s battalion at the Little Big Horn. He even fooled Captain Benteen who engaged in a long correspondence with him. The fraud was exposed by Colonel Graham in his book on the battle.
The point, to the extent there is a point, is that they’re a fair number of fakes out there. There are not as many successful fakes as you might think. There were an awful lot of men who served in Viet Nam. The successful fake needs to avoid people who ask questions and know when the answers are funny. A faker in a bunch of real veterans will have a tough time giving convincing answers to obvious questions like what unit were you in, when, where, do you know so-in-so. In the mean time, you can figure that any outrageous faker would have been quickly exposed and ostracized by the real vets. If all else fails, ask the suspected phony to show you his Form 214.
I haven’t read Mr. Burkett’s book, Stolen Valor, but I have glanced through it. It seems to me that the pretend veteran is not as big a scandal as some people might think.
Depends on how far you want to go with your definition of “fakes”.
Let me give you an example of a personal experience. For months, there was an older man, dressed in dirty old military greens, long dirty gray hair, scruffy beard, and missing an arm, who used to sit in a wheelchair on the sidewalks in downtown Salt Lake City. He had a big cardboard sign with the words “Disabled Vet, Please Help” written in big black letters.
As a Homeless Veteran Rep, I am always on the lookout for needy vets who could benefit from one of our programs, so one day me and my boss loaded up with forms and went looking for him. Our timing really sucked that day and although we walked for a few hours, we never did catch up with him.
As fate would have it, before we could search for him again, he showed up in the local paper under a human interest story. According to him, he was a wounded Vietnam veteran who had been turned down by the VA for service compensation benefits. He also claimed in the article that his wife and two daughters were killed in a car accident and because he couldn’t work and because he was not getting any VA benefits, he lost everything he had, including his home. If this was true, we could help him become eligible for benefits.
I searched through VA databases in an attempt to locate him using his name only but failed. We again walked through town and this time was able to find him. We sat there on the flower planters and took information from him to establish a claim. It was obvious that he was purposefully being evasive when answering pertinant information regarding military service. However, we were able to get enough information to find him in our system.
The guy had never served in Vietnam, he had been discharged in 1959 and had never left the country. We later learned that he had never been married, never had daughters, and had lost his arm to cancer 5 years before. He owned a small home and was collecting Social Security benefits. He didn’t qualify for a non-service connected benefit because he made too much money (not counting the money he made panhandling).
For years, this guy played the public for a fool and collected hundreds of dollars as a disabled Vietnam combat vet.
He is the extreme case, but most of them aren’t.
I will say that there are NUMEROUS cases of veterans who served peace-time or during a wartime period but never saw action that pass themselves off as combat vets. They know just enough that they are able to fool nearly everyone, including their legitimate combat vet buddies. There have even been cases of “combat vets” who have died and only then did their families find out that they weren’t really who they said they were in regards to military service.
Discovering fakes (real vets, no combat) is so common that I would be guessing low to say that I see at least 1 or 2 each week, and that is one counselor, in one small office, in one state. Multiply my experience by the thousands of other counselors across the country and then add all those veterans and non-veterans who don’t come in for counseling. So yes, there are probably as many as you would think.
Man, no wonder you hang out in the Pit so much, Diane. I’m sure it has its compensations, but that sounds like a job that would get me seriously depressed in short order.
Actually, that really isn’t the depressing part.
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My little homeless vets who come in with their black eyes and broken noses looking for someone who will “see” them and give them a smile and a hug and maybe tell them a joke or two. On the streets, they are invisible or repulsive. For most of them, I am their only friend and the only one who makes them feel human.
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The big, tough war vet who has never asked for help but has to finally accept that he needs help to battle an ever increasing severe case of PTSD before he slits his wrists or eats a bullet.
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The elderly widow who just lost her husband and now has to figure out how to live off the almost poverty level widow’s pension on top of dealing with her grief.
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The veteran who has just learned that he only has a few months to live and even though he is very sick must get his affairs in order before he dies.
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The grief of the mother, wife, or child of the veteran who didn’t find help in time and successfully slit his wrist or ate a bullet.
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The schizophrenic who has gone off his medication and doesn’t dare leave my office because there are people “out there” trying to kill him.
In all the years I have worked in this position, I have yet to grow a thick enough skin. It isn’t unusual to see me or another counselor take a cry-break. There is so much sadness in the world that I don’t know how some people make it, but they do.
Well, if your sig line is correct, I guess there’s some hope for all of them.
You’re right, it had no place here. I’m sorry I went over the top with that accusation. I should have limited my rant to the other points I addressed up there. Apologies.
And, where can I buy some of this pumpkin taffy?
Cartooniverse
Well, Diane and manhatten made most of my points already, but, I did want to mention that even bikers don’t always dress like bikers. A large percentage of the bikers at the Wall this weekend wore ties or Dockers or uniforms to work on Tuesday morning. My own husband (who didn’t go to Rolling Thunder this year but did last year and probably will again next year), usually looks like the very model of a modern Naval officer – goboy you met him at a DopeFest a while back, so you can attest to this, I think. However, in his biker-rig --leathers, tee-shirt, head-wrap – he looks downright scruffy. When, I’m on the bike with him, I look a bit scruffy myself. It’s kind of a fashion statement, I guess, and, in this case especially, looks can be decieving.
As for the Vietnam-vet poseur thing – I have read Stolen Valor, and goboy’s anger against such scumbags is utterly righteous and completely understandable. Having read the book, I, like goboy have a tendancy to wonder when I see someone really leaning on the Vietnam Vet card in an obviously publicity-seeking way.
goboy, are you sure that all the scruffy, biker-looking guys claimed to be vets? Maybe some of them were there to mourn brothers, cousins or friends whose names were on the wall. Or were they all grouped together under some kind of “We’re vets” indicator?
goboy, this is embarassing to admit, but what little Korean I remember is the dirty stuff, so I understood your remark. The teachers at DLI sat us down one day and told us that they were going to teach us some “REAL” idioms, so we would know if someone was trying to flame us. Well, though,I can still count, introduce myself, and say thank you. And if I see hangul printed I can pronounce it. I LOVE a phonetic alphabet.
No, I never said “all” or even “most” in any of my comments. I was talking about a knot of guys I saw, missing teeth, long, greasy ponytails, asking for money for POW/MIAs and talking about how badly “the 'Nam had f****d them up” (their words). These guys were not just a bunch of scruffy guys having weekend fun; the men I saw had clearly lived hard lives. Seeing such blatant pitches for sympathy, and how down and out these guys were, I WONDERED if possibly they might have been putting on a show. It just seemed to me that these guys were playing to the tourists instead of grieving.
What gets me is that I have been flamed for being anti-vet, when my family is full of vets and if I hadn’t had a crooked shoulder, I’d have been one, too. I have been flamed being anti-biker, when I am not.
What has hurt me is that I was sharing some confusion about what I saw, saw some folks who set off some warning bells in head, wondered if they MIGHT have been preying on folks’ sympathies, added my disgust at the men who have done such things, and for that, I have been called “narrow-minded, racist, and humanity-loathing.” That’s not me. Politically conservative and emotionally repressed, yes, but damn it, I’m a good person, I try to embrace other people, and I thought people here understood that.
If the guys I saw are genuine, then I apologize for what I was thinking and hope that they are lucky enough to get help from someone as much love and dedication to rehabilitating
as Diane has. If they were using people’s honest emotions to scam tourists, then I hope they suffer for it. Again, NOT ALL bikers, just the guys I saw.
You want to flame me for that, go ahead. You have already let me know that you think I’m stupid enough to be generalizing about whole categories of people, that I’m utterly heartless, and a pretty contemptible specimen.
All right; just asking.
I guess one apology wasn’t sufficient. I get hurt when attacked personally here too, because I value the thoughts and ideas of the posters here ( for the most part. )
Sorry I was so harsh on you.
Cartooniverse
Diane: I would hate your job, because I can’t stand to see people suffer. I can’t ignore people as I did when younger, and wish all could be helped.
As for the other’s that have debated let’s summerise.
- You can’t judge a person by dress or demenoire.
- Someone will always be an ass, in a large gathering.
- The fakes are eventually exposed.
- You will offend someone here, with a generalized statement of a sterotyped group.
- The offended will let you know that in your broad statement, you are wrong.
- People can work out a peace on this board, and clarify their generalizations.
- End, in a solute to all that have come before me, and kept us free.