(Via Milinet)

This book review on "Stolen Valor" was written by William F.
Jasper.
William F. Jasper is the author of "Global Tyranny: Step by
Step:
UN and the new World Order."



> Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its
Heroes and its

> History, by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Dallas, TX:
Verity Press,

> 1998,
692 pages, hardback.

>

> Every war generates its own myths, legends, lies, and
distortions.

> Invariably, some of these become the accepted truth embodied
in official

> histories and popular lore. With the Vietnam War, however, the
torrent of

> lies, distortions, and deception has been so massive and
sustained that

> virtually all of the popularly accepted wisdom about the war
and those who

> fought it must be called into question.

>

> Stolen Valor represents a landmark achievement in historical
research

> about

> the war, and a courageous effort to set straight a host of
pernicious lies

> and erroneous notions that have had a dreadful impact upon our
nation for

> three decades.

>

> B.G. Burkett, a financial advisor, military researcher, and
Vietnam

> veteran, was co-chairman of the Texas Vietnam Memorial. This
book grew out

> of his frustration at constantly confronting the pervasive
negative

> stereotypes of the Vietnam veteran and the Vietnam War that
have been

> purveyed and reinforced by countless news stories,
documentaries, movies,

> novels, and history books. Glenna Whitley is an award-winning

> investigative

> reporter.

>

> Propaganda Campaign

>

> One of the most ingrained stereotypes that plague the 3.3
million

> Americans who served in Vietnam is the tainted image of the
Vietnam vet as

> scruffy, jobless, homeless, mentally unstable, addicted,
suicidal, and

> stranded on the fringes of society. It is an image that has
been

> reinforced

> by innumerable TV dramas, movies, and newscasts. It is also
usually tied

> to

> stories about the horrors of war, atrocities, and other dark
deeds that,

> allegedly, have caused these personal problems for the tragic
vet.

>

> The highly hyped 1988 CBS program, "The Wall Within,"
purporting to tackle

> the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is a
perfect example

> of

> the lies and distortions about Vietnam that have been fed to
three

> generations of Americans. The program profiled six pathetic
victims who it

> claimed were "representative" of those who served in Vietnam.
It claimed

> that the symptoms suffered by these men were shared by
hundreds of

> thousands

> of other veterans. The Dan Rather documentary" became part of
the CBS

> video

> history series on Vietnam and is graced with a formal
introduction by

> liberal-left one-worlder Walter Cronkite.

>

> This is how Dan Rather introduced his TV audience to one of
his prize

> victims: "At age 16, Steve was a Navy SEAL, trained to
assassinate. For

> almost two years, he operated behind enemy lines, then he
broke. He came

> home in a straightjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs."

>

> According to the CBS propaganda piece, "Steve" had been
trained to

> massacre and mutilate Vietnamese civilians and then blame the
atrocities

> on

> the Communists. "You're telling me that you went into the
village, killed

> people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that
the other

> side

> had done this?" Rather asked. "Yeah," Steve responded. "For
propaganda

> purposes at home," Rather added. "That's correct," Steve
confirmed.

>

> Terry Bradley, another supposed Vietnam vet suffering from
PTSD, told a

> grisly tale of having, on one occasion, skinned alive up to 50
Vietnamese

> men, women and children. He told of cutting out hearts and
eyeballs, of

> mangling and stacking their bloody bodies. The CBS program
showed the

> mentally tormented vet at night in a dark forest howling at
the sky.

>

> Another PTSD victim, George Greul, told the CBS team that he
had been

> traumatized by witnessing his friend's gruesome death on the
flight deck

> of

> an aircraft carrier while the ship was on a "secret mission"
off the coast

> of Vietnam. He had seen his buddy accidentally walk into a
spinning

> propeller blade and had been spattered with his blood.

>

> The critically acclaimed "Wall Within" was a colossal fraud.
The man

> identified as "Steve" turned out to be one Steve Southards,
and through a

> Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Burkett obtained
his military

> records. The truth, he found, was that "Southards was not a
SEAL, nor had

> he

> taken any SEAL training.... In reality, Southards was an
'internal

> communications repairman,' assigned to rear area bases and had
no combat

> decorations. His only special training was a 'motion picture
operation

> course (16mm),' at Subic Bay in the Philippines." What's more,
he had

> spent

> time in the brig for going AWOL six times. According to
Burkett's

> research,

> "Little that Southards had told Rather was true except that he
had been in

> the Navy, and that his first name was Steve."

>

> Terry Bradley was not a "fighting sergeant," as Dan Rather had
described

> him, but another storytelling misfit who had spent 300 days
either AWOL or

> in the stockade. No evidence was provided by CBS, and Burkett
could find

> none either, from official sources or otherwise, to verify
Bradley's tales

> of mass atrocities.

>

> George Greul's carrier, the Ticonderoga, was deployed on a
training

> mission off the coast of California, not a "secret mission"
off the coast

> of

> Vietnam, when the fatal propeller accident he referred to took
place. But

> Greul was not present when the accident happened; he was
merely repeating

> what he had heard. However, his story had convinced the
Department of

> Veterans Affairs (VA) that he had been sufficiently
traumatized to receive

> a

> couple thousand dollars a month in compensation.

>

> We all have seen numerous affirmations of the Vietnam vet as
misfit in

> television programs. In 1974-75, Burkett and Whitley note, a
survey of

> programming over an 11 month period found more than 20
episodes involving

> Vietnam veterans. Invariably, the veteran was portrayed as a
"dangerous,

> drug-abusing, psychopathic criminal," subject to flashbacks
and

> "uncontrollable lapses in which he would act and think as if
he were in

> combat."

>

> A pamphlet put out by VietNow, a Vietnam veterans group,
reinforces that

> myth, claiming that one-third of Vietnam vets are
"functionally impaired,"

> and that Vietnam veterans "have much higher rates of
alcoholism, drug

> abuse,

> and crime" than the non-veteran male population of the same
age cohort. It

> claimed that 40 percent of Vietnam veterans are unemployed and
seventy

> thousand are behind bars. Various studies and news
organizations have come

> up with data claiming to show that Vietnam veterans account
for 5 to 12

> percent of the prison population. Some reports have even
pushed that total

> as high as 25 percent.

>

> These figures are ludicrous. As Burkett and Whitley point out:
"All this

> information is based on self-reporting by prisoners. But in
every major

> study of Vietnam veterans where the military records were
pulled from the

> National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and the
veterans then

> located

> for interviews, an insignificant number have been found in
prisons."

>

> Burkett has filed hundreds of FOIA requests for military
records and

> exposed many frauds. His research has put dangerous criminals
masquerading

> as war heroes in jail.

>

> Burkett estimates that "only about thirty-five hundred Vietnam
veterans

> currently are held in state and federal prisons - less than
.001 percent

> of the total 3.3 million who served."

>

> Vets and Victims

>

> How, then, did the stereotype become so pervasive? Burkett
offers an

> explanation: "The antiwar movement had painted the Vietnam
veterans as

> criminals. And the aftermath of the Vietnam War coincided with
the

> 'victims'

> movement,' which sought to shift the blame for personal
problems from

> individuals to society. Most Vietnam veterans, stung by the
criticism they

> received from the public when they returned home, faded away,
leaving a

> vacuum that was filled by activists with a 'victim' agenda."
Many of these

> activists were fake "vets" who had never served in the Armed
Forces.

> Others were losers and wannabes who had burnished their
records with

> fictitious

> heroics. They all took up the chant: "Yeah, we're bums, we're
screwed up

> because of the war."

>

> Alcoholics, addicts, and bums quickly learned that disgust
turned to pity

> (often accompanied by a generous donation) if they claimed to
be Vietnam

> vets. It's not just the ragtag panhandlers on the street who
learned this

> lesson, however. Burkett has exposed many charlatans who have
bilked the

> taxpayers of many millions for phony veterans programs.

>

> Then there are vile miscreants like Louis Paul Rolofson Jr.,
who passed

> himself off as a Vietnam Green Beret in order to gain access
to, and

> molest,

> young boys. Thanks, in large measure, to Burkett's research
exposing

> Rolofson's bogus military claims, the pervert faker was
convicted of

> aggravated criminal assault and sentenced to 18 years in
prison.

>

> Stolen Valor is worth its price if only for its chapter
exposing the

> Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) the left-wing group that
purports to

> represent the men and women who served in Vietnam. The VVA's
roots trace

> back to the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW),
which

> reliably

> retailed the Marxist line on most issues and railed against
U.S. military

> and foreign policies. Robert O. Muller, one of the top VVAW
activists,

> later

> formed the VVA, and with the help of Senator John Kerry (one
of his VVAW

> comrades) obtained a federal charter for his new group.

>

> Muller was soon raising money from the likes of Jane Fonda, Ed
Asner,

> Bruce

> Springsteen, and porn peddler Bob Guccione (Penthouse). In
1981 Muller led

> a

> VVA delegation to Vietnam where he provided the Communist
government with

> a

> bonanza of propaganda victories. He placed a wreath on the
tomb of Ho Chi

> Minh and then gushed his admiration for the Communist butcher.
Muller

> concluded his pilgrimage with an appeal for the U.S.
government to shower

> Hanoi with foreign aid.

>

> The case of Joe Yandle should have exposed VVA once and for
all. In June

> 1972, Yandle and Eddie Fielding set out on a two-week string
of holdups to

> feed their heroin habits. The duo alternated in the roles of
gunman and

> getaway driver. At one liquor store, Fielding shot and killed
the

> 65-year-old proprietor, Joseph Reppucci, a man with two
teenage sons.

> Yandle and Fielding were caught and convicted of murder, and
both were

> sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
But then

> CBS'

> 60 Minutes, the VVA, the Boston Globe, and other champions of
the

> downtrodden stepped in.

>

> Yandle was presented as a victim of the brutality of war, an
heroic Marine

> who had fought at the famous battle of Khe Sanh and been
decorated for

> valor

> during two combat tours of Vietnam. Seeing his buddies dying
all around

> him,

> and horribly wounded himself, Yandle would never be the same
again. He

> took

> to heroin to deal with his war demons, he said.

>

> In 1995, after years of lobbying by the VVA, 60 Minutes, and
other media

> and

> celebrity sympathizers, Yandle the "war hero" walked out of
prison a free

> man, his sentence commuted by Massachusetts Governor William
Weld. What is

> the truth about this man? Burkett, who researched his military
record,

> says

> Yandle never served in combat, was not wounded in combat, did
not receive

> the medals he claims, and "did not serve even one tour in
Vietnam, much

> less

> volunteer for a second tour."

>

>

> END

Gee! Those poor guys just trying to tell a few "sea stories" and everybody is all over their butts! They should be sentenced to a year at the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas, then assigned to guard the ammo dump on Kodiak Island for another year.