I worked with a guy who was an Army Sniper in VN.  He knew all the right words for the job.  Come to find out from his girlfriend, he WAS in the Army, but never left the state of California where he was with MWR, "handing out towels", as she put it, at the gym.  I will say this about him, the guy could shoot.

After the war was over in '73 and for 10 or 15 years thereafter no one wanted to hear about Vietnam.  Pretending to be a veteran was pretty much unheard of, no point.

Finally, about 1991 when Gulf War 1 kicked off and was a great success, being a veteran became popular again.  The old farts who were too old to fake being a Gulf War Veteran had to defer to being Vietnam Vets.  I guess Hollyweird was the ones who created the myth that Vietnam Vets were all Rambo sniper, kill crazed, super secret squirrels.  Personally, I won't give a faker a moment of my time.

My favorite line from the movies......................Me? Oh I was just cook!

BTW, cooks, clerks and truck drivers etc. all had important rolls too!

I worked with a guy who was there. Stepped on a mine and it blew off most of his right calf. Said he carried an AK for a while, but stopped after the program where the U.S. started sprinkling VC and NVA caches with sabotaged ammo. Said they would load AK magazines with the 3rd or 4th round from the top being one that would go boom, and then put them back in the cache. Said he started carrying a Thompson after that, as .45 ammo was more than plentiful.

I have no reason to not believe him after seeing his pictures. And I wouldn't mess with him to this day.

When I was in college, 72-76, I knew a dude that had a couple tours as a SEAL.

I had no clue about any of that at the time.
He always had some incredible stories when we got drunk.
He was tough as nails, he would eat glass, for real, eat a beer glass. Gave me the creeps.
He was Jewish I believe, maybe 5' 11", 165 pounds, ran every morning with 4 concrete cinder blocks straped on.
Worked out with my room mate who taught at the local dojo, crazy motherfucker I'll say that.

I could go on and on. Never a doubt, he proved it.

It means you were stationed in the combat theater during the war.  As opposed to being stationed in Germany enjoying the beer and fraulines while guys were getting shot at in Vietnamese rice paddies or living it up stationed somewhere in the States while the fighting was going on.

My father told me it was common after WW2.  There were many people who were outright liars on their service.

I served in RVN 1971-1972. I have posted pictures and descriptions in the RVN thread on this site. I was there at Nha Trang SFOB when the SF cased their colors and left.  I was a truck driver and a radio operator.

When I first got back you did not discuss being in the military or having gone to "the NAM', because of the negative perception that society had of soldiers  back then. The most common refrain was that you were an idiot to have served at all.

It was in the mid to late 80's when service in RVN was not considered to be a negative thing and it really changed after GULF 1. It has only been since 9/11 that service members are being praised and complemented for their willingness to serve.

With belated positive recognition of RVN service, and the emphasis on SF, Seals and Rangers in the movies, it seems everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. I have in my small town of 1800 people I have had 3 folks tell me they were Navy seals in the RVN (including a guy that said he was there in 75 running missions for MAC_SOG.

I can assure you that the current generation of veterans are seeing and will continue to see an increase in the number of folks claiming to be military "special snowflakes". I have already seen several threads on here about that. It will only get worse as the years pass.  (Can you spell C O R E Y?)

It's nothing new, it's just with the advent of the internet and electronic records it has become much easier to identify the posers.

I have never met a REMF from Nam, despite there had to be thousands who served.
I once had a UPS driver who was the right age, so he said he was some special spook who carried a .357 and an M1 carbine and trained south Vietnamese police and could carry any weapon he wanted.  Got head shots with the .357 in theater, etc

Back then....every swingingdick was a "door gunner"

I can't imagine living such a lie.  How do you look yourself in the face each morning knowing that you are full of shit and a bald-faced liar?

My ROTC buddies and I watched the fall of Saigon on an itty bitty TV screen.  It seemed sad to the point of tragic.  We thought about all the terrible waste of American lives and that it had purchased nothing that lasted.

By the time I graduated, the Army was releasing guys from contracts.  I had classmates who were called to the Military Science Building just weeks before commissioning and were told that there were no slots or if they got one, they weren't going to be pilots.  

Then they offered them the chance to walk away without any strings attached.

Most of them went ahead and were commissioned.

half the veterans I treat claim to be vietnam veterans, without apparently knowing that I can see most of their records with my VA computer that debunks their stories.

I'm not allowed to call them out on it.

Luckily enough for me, when I started researching for my SOG novel, I already had a huge list of names to go off. One guy put me in touch with another, and he put me in touch with two more, and so on.

I think I have spoken with 3 REAL guys who were in Vietnam.

One was a Green Beret, one was a military analyst,  and the other was just an average "Joe".

They didn`t talk much about what they did. I didn't` press the issue and none said that they were some top tier level one operator "tacticool" super bad ass.

All were in the right age group. They were and still are, quiet on the subject.

Other people that I have seen claiming to be top tier operators ( many ), SEAL, SOG whatever, not so sure. They want to be known. I think that the real folks just want that era in their past, to just go away.

From the looks in all 3 guys eyes, you can tell that they lost people that they cared about. What is that old saying? "The eyes are the window into the soul".

ETA,

We had one guy at work claiming to be a SEAL.

The guy showed up at work one day with a locked briefcase and it was handcuffed to his wrist. Carried the thing for his entire shift.

He claimed that the briefcase held his orders for his next deployment and that no one was to have access to them. Top secret, super secret squirrel stuff. Hmmmmm.

The company pretty much got rid of him at some point later on.

He had a "reputation" before that event.

One of the guys I worked with (before I joined the Navy in 80) was a Army sgt. He said he was a grunt, most of the stories were about him doing perimiter inspections because so many on post would be smoking joints. This was late in the war.
I asked him if he had been in any firefights/big battles etc, he said yes and changed the subject.

Another guy I worked with was a truck driver. He said the base he was on was rocketed 2x and never near him. And once on a convoy, he said the MP's made them stop and get out of the truck because of snipers. But he said he never heard any sniper shots, just a MG firing back about a 1/4 mile from where he was.

Met one ret Marine (E8 or E9, I forgot) that was a door gunner. He said that in his time there, he never had to shoot ant anyone. The only time he had shot his weapon from the chopper was in training.

When I was stationed in PI, sitting in a bar listening to one guy going off about how base security was changing uniforms to cammies. Said that when he was in Nam' guys had to earn the cammo. Ie: SEAL/Ranger/Green Beret etc. So I asked him what he did (fully expecting the SEAL/LRRP etc) but he said he was a 11B. But he said it like he was ashamed.

One guy  said he worked with Air America as a kicker on DC3's. He spoke Chinese (Haka) Because they used Chinese as the actual kickers. He directed them loading and when to kick, the red lights / green lights. He said the vast majority of his flights were daytime delivering bags of food/rice to mountain villages. The next were flights at night that they delivered unmarked boxes, mostly at night. He said he never saw what was inside, but that they were the same boxes rifles and ammo came in, just without any markings.  The least amount of flights were the ones, always at night, where it was the 2 pilots and him. They would go up front and close the curtain, under strict orders to not go in back for any reason. Said they would get the bird fired up, sit for awhile and wait till the tower told them cleared for takeoff. They would fly a zig zag course (which they did for all flights) and at a certain location he would turn on the jump lights, then the green light. After a certain amount of time, he would go back and close the door.  

My uncle drove F4's in the early part of the war. He started in P51's in WWII, F86 (IIRC) in Korea then F4's in Vietnam. He was medically retired. He was on a training flight in the states. The RIO heard sonorous respirations on the intercom So he was medicalled out with sleep apnea.

Had a few high school friends with older brothers that were there, but none were HSLD.

So, I don't remember anyone claiming to be HSLD. But I was in the Navy, so I did hear olot of sea stories.

I did meet one actual doorgunner, once.

He was the 1SGT of the Co. next door and had Aviator's wings over his CIB. His combat patch was of a Aviation unit, too.

Had a (now retired) co-worker who was proud of his service as a mechanic; he rode around in a M88 over there.

Being in the Infantry in the mid to late '80's I've known a shitload of 'Nam vets; some were cool, some were dicks, and a few were Awe-inspiring.

My dad is a vietnam vet, air force. When i asked him what vietnam was like he said "it was one big fucking party."

To hear my father and my uncle talk about it (both Vietnam vets), few people wanted it to be known they were a soldier when they got out. Then in the early to mid 80s when the country pulled its head out of its ass and started to care about veterans again a whole bunch of fakers figure out they could game suckers into giving them handouts, attention and all sorts of other stuff just for saying they were Vietnam vets... and a lot of REMF clerk typists passed themselves off as SOG commandos to bask in the same adulation.

When I was around ten or eleven around the time the movie Platoon was in theaters my father, my uncle and I were driving to Los Angeles and we stopped at a gas station around Irvine and these two guys wearing Army shirts were begging for money there. They approached my uncle as he was walking back to the truck and my uncle being my uncle (worlds nicest guy) stopped and started to take out his wallet to give them some cash. As he did I saw that he tried to engage them in conversation, most likely asking them what unit they were in, where they were stationed, perhaps they saw some of the same places... and that is when my uncle's demeanor changed. I didn't hear everything as I was waiting in the truck but my dad had to pull my uncle away from the guys and when they got back in and we left my uncle looked at me and said "life lesson... never pretend you're something you're not".

My dad was a "Vietnam veteran" simply because he served during the correct timeframe, although he never called himself one.

He was a doctor, and never left Ft. Lewis.

They claimed "Green Beret" because of the song.

It changed with movies like Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill. I was in high school and the attitude of the kids was "to hell with those fucking hippies, we want the vets to feel welcome!" It was he kids of the 80's who made sure the vets knew they were accepted, and we hung on every word they said.

To this day I go out of my way to make returning vets feel welcome because of the way the Vietnam veterans were treated.

Seemed like every cab driver in Sierra Vista in the early 90's was a Green Beret...

I have 3 ex seals at my dicks sporting goods that served in nam. 2 of them were sniper/spotter team

This is something that's been going on since the dawn of warfare. I imagine if you could travel back in time you'd find guys claiming to have fought alongside Achilles or serving in Caesar's 10th.

A good  friend of mine was a SEAL in nam he's a successful business man these days. He does not say anything about his time in nam. He is an inspiration to everyone around him.

His favorite quote when things get tough around him is "Its not as bad as having people shoot at me" that's all he ever says about his time in Vietnam.

I must be lucky- I've met dozens of people who are the only surviving member of their platoon.

My uncle who was a Ranger with two Purple Hearts, said he ran across a few fakes. My Dad pulled two tours of combat, he's never spoke of his time in Vietnam.

Edit- Would like to add that I regret that I never enlisted.

Hey....it's Don Shipley bro.....

Grew up around lots of people who claimed Vietnam era service, though not all in the war.

My father served in the Army.  Did Korea, Germany twice, and several state side posts.  Never 'Nam, never claimed it.  Was a commo NCO.

Uncle retired from USAF in '89 and was pissed they did not put his Vietnam Service Medal in the shadow box his command gave him.

Neighbor across the street had a wicked scar on his bicep from a wound to his arm, he was Infantry.

Neighbor down the street was a Marine, not sure what he did.

Friend's dad was a Marine in Phu Bi (sp?) during Tet, like was represented in Full Metal Jacket.  He was some kind of nav aid tech on a field assignment there and told to stay in his room during the attack.

A coworker was an Army radio tech in the PI who spent many assignments to Vietnam but never stayed the required 30 consecutive days to earn the Service medal.

There were several legit Green Berets where I grew up.  They were are  what you would call "lean, hard men" but they were all real nice guys, didn't talk or brag about it.  You'd catch comments from other guys that served ripping on them.

I was taught to shoot by a Vietnam era SEAL.  He coached an NRA junior shooter program (.22LR, one round at a time, position shooting) on the county sheriff's range.

That matches my recollection of the time.  The protestors were a small vocal minority.  Most Americans may have disliked the Vietnam war, but they loved their Veterans.  



 

I personally seldom meet anyone who admits or talks about their service in Vietnam except to other Vets. Being in the service back then was not very popular.

I've known several vets.
None of them have claimed to be anything more than what they were.
Most of the guys on my first engineering crew were Vietnam vets.
Two guys were navy electricians. Two were Air Force. Both flew on on planes delivering cargo.
One guy said he was on a patrol boat for a couple months, but spent the rest of his time on a ship learning to fit pipe in the boiler room.
One guy was in for 32 days in the Marines and was shot in the stomach on his second patrol, and was sent home.
One was in the army and was wounded, but he never really wanted to talk about his service.
Another said he was with the special forces and did convoy duty. :He had great stories and pictures of his time in Vietnam.
He was injured when his convoy was ambushed.

I worked with these guys for several years. it was the best job i ever had, and probably the best time in my life.
All stand up guys. I don't think i'd be the man I am today if i hadn't met them.

 

Probably because so many of those guys led hard lives afterward, and/or died early.  We aren't talking about even the marginally educated for some of those MO's.

That said, my stepfather was a cook in Vietnam.  He did tell me about the one firefight he was in (he hid below the foxhole top and just ran the M16 over it - not ever aiming, just putting fire downrange.  Don't judge though - you and I don't know how hot and heavy that firefight was.  Rounds downrange may have been the right move to keep the attackers busy.

He was a helluva worker, did well for my mother and himself with his own used car lot.  Died way too early from cancer due to smoking (and who knows how many of them had cumulative cancer causes from chemicals during the war - it didn't have to be an "Agent' chemical, the military was using dangerous shit all over the place for the vehicles and such).

So, yes, I have met a mess hall cook. I have also met a real green beret from early 'nam (carried a camera more often than a larger weapon), and one of the pre-cursor SEALs (frog man for the Normandy landing who cleared mines).  I've met a WWII pilot trainer, too.

But back to what we're talking about.  Admit it or not, a bunch of those guys led hard lives and died early.  The Green Berets and special forces guys were perhaps a little more conscious about their health and might have had longer lives.

There were just as many poseurs after and during VN as there are today.

As a cop I ran into them all the time; for a while every third SOB or so was a Vietnam vet.

So were many police officers.

Sometimes this made for bad hair days for the poseurs.

After the war, during the interregnum while there were officially no military actions the U.S. was involved in, the media forgot about Vietnam, and movies started to come out treating the war as something exciting.

This is when the nitwits came out of the woodwork.

I stayed as a career guy for 23 years.  

After Vietnam, two active duty guys would typically just ask each other what year they were over there and what unit they were assigned to.  

Then the conversation would usually turn away from Vietnam and turn to bitching about the every day topics that career military guys always put up with.  

I went though OTS some years after Vietnam with one of the most highly decorated people that was ever in country.  Carl W. had everything, and I mean everything, short of the MOH.  And he had been submitted for that but it was downgraded to a silver star.  He was pararescue.

About half of our training flight were Vietnam vets and the other half were brand new kids coming into the air force.   We just tried to help the young kids get through the training and we NEVER spoke about our time in Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia.

Our training officer was just a young captain who had sat in a missile silo for a few years.   He asked us Vietnam people to just keep a positive attitude and help the young trainees just starting out.

We stayed respectful of his position and all got through the 90-day wonder program fine.   I would find our young training officer often staring at Carl W.'s ribbons.  I guess he couldn't help it.  Carl had often been in the shit - no doubt about that.  

Then, 90 days later we all became new second lieutenants.  By then some of us were a little old to be new second lieutenants but it all worked out in the end.

End of story.

I've only known five men who served in Vietnam.  My father was a marine grunt, I've never heard him lie hes very humble about it (I have seen his 214).  Two guys my dad knows where support in the Marines, one was probably the quietest guy I've ever known and is a banker, the other acted like billy badass but never lied.  

The last was my best friends father.  He was in the Army, he always said he was a cook.  I do know he was at least an E-5 and received a Arcom.  He did get cancer from the agent orange.  

I always took his word about being a cook but his rank and the agent orange, and all the demons in his personal life make me think there was more to the story.  I do know he was a gun guy and had tons of guns all over his house he was particularly fond of 1911's he had one in just about every room all cocked and locked.

When i was younger i went with my dad and a family friend to the store to get a knife that i saved up for, when we were waiting for the case to be opened a guy was looking at the knives and asked what one i was getting and i pointed it out and he said it was a good one and he carried one just like it when he was a sniper in nam. well that got my family friend interested in joining the conversation as he was really a sniper there, and he started to ask the guy some questions and naming names of people who were in the sniper program would know and what operations he was on.
The guy started to stutter and mumble about it being so long ago and how he couldn't remember everyone he met and stuff like that. The family friend then called the guy out and everyone in the gunshop was watching as the guy turned red and walked out all pissed.

The owner of the shop thanked our friend for confirming his suspensions that the guy was a poser but never had any proof and started to tell us the story's the  guy told him,  they were how this guy was a super sniper and took out a bunch of Russians and a NVA general and then had to hike back 50 miles to get to base and other stuff like that.
I ended up getting a discount on the knife as the owner was laughing about the guy being called out and was happy i was in the scouts and it was going to be my pocket knife

This all happened in the late 80's early 90's.

I wish i could sit down and talk to the friend and listen to his story's now that im older and not a wide eyed little kid just excited to meet a guy who was in war.

RIP Bill

Lived in Ozark Al which is adjacent to Ft Rucker so I knew LOTS of army guys.  At least half of our neighborhood was military.  My Dad and every uncle that I have was in the military.  No spooks in either group AFAIK.

 

My uncle was a Medic of some type but has never said a word about it.

My social study teacher in HS who I recently ran into lost part of his foot to a mine.

I know a few other locals from my hometown that were as well but nobody says anything.

I agree - it sounds like there is more to that man's story.

------

Two other stories (one not about 'Nam).

First, I met a school buddy's father who was the right age for Vietnam.  His claim was that he was shipped out to some base for basic, but that there were no basic classes starting, and no real room for him on that side of the base.  Instead, he got put in barracks with older guys who had come back from 'Nam.  He made friends, and waited.  And waited.  Now maybe one of those experienced guys fucked with some paperwork or something, but this guy claims he never really attended basic training.  He did attend AIT and got shipped over to 'Nam, but was overlooked for basic somehow.

Those were the days of paperwork, and paperwork / files were easy enough to lose, change or who knows what. Maybe it was just an oversight?

Of the huge numbers of guys who went to Vietnam, it is somewhat plausible that a small number of guys ended up in country without having attended basic I guess.

----------------

And, since we're on the subject of people not talking... there was my Italian grandfather.  I believe he knew how to speak six of seven languages during WWII, and was with the secret service.  I asked him which side he was on, to which he only replied 'the good side.'    That was so vague that I stopped that line of questioning right there.

He spent time in jail/prison/something for a few years immediately after the war, but my mother and her twin sister didn't know why.  Then he, his family, and another intel guy and his family were brought over to the USA by "the government" - of course I wasn't sure which government would have paid for that.  I only knew this because that same guy (who had been placed in Denver) unexpectedly showed up at my grandfather's house when my mother, brother and I were visiting.   Years later it made a little more sense when I found out that our government brought in all kinds of intel guys from Europe and placed them in Denver.  The confusing thing was that my grandfather was the one who was supposed to go there, and this guy and his family were supposed to go to Pittsburgh, PA.  Instead something got switched and they ended up where each thought the other guy was going.

There was just too much that was lost by my grandfather not talking, but at this point I realize he knew languages for interrogations, and while I don't know a thing about Italian interrogations during the war, I guess that could have led to some very bad stuff, and was why he would not talk about it.

One of my good family friends was 4th ID and a LRRP in Nam and my buddy's dad was 4th ID as well.

There was a guy in my unit (2004-2006 time frame) that had been in 'Nam and my BN Commander started out as a Private in the 7th Cav in Nam.

Same.

Or they were the sole surviving member of some sort of "lost platoon".

Both my mother and father are Vietnam vets.  That's where they met.

Dad was a radio operator on both tours, did MARS work his second tour.

My mom was a nurse.  I guess almost every time she was able to call home via the MARS network, my dad was the one who did most of the work getting the connections right.


Neither one of them talks about VN much.

I worked with one Vietnam vet (lab tech in a chemical plant) who started out as a door gunner on a Huey, then he pissed off his superiors with his anti-authoritarian attitude, so he was busted to tunnel rat.  He was such a good shot, though, they finally moved him to sniper, where he finished out the war.  Guy was very effeminate, and was finally fired when they searched his locker and found Stay Hard cream, lube and a porno tape.