Why people lie about military service

There was a time when Vietnam Veterans wanted to deny they served in Vietnam. It was a time when it seemed no one wanted them around. Established service organizations didn't want them to join. Employers didn't want to hire them. Families, well families just wanted to forget where they had been for the last year. Friends back home told them to get over it. Girlfriends dumped them because they "changed." It wasn't bad enough they had to go through all that and more, but it seemed no one noticed despite our best efforts to ignore them, they still managed to achieve what other generations fail to do. They taught us to finally care.

When WWII veterans came home they were recipients of a promise delivered. They were taken care of. Veterans hospitals opened around the country and then there were housing developments springing up with not only new houses, but surrounded by other veterans, they found a new home. We started to call them Veteran's Villages.

When Vietnam veterans came home too many of them ended up in what we started to call tent cities and shelters. Too many ended up homeless as well as abandoned. PTSD, drinking problems, all the problems we see in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, they faced but no one was there to catch them when the cracks in the system opened so wide they fell in. No one noticed that as they now wait in line for care, most of what the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are receiving is due to them fighting for it. This is not to suggest in anyway the newer veterans face no problems. We report on them all the time here on this blog and on blogs around the country. The truth is, Vietnam veterans refused to surrender and refused to lose this battle for the sake of all generations of veterans.

Did you know they never lost a battle in Vietnam? They wouldn't give up then and they won't give up now. They still believe in us even though we stopped caring about them. Amazing that we now see people trying to pretend they are Vietnam veterans when there was a time no one wanted to be called one. Combat Vietnam veterans are a rare breed but we need to acknowledge some combat veterans who were unable to even say they were Vietnam veterans because they deployed into Cambodia and Thailand. They saw combat just the same and death and risked their lives. Still even with so many Vietnam Era veterans around the country, they are still embraced by the combat veterans. They are still called "brother" and this bond includes them as well.

It's really not so amazing when some people want to claim to be Vietnam veterans considering how proud they made the rest of us be just knowing them and all they have done for the sake of all veterans when we did so little for them.

Why people lie about military service

By John Christoffersen - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday May 23, 2010 13:56:57 EDT

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal acknowledged he misstated his service in Vietnam, said he made mistakes, regretted them and took responsibility.

What he didn’t explain was why.

Blumenthal, Connecticut’s popular attorney general who insisted he was proud of his domestic military service in the Marine Reserve, became part of a long running phenomenon in which men embellish or outright lie about their military record.

“They all do it for the prestige,” said retired FBI agent Thomas Cottone, who used to investigate military impostors for the agency. “They all want to be recognized. They need that ego boost.”

A longer version of the video of the 2008 event posted by a Republican opponent shows Blumenthal at the beginning of his speech correctly characterizing his service by saying that he “served in the military, during the Vietnam era.”

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Why people lie about military service

Richard Blumenthal started his speech the right way as a Vietnam Era veteran. The problem is he let his need to be included in with the men he worked so hard for. I don't know if he can be forgiven but I really doubt that is the the most important thing to be asking now. I wonder if any of us can be forgiven by the real veterans after all we put them through? A word here, words there, they do matter but what matters most is them and how we treat them as much as it is about what we learned from all of them.