Stolen Valor on Winter Soldier Investigation

[Arrow]

The Tribunals

"As perfectly ignorant of Vietnam as the men who sent them there, [soldiers] found themselves monkey in the middle of a people's war so savage that babies were routinely used as trip plates for bombs and disemboweled cadavers swung from village signposts," wrote Paul Solotaroff in Rolling Stone magazine in a 1993 story about homeless Vietnam veterans.

His piece later evolved into a 1995 book called "The House of Purple Hearts." Solotaroff's inverted reasoning illustrates common attitudes of the left.

"One register of the savagery in which Vietnam vets were steeped is the degree of fear and loathing they inspired back home. At the airport in Oakland, California, people spat upon them and jeered, hurling rocks and plastic bags of chicken blood. That scrim of opprobrium seemed to lift somewhat ten years ago when the Vietnam Memorial was unveiled. America was reminded that these men were its sons and began seeing them as victims as well as demons."

First criminals and demons, now victims. Solotaroff repeated this recurring theme, which has remained remarkably consistent since the earlyseventies.

As its dominant tactic in their battle against the war, the antiwar movement successfully demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a series of "tribunals" or hearings into war crimes. But like Solotaroff's book, they were packed with pretenders and liars.

On January 31, 1971, an organization called Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) convened what came to be known as the Winter Soldier Investigation.

Some of the major organizers included Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, Phil Ochs, Graham Nash, David Crosby, and actor Donald Sutherland.

For four days in a hotel in Detroit, "veteran" after veteran told grisly tales of horror -- of using prisoners for target practice and throwing them out of helicopters, of cutting off the ears of dead VC, of burning villages and gang-raping women.

Lawyer and activist Mark Lane was one of the organizers of Winter Soldier. In 1970, Lane had published a book called Conversations With Americans, in which Vietnam veterans told their stories of committing atrocities and witnessing endless war crimes committed by their fellow soldiers. Many of these tales were obviously absurd.

As James Reston Jr. pointed out in a review of the book, Lane quoted one man's contention that a female Communist sympathizer was interrogated, tortured, and then raped by every soldier in his battalion. "Lane does not explain that in Vietnam an American battalion runs anywhere from one thousand to twelve hundred men," Reston said.

Lane's book was blasted by writer and war correspondent Neil Sheehan in The New York Times Book Review as a hack job. Sheehan repeatedly showed that many of Lane's so-called "eye witnesses" to war crimes had never served in Vietnam or had not served in the capacity they claimed.

Veteran Chuck Onan, for example, claimed he had attended parachute, frogman, and jungle survival schools and had received special training in torture techniques, such as stripping women prisoners, spreading their legs, and driving pointed sticks into their vaginas. "They told us we could rape the girls all we wanted," he said. Onan became a member of an LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol) unit but deserted before he was sent to Vietnam, fleeing to Sweden so he did not have to kill. "They just went too far," Onan said.

But Sheehan pointed out that, contrary to his fanciful claims, Onan's military record said he had attended Aviation Mechanical Fundamental school in Memphis, not frogman, parachute, and jungle survival school. Onan had not belonged to an Army LRRP unit; he worked as a stock room clerk at a Marine base in Beaufort, S.C. The torture school was also a product of his vivid imagination. The Marines did not give courses in tormenting prisoners. Onan deserted after receiving orders to go to Vietnam, where his lackluster record indicates that, even if he had gone, he would have been assigned to work as a mechanic or to a mundane administrative job.

Another "Winter Soldier" named Michael Schneider testified that he had shot three peasants in cold blood, had been told by a sadistic lieutenant to attach wires from a field telephone to a mans testicles, and was ordered by his battalion commander to kill prisoners. After a year and a half as an infantry squad leader, then platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division and the I96th Light Infantry Brigade, Schneider couldn't take the trauma of war any longer. Although he had been awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Silver Star, Schneider deserted and fled to Europe. Schneider also told Lane a fascinating story about his family, claiming that his father replaced George Patton as the commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam. "He was a captain in World War II," Schneider said. "In the Nazi army." Lane took this at face value. "Your father is a colonel in Vietnam?" he asked. "Full colonel. Commanding officer in 11th Cavalry Regiment now," Schneider said, contending that his father changed his name after the war from Dieter von Kronenberger and switched loyalties to the American military. Lane's point was clear: Nazis are running large American units in Vietnam. Vietnam soldiers are just like the Nazis.

But Sheehan pointed out that at the time there was no Colonel Schneider or Von Kronenberger in the U.S. Army, and no one by that name ever commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Schneider's stories about his father were bogus, as were those about his own service: Schneider deserted from Europe, not Vietnam. After surrendering to Army authorities in New York, he deserted again and was arrested on an Oklahoma murder charge. His last recorded residence: The maximum security ward of Eastern State Mental Hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma. Hardly a credible witness.

Sheehan also shed some light on a story told in Lane's book by Terry Whitmore, a black Marine who had deserted to Sweden. Whitmore claimed that he took part in a planned atrocity -- the extermination of an entire village of several hundred people, much like the My Lai massacre. Whitmore had been in Vietnam during the time that he claimed the war crimes took place. But his battalion was operating in an unpopulated area near the DMZ. And both his former battalion commander, still on active duty, and a former platoon leader in his company, who had left the military to work as a teaching assistant at a university, said that no such massacre took place.

These two men told Sheehan of an earlier incident involving Whitmore's company. The company commander, a captain, and an enlisted man had been involved in an action in which four Vietnamese -- two women, a man, and a child -- had been shot to death. The action happened at night in a hostile area. The two American soldiers were court-martialed on murder charges but acquitted. The company had been fired on; it had been impossible in the dark to distinguish friendlies from the enemy.

Sheehan speculated that Whitmore had taken that story and inflated the numbers. Although a terrible incident, it was far from the planned massacre of hundreds of civilians.

According to Sheehan, another man in Lane's book, Garry Gianninoto, who claimed that as a Navy medical corpsman he had wimessed numerous atrocities, had actually been assigned to an aid station at a battalion headquarters, well out of the combat zone. He had been court-martialed for refusing orders to work in areas where he might have been shot. In the brig, he signed a statement admitting that he "had committed a homosexual act and had taken morphine," prompting the Navy to boot him out of Vietnam to a hospital for evaluation. (Otherwise, he would have had to finish his thirteen months in Viemam when he was released from the brig.) He went AWOL in New York and was given an undesirable discharge.

When asked by Sheehan about the many lies and misrepresentations in his book, Lane admitted he did not check military records. "It's not relevant," Lane said.

"This kind of reasoning," Sheehan wrote, "amounts to a new McCarthyism, this time from the left. Any accusation, any innuendo, any rumor, is repeated and published as truth."

An editor at Simon & Schuster, asked by Sheehan whether they compared the soldiers' tales to their military records, "equated the idea of searching the military records with taking a radical medical theory to the American Medical Association. 'They'd just say it was wrong,' he said." The editor admitted to Sheehan that the book was published as an antiwar protest.

That same disrespect for the truth was in operation during the Winter Soldier hearings. After all the atrocities were dutifully taken down, the transcript was inserted into the Congressional Record by Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, who asked the commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the many crimes, particularly those perpetrated by Marines.

"The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service are interesting and revealing," said historian Guenter Lewy in his book America in Vietnam. His history of the war was one of the first to rely on previously classified documents in the National Archives. "Many of the veterans, although assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities."

One black Marine who testified at Winter Soldier did agree to talk with the investigators. Although he had claimed during the hearings that Vietnam was "one huge atrocity" and a "racist plot," he could provide no details of any actual crimes. Lewy said the question of atrocities had not occurred to the Marine until he left Vietnam. His testimony had been substantially "assisted" by a member of the Nation of Islam.

"But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit," Lewy wrote. "One of them had never been to Detroit in his life." Fake "witnesses" had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans. Lewy pointed out that incidents similar to those described at the Winter Soldier hearings did occur. "Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of existing regulations," Lewy wrote. Those responsible were tried and punished. "In either case, they were not, as alleged, part of a 'criminal policy,'" Lewy said. Despite the antiwar movement's contention that military policies protecting civilians in Vietnam were routinely ignored, Lewy said the rules of engagement were implemented and taken very seriously, although at times the rules were not communicated properly and the training was inadequate. That's what made the failures so notable.

"The VVAW's use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity," Lewy wrote. "It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals." (Although it has been thoroughly discredited, the Winter Soldier "investigation" is still being cited today as "proof" of American servicemen's barbarity.

Writer Susan Brownmiller referenced it in Newsweek in a 1993 story on gang rape by soldiers.) In April 1971, the VVAW staged a demonstration it called Dewey Canyon III, a "limited incursion into the country of Congress." The protest was named after an operation in 1969 that sent elements of the 3rd Marine Division into Laos. About this same time, an ad appeared in The New York Times signed by forty-nine American servicemen from the 1st Air Cavalry Division urging support for antiwar demonstrations. But as United Press International later reported, the men, members of a Mekong Delta-based helicopter unit, had neither read nor paid for the ad.

Dewey Canyon III featured Vietnam veterans marching on Washington in a very dramatic, emotional way. Long-haired, scruffy, dressed in camouflage and the remnants of military garb, and draped in medals, they presented the image of men who had obviously been tested in battle and had seen the horrors of war, like bedraggled Southerners returning home from the battle of Gettysburg. After being blocked from holding a ceremony honoring the war dead at Arlington National Cemetery, the veterans marched to the Capitol to present sixteen demands to Congress. At the end of the day; they held a candlelight march around the White House. After a man who said his son died in Vietnam blew taps, the soldiers began flinging their war medals over a high wire fence in front of the Capitol: Purple Hearts, Bronze Star Medals, Silver Stars -- bits of ribbon and metal hurled in the face of the government that had so betrayed them. Some, after throwing away what had cost them so dearly, broke down and cried.

One of them was John Kerry, Vietnam Navy veteran and aspiring politician who had been among those who organized the protest. Kerry flung a handful of medals -- he had received the Silver Star, a Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Hearts -- over the fence. Kerry spoke later that week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, putting a face on the antiwar movement far different from the one seen before -- the scruffy hippie or wild-eyed activist. Kerry represented the All-American boy, mentally twisted by being asked to do terrible things, then abandoned by his government.

From start to finish, the public took Dewey Canyon III at face value, not understanding that they were watching brilliant political theater. Kerry, a Kennedy protege with white-hot political aspirations, ascended center stage as both a war hero and as an antiwar hero throwing away his combat decorations. His speech, apparently off the cuff, was eloquent, impassioned.

But years later, after his election to the Senate, Kerry's medals turned up on the wall of his Capitol Hill office. When a reporter noticed them, Kerry admitted that the medals he had thrown that day were not his.

And Kerry's emotional, from-the-heart speech had been carefully crafted by a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy named Adam Walinsky, who also tutored him on how to present it. TV reporters totally ignored another Vietnam veteran, Melville L. Stephens, a former aide to Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, chief of Naval Operations, who that same day urged the Senate not to abandon America's allies in South Vietnam. "Peace for us must not come at the cost of their lives," Stephens said in a speech he wrote himself.

Kerry did not return from Vietnam a radical antiwar activist. Friends said that when Kerry first began talking about running for office, he was not visibly agitated about the Vietnam War. "I thought of him as a rather normal vet," a friend said to a reporter, "glad to be out but not terribly uptight about the war." Another acquaintance who talked to Kerry about his political ambitions called him "a very charismatic fellow looking for a good issue."

How many of the other participants in Dewey Canyon threw away "props"? How many were really Vietnam veterans? Well, let's take one example: Al Hubbard, the VVAW's executive secretary and one of the organizers of Winter Soldier. He wrote a poem that appeared at the beginning of The Winter Soldier Investigation, a book of testimonies from the hearings:

"This book is dedicated to you, America
Now, Before the napalm-scorched earth
consumes the blood of would-be-fathers
and have-been-sons of daughters spread-eagled
and mothers on the run. Reflect. See what you've become, Amerika."

A scathing commentary by one of those who could no longer stomach the fight, right? Wrong. Hubbard first claimed he was a decorated Air Force captain who had caught shrapnel in his spine flying a transport plane into Da Nang in 1966.

But after NBC received a tip that Hubbard was lying about his rank, a reporter confronted him. He confessed on the evening news and the Today Show that he actually served as a sergeant, not a pilot or captain, in Vietnam.

John Kerry defended Hubbard, citing the confession as proof of Hubbard's integrity. "Al owned up to the rank question," Kerry said. "He thought it was time to tell the truth, and he did it because he thought it would be best for the organization."

William Overend, a CBS reporter sympathetic to the antiwar movement, later pointed out that Hubbard only confessed when he was confronted. Then the Defense Department issued a news release. "Alfred H. Hubbard entered the Air Force in October 1952, reenlisted twice and was honorably discharged in October 1966, when his enlistment expired," the statement said. "At the time of his discharge he was an instructor flight engineer on C-123 aircraft with the 7th Air Transport Squadron, McChord Air Force Base, Tacoma, Washington. There is *no record of any service in Vietnam* [emphasis in the original], but since he was an air crew member he could have been in Vietnam for brief periods during cargo loading, unloading operations, or for crew rest purposes. His highest grade held was staff sergeant E-5."

The announcement that Hubbard had no record of service in Vietnam jolted Overend, who had been impressed by Hubbard's leadership qualities. He began looking into Hubbard's background independently. Hubbard claimed he had been severely wounded. Overend called the VA, which confirmed that Hubbard had a sizable medical record and had a service-connected disability rating of 60 percent. At the time, he was receiving disability compensation of $163 a month. But the VA refused to say how, where, or when Hubbard was injured.

Overend checked Hubbard's medals and decorations: Hubbard had no Purple Heart or Vietnam Service Ribbon, which can rightfully be claimed by any member of an air crew serving in Vietnam, no matter how briefly. Hubbard refused to discuss his record.

Overend finally discovered that Hubbard had suffered a rib injury during a basketball game in 1956, and a back injury in 1961 during a soccer game. Hubbard had not been wounded, nor had he ever served, in Vietnam.

But the story was too long for television, and when Overend tried to sell the piece to a liberal publication, no one would touch it. The truth might hurt the antiwar effort.

Overend finally published the story in July 1971 in the National Review.

Other major VVAW leaders, like Michael Harbert, also had problems with their credibility. Harbert claimed he was an ex-sergeant who had flown forty-seven missions over Vietnam during 1967 and 1968. "I had fantasies that they were going to take me prisoner because I was in the Air Force and flew in bombing missions over the North," he said after returning to Hanoi in the 1980s. "Suddenly I was back on my last combat mission after the Long Binh Bridge, over the Red River. I closed my eyes, and I was right back in the AWACS, directing an air strike...and the MiGs are in the air, and the surface-to-air missiles are after us." Hearing the explosions brought that fear back.

But Harbert's record showed that he was a member of the 964th Airborne Early Warning and Control Squadron, based at McClellan Air Force Base in California throughout the Vietnam War. The 964th flew EC-121D aircraft on what were known as "College Eye" missions -- well out of danger zones, usually along the coast of Siberia or China and not in range of MiG attacks and surface-to-air missiles. Harbert's awards and decorations include the Air Medal with one oak leaf cluster but no Vietnam Service Medal. His only overseas service was in Taiwan from November 28, 1967, to April 9, 1968.

"Stolen Valor", B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Verity Press, 1998, Chapter 6, Atrocities: The Good War Versus the Bad War, pgs. 130 - 137.

[Gimpy]

But I gotta do this!

I think it's time to "expose" B.G. Burkett for what he REALLY is here folks. I bought his book a few years ago........read it through......TWICE, BTW............and even though I feel a lot of what he reports is accurate and truthful..........there's JUST as much BULL$HIT and dishonest, outright misrepresented facts and distortion in there as well!

If we are going to base our "opinions" on the so-called accuracy of his convoluted, biased, obviously "right-wing" radical beliefs......then it's time for some alternative points of view of his "assesments" of that period of time in our history!

Let the the TRUTH be told!

####START####

B.G. Burkett B.G. "Jug" Burkett was an Army Ordinace Officer with B Company, 7th Combat Support Battalion, of the 199th Infantry. Batallion. The ordinance corps were responsible for procurement, storage and maintenance and issue of types of military equipment including ammunition and spares. An Infantry supply officer. Did Burkett see Combat in Vietnam? I do not see any Combat Infantry Badge on his chest.

http://www.longwayhome.net/stories/jug.htm -

What is Burketts motivation to smear Vietnam Veterans in his book Stolen Valor?

Burkett smears Senator John Kerry as a dishonorable man, using someone else?s medals to gain political power. Burkett shows the Agent Orange claims against the Dow Chemical company to be based upon junk science. Burkett does not stop there. He proceeds to reveal a grand scam involving thousands of fake veterans, the United States Veterans Administration, and billions of dollars of taxpayers? money. The uncovering of this massive fraud culminated late last year, when President Bush Sr. awarded Burkett the Army?s Distinguished Civilian Service Award. So the "SHRUB's" Dad awarded Burkett a medal for his betrayal to many a Vietnam Veteran and their benifits and dignity.

My concern with the book is that Mr. Burkett lets his political leanings creep into the book. For example when he discusses Agent Orange and Maude DeVictor a former VA employee, he throws in a statement "and SHE was involved in the black power movement" on (page 528). OK, if Maude DeVictor was involved in the black power movement, so what? Did she have a record of being arrested and convicted? Does it bear on the issue of Agent Orange? Or, is it an attempt to discredit her because of her politics?

In the Case of Dan Rather, Mr. Burkett takes him to task for joining the reserves during the Korean War and later being medically discharged from active duty with the USMC (page 107). If true, where is Mr. Burketts condemnation of George W. Bush joining the Texas Air National Guard and not serving in the Vietnam War?

I suggest that these examples could lead one to question the research of the book for the reason that Mr. Burkett's thesis may have been driven by a political agenda.

OF COURSE A REPUBLICAN POLITICAL AGENDA AS IT IS NOW!!!

Is Burkett is such a Supreme Evil Liar that his many lies can be refuted on the very face of their lack of merit. For example, he claims that , Shelby L. Stanton, was "even a disaster in training". How can that be, since Shelby L. Stanton completed Infantry officers Course and Airborne School (that means a parachutist badge for those blockheads like Burkett who don't know what soldiering is really all about) , concluded Ranger School as an average student (who never "bawled", as Burkett falsely claims), and also finished Army Special Forces officers Course in the upper third. How can this be a disaster? What a false claim from Burkett who rewrites history to Glorify War instead of telling the Truth -- that War is a Terrible Abomination of Mankind.

Yet Burkett never completed one of these courses which Shelby L. Stanton undertook and accomplished well, and yet this moron claims that Shelby L. Stanton is a disaster. He is the Fool of Fools in his insane jealousy that propels his dishonest Revisionist History by smearing soldiers who performed better than he ever attempted. Furthermore, Shelby L. Stanton words do not indict him. Burkett never printed Shelby L. Stanton words, since Stanton never spoke to him. The words he printed were either made up in their entirety or taken completely out of context when said to someone else (for example, the quotations about the downed plane were in reference to the liberal interpretation of a painting having nothing to do with Stanton.

In another example, he persecutes Stanton in the name of Jesus for no reason whatsoever! The great irony of this traitorous book written by the treasonous villain Burkett is that he pretends to uphold the honor of Vietnam Veterans. Is this why Stanton's serve is ridiculed? Burkett received the Army's highest decoration for civilian service FROM GEORGE BUSH SR. for spitting on a Vietnam Veteran. Then he stated that the Vietnam Veteran was the finest this country ever produced. Burkett compares himself as a rear-echelon "Palace Guard" as better than any of those men -- he is part of the "finest". "I have certainly been spit on in a literary context by a fellow Vietnam Veteran B.G. "Jug" Burkett." said Stanton.

B.G. Burkett says he has Navy Commanders to Cast Doubt on Kerry's War Record Several Navy officers who supervised Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry when he commanded a swift boat in Vietnam are preparing to publicly question his war record - including the circumstances under which he was awarded three Purple Hearts - a noted Vietnam War historian revealed on Sunday.

Burkett, whose 1999 book, "Stolen Valor," is considered to be the definitive history of falsified Vietnam War claims, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg that Kerry's former commanders would allege that the top Democrat's Purple Hearts were awarded for "self-reported injuries that were virtually nonexistent." "He never got a day of treatment, he never spent a day in a medical facility," Burkett said. "These were all self-reported wounds, which you're going to hear from some swift boat guys in the future as to the nature of those wounds." Burkett said he had personally spoken to the Navy commanders who were preparing to go public about Kerry's decorations. "You're going to get quite a showing [of those speaking out]," Burkett told Malzberg. "I don't know [the number] yet. They're trying to get it to be unanimous of every swift boat guy who ever served." As to the timetable for the upcoming revelations, Burkett said that Kerry's superior officers "were still discussing that." "You've got some major rallys being planned against John Kerry by Vietnam Veterans on the mall, at the convention - this type of thing," he said. "And we're going to make America aware of John Kerry's military record."

Is this the kind of SMEAR tactic that the "SHRUB" administration will use to cover up Bush's disgraceful Air National Guard resume back in the Vietnam Era?

Why is this Veteran Wanna Bee hunter not writing about Bush's Military record, instead of attacking John Kerry? Again, B.G. Burkett, a military researcher, was co-chairman of the Texas Vietnam Memorial with President George Bush as honorary chairman. You think Burkett's motives might just be "Political"? So be prepared on B.G. "JUG" Burkett to smear Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service to this country the way he did Nebraska's Bob Kerrey for his Vietnam Service, a former Navy Seal.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecov...01/4/30/225224

And This is the Smear tactic that the "SHRUB" will use to cover up his disgraceful Military Record. B.G. Burkett: Navy Commanders to Cast Doubt on Kerry's War Record --

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/234750.shtml - .

So be prepared for this "Ted Sampley" type smear tactic against John Kerry by B.G. "Jug" Burkett, whose only goal in my estimation is political!

How many more Veterans that served this country honorably is B.G. Burkett going to crucify with his "Witch Hunt" for Veteran wannabes?

And what benefits and dignity will be stripped from these true Veterans for B.G. Burkett's political goal, which now seems to smear John Kerry. B.G. Burkett, welcome to the Bush campaign team where lies and fraud are merely "fibs" for the good of the U.S.!

And Veterans, watch your benefits, with smear tactics like B.G. "Jug" Burkett is using, your benefits are very, very, "vulnerable".

Especially if you do not fit the CONSERVATIVE FAR RIGHT WING mold that B.G. "JUG" Burkett has created for the Vietnam Vet! ~TOM~ 101st Airborne Div. ~ Americal Div. D Troop 1/1 Cav -- "Bammo's Bunker" -- http://d21c.com/Bammo/BBunker.html -- "Bammo's Biker Bunker" -- http://d21c.com/Bammo/BBikerB.html


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A Vets Perspective. (Book review)

By former Drill Sgt. Steve Hassna .........................

Book review: "Stolen Valor"- How the VietNam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History

By B.G. Burkett & Glenna Whitley
Verity Press, Inc. 1998

I guess Random House didn't want to have anything to do with this exercise of the absurd. But hey, it still got printed. So much for the continuing waste of paper.

What B.G. Burkett was going to do with his book, was expose the phony VietNam vets for who they are. Cool, phonies are what they are, phony. In my years in the Vietnam vets community I have, on occasion, run into many phony vets. I have dealt with them and passed it off to people wanting to be what they are not. I ride motorcycle, an old Harley Davidson, painted olive drab and black. I cannot tell you how many times I have run into phony, wannabe bikers. So what; I know, and they know I know, they're bull"explicative deleted". Do I write a book exposing all these phonies? No, it's just another meat head wanting to impress someone. For some reason I cannot explain, Americans want to be something they are not. I guess they just don't have a life.

What B.G Burkett is doing with his book, by exposing these phony Nam vets, is to attack every issue in the Vietnam vets community, under the guise that all our complaints are not real. Now you have to understand that this is a guy who grew up in officer country in the Air Force. Became an Army officer, with no understanding what the average soldier goes through daily, I'm in charge, you're not mentality. B.G. did not want to go to the bush, and did everything he could, not to. He even states this in his book. B.G. was a REMF, go ask a Nam vet what that is.

B. G. was a procurement officer for the 199 Lt. Infantry Bde. Basically, he scrounged supplies for his unit, a useful skill in the Army, but hardly a grunt by any stretch of the word. He even talks about going up to an old French villa that had been taken over for the officers, and hanging around the pool with all these airline stewardesses and having fun and partying. This guy had no idea what the grunt in the bush was going through, nor did he care. There's even a picture of good old B.G. in steel helmet, flack vest, M-16 rifle, 45 pistol, gas mask and last but not least, CLEAN FATIGUES and SHINED BOOTS. What the caption reads is: Lt. Burkett posing for the folks back home during my stint as a ready reaction rifle platoon leader.

To the unsuspecting reader, i.e. civilians, this guy was a leader of men in combat, fighting the good fight, against all odds. Nothing could be farther from the truth, in the case of B.G. Burkett. Just what is a Ready Reaction Rifle Platoon Leader? OK, here's how it works. In Nam, each base camp was surrounded by a series of bunkers. These bunkers were manned by personnel of the base camp, on guard duty. This was done so the bad guys, V.C. & N.V.A., could not waltz in and blow up the mess hall or steal the beer from the EM (enlisted men) and Officers Clubs.

The rotation of the guard was done daily, from the personnel that were permanently stationed on that base camp. This is guard duty like anywhere else in the military, anywhere in the world. As a Drill Sgt. at Ft. Campbell, Ky., I had my turn of "Sergeant of the Guard" as my name came up. The problem with Nam though, was that the bunker line could, and did at times, receive a dose of live ammo from the opposition. Not a good thing for the soldier in the bunker with B-40 rockets and R.P.G.s (rocket propelled grenades) headed your way. The ready reaction platoon was there to reinforce the bunker line, if needed. It was made up of personnel from the guard mount and an officer was put in charge. These personnel would stay in one place back from the bunker line and move out to help when called on. This job would rotate through the enlisted men and officer ranks.

So a stint, as B.G. puts it, could be for a few hours, a few days, or a week maybe. Personnel in the base camp had other jobs to do daily so that's why the guard was rotated among all troops in the base camp, officer and enlisted. So here's B.G. in his book trying to give the impression to the unsuspecting reader that he was some kind of combat officer, which he wasn't. So who's the phony, B.G ?! And now he is going to show how all these vets are phony and at the same time discredit all the issues in the Vietnam vets community. That's why he wrote this book; it had nothing to do with phony anything. Again there are phony VietNam vets, but the issues in the Nam Vets community are not phony at all.

In every chapter, he starts off with a story about a phony Nam vet. Then when that is done, he launches into this reasoning on why the issue at hand is not real, using stats and stories to get his point across. He even attacks the VVA (VietNam Veterans of America), which I am not a member of, a viable Vietnam Vets organization. He attacks PTSD, which he states that the V.A. (Veterans Administration) in collusion with, now get this , VVAW (VietNam Veterans Against The War) created when there was no real problem. B.G. is so taken with PTSD that he devotes three (3) chapters to the subject. He doesn't have, quote, a problem with PTSD, so why should anyone else have a problem with it. He even goes so far in his conspiracy crap to tell the reader that Nam Vets would tell new guys to let their beards grow out, look scruffy, bad attitude, don't wash for a few days, and wear old fatigues with combat patches on them, to get over on the VA, and get lots of money. Give me a break, I've known Nam Vets, Korean, and WWII vets that have struggled with the VA for years to get what was due them. The VA don't hand out bennies just for the hell of it. That all the issues were brought up by Commie leftists, and it was done to mess over God fearing, loyal, taxpaying American citizens, is just more then I can stomach. If you read through B.G.'s exercises in Republican, right-wing, psycho babble, you will see that every time he wants to show who started all this., it was some leftist Commie. For example, Maude De Victor, the whistle blower in the VA about the Agent Orange issue, was, according to B.G., part of the Black Power Movement. That's a nice buzz word to get the right wing racist blood going.

It couldn't be that concerned citizens were exercising their right as American citizens under the Constitution and expressing the right of redress of grievance to the Gov. for issues that affected a whole bunch of people. No, we're just Commies. Well, B.G, I am not a Commie, or a leftist. I was an infantry paratrooper, Drill Sgt. and I turned against the Vietnam War and war in general, because of my personal experiences in that war, as did a multitude of American citizens. I was a member of VVAW, and fought that leftist crap tooth and nail all through my time in that organization. To imply anything else is a slap in the face to Nam Vets and the American people. And you can stick that where the sun don't shine

Homeless vets? Not so , they're all phony Vets, and on and on. Agent Orange is not real , there were no minority problems in the ranks. Here's a guy that never served in combat saying there was not a disproportional number of people of color in combat. Here, B.G. has his head straight up his ass.

Does anyone remember, "MacNamara's 100,000"? What this was, was a way not to draft the major colleges in the US in 1967,`68,`69. MacNamara and the B&B/D&D knew that they were going to run out of bodies for the draft and would have to start snatching folks from places like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the rest of the upper class Ivy League schools. Oh woe, can't have that, what will we do.

Easy, we will just lower the draft standards and reclassify people we rejected a year ago and draft them. Problem solved, more bodies to send into harm's way, and the hallowed halls of our best schools are safe again. As a Drill Sgt. at Ft. Campbell, Ky. in `68 &`69, I had to train many of these people and I could not figure out how many of them got past the draft physical in the first place; they just should not have been in the Army at all. I did not know of "MacNamara's 100,000", at the time. The kicker to this was the fact that at the same time, I was getting young men who were graduate students and had lost their deferments and now were headed into the fray. Their questions, and the fact that I was training young men that should not be there at all, started me to look at, and reevaluate just what I was doing.

They were not Commies, they were just young Americans on their way to something they did not understand and I was obliged as a combat soldier to answer their pointed questions. As any soldier who took the Code of Honor seriously, would do.

Now anyone with a minimal education knows that you can prove and disprove anything with the same numbers. And that's just what B.G. Burkett tries to do. Nam vets are better educated, we're all fine, no problem at all. All these guys with long hair and beards are phony. Gee B.G., where does that put me and many Nam vets I know?

It's all VVAW's fault; he brings up VVAW over and over to show that the Commies were behind all this . This, I'm afraid, is giving VVAW a whole lot more credit then it deserves. Yes, there were members of VVAW that went on to work on many of these issues, but VVAW was not the driving force behind all this, as B.G. would lead the unsuspecting reader to believe. B.G. Burkett did not get involved in anything to do with Nam vets until 1986, when he became involved with the Texas VietNam Veterans Memorial project.

He is a stock broker in Dallas, Texas. B.G. also has absolutely nothing in common with the rank and file Nam Vet. He still is coming from officer country . B.G. was not around in the late 60's, the 70's and early 80's, when thousands of Nam vets, myself included, their families and Vets from organizations from all parts of this country and all aspects of the vets community, came together in hundreds of conferences, meetings and symposiums to address all the issues concerning that community of people.

I must say, I found it quite amusing to see the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), DAV (Disabled American Veterans), American Legion, and other Nam vet organizations, (some still around and some gone to time), and VVAW(you know them, The Commies!), all sitting around and having to agree that the issues before us were relevant and needed to be addressed. B.G. Burkett was not there through any of this, he was selling stocks and acting like Nam had been a cake walk. I cannot express the level of umbrage I take towards B.G. Burkett and his exercise in trite bull"explicative deleted". And I had to lay out 30+ bucks to experience his crap. This guy just gives me a major headache.

There is a whole section on Medal of Honor winners, some real, some phony. Here B.G. is going to show our real heroes, and expose the phony bad guys. One of the real heroes he writes about is Charlie Litkey. Litkey was a chaplain with the 25th Infantry in 1967. He was a chaplain who went out with the troops, was in the bush and saw what they went through. He received, and rightly deserves, the Medal of Honor, for disregarding his own safety, going into the killing zone and pulling several wounded soldiers back to the medics where their wounds could be treated. He is credited with saving many lives.

What B.G Burkett fails to mention is that Charlie Litkey, since his release from active duty, has been a very active antiwar pacifist, that he returned his Medal of Hornor on principal, and has been involved in hunger strikes, fasts, and generally getting in the face of the US Gov. for its military policies in places like El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Gulf War, to mention a few. He is now going to spend a year in federal prison for his part in protests at the "Schools of America" at Ft Benning Ga. This is the school where the US Army trains military personnel from Central and South America, on how best to deal with their own people who question that country's policies. I.E., kill them. We're talking death squad and paramilitary organizations. B.G. omits all this. Gee, I wonder why.

Onward and downward , B.G. even has a chapter on "The Wall" in D.C. This he calls, "The American Wailing Wall", thanks much meat head . Anyway, he starts out with a quick rundown on how the wall is set up and during this part he brings up, of all things, the Mayaguez incident, as an example of the last to die in Southeast Asia Here he has it ALL WRONG. I mean just plain wrong. First off, he states it was the retaking of the USS Mayaguez,................. WRONG!

You have already read about the Mayaguez incident in this column. We did not retake anything, except rescue the Marines who were sent to the wrong island to rescue the Mayaguez crew. Also he designates the Mayaguez as a USS ship.... Wrong. It had an SS designation, meaning merchant ship under US registration. USS stands for military ship, or Navy war ship. B.G. Brickhead would again try to give the unsuspecting reader the impression that it was a Navy war ship that the Khmer Rouge had captured. If it had been a Navy war ship that was seized, then things would have been a whole lot different. The Navy doesn't cotton to people taking over their boats, no matter who they think they are.

But it wasn't;
it was an unarmed merchant ship. Now this may seem like a small thing, and to the unknowing reader it is. But to anyone with any knowledge of the events of those times it is not a small thing.

Further on in this chapter he brings up Country Joe McDonald, to prove his point. This, B.G. calls "The Contrition Rag" He cites Joe from "People" magazine saying he was sorry for the "Fixing to Die Rag". You all remember that song... and it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for, don't asked me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam, and it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates, ain't got time to wonder why, whoopee we are all going to die.

Then he cites Joe as saying that he (Joe) was mad at the left for its treatment of VietNam vets when they got home. Well so what? Myself and many Nam vets have been mad at the treatment we received on our return, from the left, right and the middle of the road. We were treated like "explicative deleted" by everyone, (except our moms) when we got back . To use Joe to single out the left is just plain bull"explicative deleted", (I seem to use that word a lot in this book review, don't I?).

To quote Randy Newman form his song , "Political Science", "No one likes us, I don't know why, we may not be perfect, but Lord we try". And that's how it was, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. This whole country, its people and all its institutions turned their backs on the returning vet from Nam. Why single out the left, when the whole country is to blame. Why? Because it fits B.G. Brickhead's way of right wing thinking. Can't admit that everyone "explicative deleted" on the Nam vet, let's blame the left and antiwar people.

What crap! (I seem to use that word also in this review, wonder why.) B.G. even tries to use the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Joe put together in Berkeley, Ca. to imply that Joe did it for some kind of redemption for his activism during the VietNam war. That is crap(there's that word again). Joe and the other vets from Berkeley did it because it needed to be done. Just like the thousands of communities across this country that have at last done something to honor the Nam vets for their service to their country, and try to heal those wounds that war created. Hey B.G., it had nothing to do with redemption, it had to do with respect, something you have no understanding of, you meat head!

I have known Country Joe for over 20 years now and have worked with him on many events around Vietnam vets, reading my poetry, (I know, a Drill Sgt. that writes poetry? What will they think of next.), and him doing his music. And I must say that when he starts the "Fixin to Die Rag", the whole audience starts to cheer and sing along as loud as they can. Joe even performed at my wife Helen's memorial, after we lost her to breast cancer in `94. Helen was a Ghandian pacifist, and organizer with the War Resisters League; how she got hooked up with this grunt Drill Sgt. is beyond me, but we were a real mix, to say the least. My mom even sang along when Joe did the "Fixin to Die Rag", in Helen's honor, complete with the Fish cheer. Mom didn't quite understand the Fish Cheer, you know, Give me an F, give me a U, give me a C, etc., you know the rest.

This is a family column now, isn't it? This was at the San Francisco Veterans War Memorial Building on Van Ness Ave., and you could hear the Fish cheer all the way out to the street. My sister told my mom, "Don't ask questions, just sing." And that she did. When I introduced my mom, Rita, to Joe, all he could say was, "You're Steve Hassna's mom? You deserve a medal for putting up with him". I just said,"Thanks Joe, I love you too", and we both laughed, while my mom looked somewhat perplexed.

In all the years I have known Country Joe and seen the work he has done around the Vietnam vets community, he being a vet himself, (Navy, early Vietnam era), he has always been up front and straight forward about what he felt about the war. Redemption, what redemption? Joe has always stood on his principles, and I have always been proud to call him a good friend because of that. What B.G. El Meathead tries to do is take everything Joe says out of context, (just like everything else in his book), to prove his twisted point of view. Well it won't work, B.G, there are too many Nam vets out there that see right through you, and hopefully the civilian population will also.

Finally, at the end of this book, way back in the back of this book, right down there by the end of this book, out there around page 500 something, (now I'm sounding like Arlo Guthry and Alice's Restaurant), is a section on the questions B.G. has been asked while doing this book. You know, why and what do you want to get from it. Here he states that he wants an apology from the American people for the treatment of the Vietnam veteran. Well gee, B.G., where have you been? Any Nam vet that hasn't been living in a cave has been asking that for over 25 years. What makes you think it is going to happen now? We (Nam vets) gave ourselves a few parades, and have been walking around saying, "Welcome Home" to each other for years now.

That one really ticks me off no end, "Welcome Home". I tell people who say that to me that I got back in `68 and no one said squat; why start now. That usually gets me a strange look. But then I'm just an ornery, grumpy, old Drill Sgt. and I can't help it. On top of everything else, why, B.G., if you want an apology >from the American people, do you attack everything in the Vietnam vets community and all our issues? If you want to get in someone's face, go out and stick it to the American people and leave us, Nam vets, alone. We have done nothing to you and don't need your bull"explicative deleted" either. We have seen enough and just want to get along with our lives, what's left of them.

I have been involved in the VietNam vets community and Veterans community at large since 1972, and I know bull"explicative deleted" when I see it. And that's how this book reads. Every time I would open this headache of a book and check one chapter or another, it would be the same thing. Wrong, twisted, and misleading information to discredit VietNam Veteran issues.

And the sad part is that there are people out there who believe this "explicative deleted", civilians, and VietNam Vets alike. Why? Because they want to, they want to feel good about themselves and want the memories of "The Nam", to be good and wholesome. So they sit down to the table and eat up the bull"explicative deleted" and garbage B.G. Burkett and his ilk serve up, by the truck load. And that, troops, is by far the saddest part of this whole thing: people giving credit to B.G. Burkett, and him with his head so far up his ass, I'm surprised he can even breathe.

Well, that's it for B.G. Burkett and the book he did not write, (it was written by Glenna Whitley as far as I can tell.) Now remember, there are phony Nam vets out there and you may run into one and B.G. Burkett is, without a doubt, one of the biggest to come around lately .

But the issues of the Vietnam vets community, and American Veterans of any war are not phony in any way, shape, or form.

Airborne, The Old Drill Sgt. Hassna.........................OUT!

#####

SO YOU SEE. THIS IS THE KIND OF JOURNALIST AND RESEARCHER B.G. BURKETT IS AND HOW HE THINKS. THIS IS WHERE THE BUSH/CHENEY CAMPAIGN ATTACKS INTEND TAKING BURKETT'S SO-CALLED LITERARY WORK - STOLEN VALOR - USING IT AS A RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA TOOL LIKE MEIN KAMPH (SP?) TO ACCUSE ANY VETERAN THAT SUPPORTS JOHN KERRY OF NOT REALLY BEING A VETERAN BUT A FAKE VETERAN AND BY EXTENSION ANYONE WHO DOESN'T SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS AND SO FORTH AND SO ON. THEY ARE GOING TO USE THIS RIGHT WING BIGOT'S NONSENSE TO QUESTION OUR PATRIOTISM

I'm grateful for the link to Drill Sgt. Hassna's article. I enjoyed it more than anything I've read for a while. I'm going to print it and tack it up on my wall, as an example of no-nonsense, no-BS, plain-speaking, truth-telling writing. I would urge everyone to take the time to read it.

What is the antidote to revisionist history? Truth is the first casualty of war. From the time it happens, an event in war is difficult to describe accurately. As time goes by, the truth gets more difficult to describe. The most reliable witness must be someone who was there and wrote a report after the action. It must be exceedingly difficult to tell the truth accurately thirty years later for someone who was not there. So at this point, anybody can say anything, and make it seem plausible, at least to some people who don't know any better.

Maybe we need to form a national organization of vigilant D-Bunkers who watch for lies and distortions in the press around the country, and mobilize to write challenges to the veracity of those books, articles, letters to the editor, etc.

If people are going to buy that poison from B.S. Burkett and Moana Charen, they should also be able to buy an antidote.

####END####

Now.........................let the "attack" begin! :cd:

PS: About half the pages in that freakin book wouldn't even make good TOLIET PAPER as far as I'm concerned!

[reconeil]

Loved your your fair, balanced and quite intellectual response. Thank you very much. You one funny guy. Please keep up the good work. America needs much more such levity like that,...especially during wartime. Plus, I'm sure that even political types like The Republicans/Conservatives also appreciate your great assistance, since fairly well displaying what The Leftist alternative could afflict The People,...if not wary, vigilant and careful voting.

Neil

[Arrow]

Arrow>>>>>>

[Seascamp]

I read Burkett's book some time back and it?s one of my books that was loaned out and never came home. Looks like I?m going to have to buy another copy and read it again as I seemed to have missed a lot, especially the inference that Burkett claimed some sort of combat role; I don?t recall that he did, but we?ll see.

I see it?s still in print and listed by Amazon and Barnes & Noble in either hard back or soft cover. I don?t recall that Buckett has been in a law suit for libelous slander and after all these years of publication one would think that he?d be up to his belt loops in litigation if he were just muck raking and making stuff up.

As equal opportunity reading I?d like to read Kerry?s book as I assume that is the claimed and real absolute and undisputable truth, but alas, I see that that particular publication is not to be had at any reasonable price; quoted at over $1,000 for a used book, and there are no plans to publish it again. So I suppose i'll will miss that opportunity for enlightenment and the saga of all the things I really did in VN.

Scamp

[Gimpy]

I AIN'T WRONG about your "political agenda"

You DID place this on the "political debate" forum......didn't you??

And, I NEVER said anything negative OR bad about your husband,
in any way shape form or fashion.Only that JERK Burkett!

REMF is (was) the term used by every single "grunt" I ever served with over there to describe the guys "in the rear"--------GOOD or/and BAD!

Look Arrow, these are difficult times with varying opinions that can get very heated at times.

I got not one single thing against you PERSONALLY.

But, I refuse to sit back and allow misrepresentations of the FACTS be put forth without a "challenge" from a different perspective!

If that "ruffles" your "tail-feathers"------------then SO BE IT!

[Gimpy]

Are you blind as a BAT??????

The two gentlemen who "penned" their thoughts about Burkett are NOT...............REPEAT.............ARE NOT LEFTISTS by ANY stretch of the imagination! They are BOTH honorable, combat tested Viet Nam Infantry veterans!

Is your "tin foil hat" on again to tight???? :cd: :cd: :cd:

[reconeil]

Wasn't thanking or alluding to "Them" and "Their" words,...was alluding to YOU & YOUR words.

Sorry for The Mix-up.

Neil

[Arrow]

First I want to say I'm sorry to all readers for bringing my personal history to this discussion. I deleted it because it had no revelance to the discussion.

Secondly I took an excerpt from abook. I didn't make any claims at all that book was a sacred book with no flaws. I happen to disagree strongly and have said it loudand clear with some of Burketts conclusions. Some but not all.

Ifanyone cares to they can read the excerpt from the book again and they will see severalsourcesquoted thatare easily researchedleaving Stolen Valorcompletely out of the equation.

Yes of course I posted this thread here because it was political. But that political agenda is not the sum total of my feelings in regard to all of the post I have made on this forum. These things were not done in a corner theyimpacted the lives of many of us for years and years.Still to this day there is a stigma attached to the term Vietnam Veteran in regard to the false charges that were brought against them as a group by John Kerry, VVAW and all their supporters including the infamous Jane Fonda.

I do feel passionately about the issues raised here.Those issues for me come down to the defamation of the character of Vietnam Veterans as a whole by a small group of men that had the right to protest a war but had no right to defame the character of those fighting the war. And the issue of the normalizing of trade relations with Vietnam thus undercutting the leverage that the POW/MIA familes had to demand a full accounting of our POW/MIA.

My thoughts didn't just come with this present election they have been the same for years.

Arrow>>>>>>

[colmurph]

"B.G. Burkett B.G. "Jug" Burkett was an Army Ordinace Officer with B Company, 7th Combat Support Battalion, of the 199th Infantry. Batallion. The ordinance corps were responsible for procurement, storage and maintenance and issue of types of military equipment including ammunition and spares. An Infantry supply officer. Did Burkett see Combat in Vietnam? I do not see any Combat Infantry Badge on his chest."

Did Burkett see combat? I would think that just about anyone who served in Vietnam saw "Combat". Our cooks at Battalion Rear, and our supply folks there also saw "Combat". Our base camps at Chu-Lai and Duc-Pho were hit with mortars and 122 mm rockets on a nightly basis. To say that only an Infantryman with a CIB saw "Combat" is a slap in the face to every other Soldier, Marine, Airman or Sailor who served in Vietnam. I was a rifle company commander with the 11th Brigade of the Americal Division and I can say that I had more mortar rounds and 122 rockets come my way while I was on "Stand-Down" in the rear, than I ever did while I was out on patrol in the boonies. It got to the point that I flet "Safer" in the field where at least I could "Shoot Back". The only Nurse to die during the Vietnam war was killed when a 122 rocket slammed into the 312th Evac Hospital in Chu-Lai. I guess that she didn't see any combat just like Burkett didn't see any combat as an Ordinance Officer.