Vietnam Veteran Valor Vultures

Vietnam Veteran Valor Vultures
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 19, 2014

Every time I read about one more fraud claiming to be a Vietnam veteran, or from any war for that matter, I get a rush, a flashback of what it was like for real ones. I spent my entire life with veterans. Vietnam veterans were, and are, unique among all the generations. I saw the sadness in their eyes when they talked about war, of fallen friends, of what they lost including their innocence and how they were treated when they came back home. No one wanted them around. No one wanted to hire them. The only time reporters had time to tell their stories was when one of them committed a crime and was arrested. Usually the headline read something along the lines of "crazy Vietnam veteran" in local papers, so that was all members of the community knew.

The majority of Vietnam veterans were suffering, just as veterans of today, but now they have the World Wide Web born 25 years ago this month. Now we know what happens in one community clear across the country. We are aware of the tribulations of veterans as much as we are aware of how hard they fight for each other.

We are not reminded enough about how much harder Vietnam veterans had to fight the public for the sake of not just their war veterans, but for all war veterans.

Nothing available for OEF and OIF veterans would have happened had it not been for Vietnam veterans. They made it happen because they never gave up on the rest of the population. They refused to believe that people didn't care about them. They were right. The Wall was dedicated on Nov. 13, 1982. A month later my husband and I started our life together. Monuments for Vietnam fallen were dedicated from coast to coast because people cared.

They raised the funds to build The Wall before the internet connected people across the nation.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc. (VVMF) raised nearly $9,000,000 entirely through private contributions from corporations, foundations, unions, veterans and civic organizations and more than 275,000 individual Americans. No Federal funds were needed.

They started support groups and organizations long before anyone had the ability to discover what was going on with a few keystrokes. Groups like Point Man International Ministries started in 1984 taking care of the spiritual healing of veterans and families.

By 2000, it seemed as if everyone got the message that these veterans had nothing to be ashamed of.

National Vietnam Veterans Foundation
* 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1,1965 - March 28, 1973). Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.

* Of the 2.6 million, between 1-1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.

*During this Census count (2000), the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are not.

Anyone can buy a patch but not all of them paid the real price. When frauds decide they can just pretend to be a Vietnam veteran, they are vultures of valor.

This is from February 2007

At Fresno's VA hospital, 190 new patients are referred for treatment of PTSD each month. Up to 80% are older veterans who served in Vietnam and Korea and suffer from anxiety, anger or depression.

They did not seek treatment before because they didn't know they had the disorder or they didn't want to ask for help, say VA officials.

By October this information came out.

In the past 18 months, 148,000 Vietnam veterans have gone to VA centers reporting symptoms of PTSD "30 years after the war," said Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Taking the data from Vietnam and the fact that the report commissioned by the DAV said there were 500,000 Vietnam veterans with PTSD back in 1978, Wounded Times posted this dire warning. Expect 800,000 PTSD veterans out of Iraq and Afghanistan

When the Vietnam Memorial Wall turned 25, I wrote this.

This is in eyes of all who stand by the Wall. The reflection is not of today, but of all the yesterdays, of lives gone long ago and of the living with the ghosts of memories. The Wall makes no statement of politics or of right and wrong, but of the lives lost to war. The Wall cannot heal bodies, nor restore the dead to life, but it does heal the soul and arise the memories of who has gone from this earth. A granddaughter views the name of a grandparent she never met. A wife, long ago remarried touches the stone and wonders what could have been. Children see the name as a chill runs through them and some say the spirit of their parent is still found there in the Wall. Above all who walk the path from end to end are the veterans.

Some went willingly because they were asked. Some were forced to go. As the saying goes from Vietnam veterans "All gave some, some gave all" when it was there time to serve. It didn't matter if they wanted to be there or were forced to be there, they served side by side and what mattered the most was each other. They followed their orders equally, bravely and went through things they would have never thought they could have survived. Some still fight the battles to this very day. They say that if all the deaths connected to the Vietnam war were recorded, they would need two or three more walls to fit in all the names. There are names of those who perished from Agent Orange and from wounds of their bodies and minds. Some had their lives taken from them while others committed suicide. All gave some.

The Wall may not have all the names of all the fallen from Vietnam. We may never know all their stories but each one visiting the Wall holds someone in their heart. It may not be a name of someone they knew. It may not be a name recorded on the Wall at all, but it is written in their heart.

The Wall heals souls and in turn managed to begin the healing of this nation. Watch the video above and then plan on watching the documentary. See if we can find that same kind of compassion and passion behind the building of the Wall to do the same for this generation in harms way today. Then thank a Vietnam vet because had it not been for them coming back, fighting for all veterans, we would not have come as far as we are today to eliminating the stigma of PTSD. We have a lot further to go, but the Vietnam veterans paved the way. They are still reaching out their hands to each other and to all other veterans. To me, they will always be the greatest generation because they did not forget those who came after them.

When I read about one more fraud claiming to be a Vietnam veteran saying "I'm not hurting anyone" as they are confronted by real Vietnam Veterans, it is easy to see they will never know exactly how much they have hurt real ones. Maybe they don't consider them "anyone" important enough to care about, but they sure as hell think they were important enough to pretend to be one.