Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Let truth protect the honorable legacy of Vietnam vets

Tuesday, Sept. 1, 1998 | 11:16 a.m.

STOLEN VALOR, written by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, is at the printers and should be published during the next few days. It's a book that people such as CNN's Peter Arnett and the perpetrators of the recent hoax about deadly sarin gas being used by Americans in Vietnam should read.

In 1994, Burkett, who saw combat in Vietnam, came to my attention when challenging phonies who claimed military valorous medals they didn't earn. One of the biggest problems Burkett faced was media eager to find extreme cases, usually frauds, to glamorize television and newspaper articles. One of the biggest he named at that time was Dan Rather's CBS Special Report "The Wall Within." That was four years before Arnett's outrageous sarin gas story became a big CNN and Time magazine expose they later had to swallow.

Col. Harry G. Summers Jr., a respected military historian, followed the sarin gas story by writing, "During the Korean War, Time magazine was taken to task by a Harvard University professor for the distortions and half-truths of its battlefield reporting. 'I always recommend Life magazine for my students who cannot read,' he sarcastically concluded, 'and Time for those who cannot think.'

"With the lurid charges in Time's 15 June issue of U.S. military use of nerve gas during the Vietnam War to kill American defectors, the magazine has evidently returned to its Korean War standards."

The June issue of D, a slick magazine published in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, has an article written by author Glenna Whitley that exposes street frauds claiming Vietnam heroism. Whitley even has pictures of street bums with signs claiming Vietnam service. An example is Wesley Dale Turk, who claims he served as a Marine in 1968-69, saw two years of combat in Vietnam and was stabbed. The truth is he has no military service.

All the phonies aren't bumming in the street. Some of the biggest frauds have been politicians and people with money. A good example could be the ambassador recently buried and then exhumed from Arlington National Cemetery. Let's not forget Darrow "Duke" Tully, the fire-breathing patriotic publisher of Arizona's largest newspaper. He claimed several kills as a combat pilot in Korea and Vietnam and even fooled real heroes such as Arizona Sen. John McCain. Tully attended veterans' social affairs wearing a perfect-fitting officer's uniform with wings, medals and the works. He had earned none of them -- not even the right to wear the uniform.

There is good reason to fear that all of these problems and false stories are both harmful to the real history of that period of time and robs those who served honorably of their legacy. Seven years ago this column asked, "Is it true that every Vietnam veteran is unshaven, wears clothes he bought from a military surplus store with some decorations hanging on the jacket, has guilt feelings and flashbacks because he didn't have a parade when he came home and has used that as an excuse for using dope and alcohol?"

Of course the answer is a resounding NO! But large numbers of Americans would never know the difference if they expected to learn the truth from some media presentations.

Whitley, writing in D, says that the image of those who fought in Vietnam as poorly educated, reluctant draftees -- predominantly poor whites and minorities -- isn't true. Then the writer presents some of the following facts:

I can hardly wait to read Stolen Valor, which also rips into the overuse of posttraumatic stress and other false assumptions. Burkett tells me this will really interest me and other readers.