False Heroes - Revisited

Back in October 2010 I did a post, False Heroes, about men who had faked their military service, mostly lying about being Vietnam War veterans. Most of these men had psychological problems, resulting in bad behavior, which they attempted to justify based upon their (supposedly) traumatic experiences during the war. The overriding tragedy is that this MYTH of the psychologically deranged or homeless Vietnam veteran has instead taken hold in the country as practically a cultural meme... even though there is little truth to the belief.

Recently I was listening to old Podcasts of American Public Radio's "This American Life" programs when I discovered they had done a story on this very subject which I blogged about in my False Heroes article. If you haven't already, I invite you to go back and read it. But in either case I recommend you listen to the 3-minute segment of the Podcast prolog below. If you have been following my blog for any length of time you will recognize the reoccurring theme in my blogging which is that things (and often people) are not always what they appear to be.

This American Life, Episode 138: "The Real Thing - Prolog" (Runtime: 3m:30s)

Veterans Day + 1

Yesterday was Veterans Day, in some places, Armistice Day; a day when we are supposed to remember and honor the men and women in uniform who serve, and who have died serving, our nation in times of war and peace. And today, the day after Veterans Day, we can then return to forgetting those sacrifices and ignoring the unequal price they pay to ensure the comforts we enjoy.

Since the Conservatives recently regained their section of Capitol Hill turf the news media has been awash in championing their agenda; which is to cut government and reduce taxes (aka: foster unfettered expansion of moneyed interests). Example: CBS news anchor Katie Couric (who I believe has no more stature as a journalist than the kid who delivers the daily paper) touted all the ways in which the Conservatives plan to reign in government and runaway spending. With no fact checking or journalistic inquiry, she parroted the “facts” about the Social Security System being in “red ink” and on the brink of collapse and being a major cause for the burgeoning deficit. That fact is, that is NOT true!

So now the new prevailing and perceived shining path toward restoring America’s Greatness reads as follows: Ending tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of our elite is off the table. Targeted instead are the costs of supporting the poorest of our citizens; Social Security, Medicare, Welfare. It will be an ironic twist of fate if any Tea Baggers on unemployment voted Republican – unlikely UC benefits will be further extended, these folks might be the first to realize how they just voted to cut their own economic throats.

But among all the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands over concern for our increasing national debt, the absence of the cost of our unnecessary and fruitless war in Afghanistan is the overlooked Elephant in the Room. We are borrowing close to One Billion dollars A DAY from China to maintain this war which has no expectation of any positive outcome whatsoever. Instead, we will continue to pay for it off the backs of people perceived as too lazy to go out and get jobs… which, incidentally, don’t exist. Large segments of our nation are apparently thirstily drinking the Kool Aid being served up by our political leaders.

The cost to our country for this war, and the Iraq war, have been deftly shielded and sanitized for our consumption. This has not always been true in our history. During World War II our nation sold bonds to finance the war. Everyone paid taxes to fund the war and few complained. It was necessary for all citizens to participate in one way or another in the defense of freedom. Everyone felt the pinch; consumer items such as sugar, coffee and materials like rubber and gasoline were rationed. No one was exempt, if you were not serving in uniform you were, in some way, supporting the soldiers who were. We were pulling together.

Again taxes were increased during the Vietnam War. In some sense, the cost to the taxpayer for Vietnam was but one of many pressures the public felt, in addition to the photos of caskets being shipped back home, which forced the government to yield to the growing outcries to bring that war to a close.

That is not the case today. Only recently the Obama administration has lifted the prohibition of pictures being released of flag-draped caskets being returned from the Middle East. But these images seldom make it into the consciousness of the news media; apparently more newsworthy: a Tea Bagger in a three-cornered hat with a misspelled sign calling the president a Socialist is the media’s primary focus.

Those in power have taken great pains to insure that this war costs the American taxpayer nothing; unless, of course, it happens to be YOUR child or loved one who has chosen to serve in the active military. I have not heard one public official suggest taxes be increased to pay for the War on Terrorism. And now it is quite clear that they neither want to factor in the cost of the war anywhere into the incendiary discussions about the rise of our national deficit.

I find it tragic that every day men and women go out on patrol in desolate places of the world based on pointless strategies, facing death and/or injury; while at home, Americans stop but one day a year to honor their commitment with parades and plastic flags made in China. Well hey… they volunteered to be in the service, didn’t they? I wonder who’s on “Dancing with the Stars” tonight?

Further reading:
1. "Bush-Era Tax Cuts Depart From History of America War Finance" Urban Institute
2. “The history of America’s tax system can be written largely as a history of America’s wars.” and Taxes, by Steven A. Bank, Kirk J. Stark, Joseph J. Thorndike.

False Heroes

This post comes on the heels of my recent post Spitting out the Truth prompted by a comment made to that article by fellow blogger, Secret Agent Woman who remarked regarding a veteran she knew who had lied about his war experience - her comment suggested this entry. Thanks, Secret Agent Woman.

Eighty year old Portland resident Lafayette Keaton was a local hero. A veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam, Keaton was honored by local veterans groups and often invited to speak of his experiences to civic organizations and local schools. Friendly and unassuming, this quiet man would show up in his dress uniform sporting the Silver Star he had earned for his acts of heroism during the Korean War.

But Keaton spoke mostly of his harrowing and vivid accounts of his three deployments to Vietnam. Recalling his experiences in the Army Rangers he admitted that he still awakens with nightmares. But his proudest accomplishment, as he tells it, was of his participation of the liberation of the Japanese prison camp in Los Banos, The Philippines, during WWII.

However it turns out that the only real war Keaton has been fighting all these years has been with the truth – Keaton joined the military 1952, too late for WWII. He served only two months in Korea in an administrative position and well after the cession of combat. He has never set foot in Vietnam. Keaton is a fraud. ^[1]

One evening my wife Nancy and I had the pleasure of dining with an acquaintance, Dr. Loren Pankratz. Loren is Consultation Psychologist and Clinical Professor at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. Previously he has worked at the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center; he has a special interest in deception in medical patients.

Loren has been hired as a consultant, as an expert witness by attorneys in cases where patients were suing their psychologists or psychiatrists for malpractice in “repressed memory” cases. These are incidents of people who have falsely been led into believing they were suffering repressed and blocked memories of horrific, sometimes even ritual, abuse. In the vast majority of these cases, the repressed memories have turned out to be false; the results instead of impressionable patients and their clinicians all too eager to encourage these fictitious beliefs.

Loren’s book, Patients Who Deceive, was drawn from his experiences treating patients who “acted out” illness. ^[3] Later, during his tenure at the Veterans Administration, floods of new patients returning from Vietnam were being assessed for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Many of these vets complained of night terrors, depression, drug addiction and physical ailments. When interviewed clinicians often heard patients describe horrible atrocities allegedly witnessed by these returning vets. The belief grew that these men were part of a growing epidemic of PTSD. Pankratz was particularly troubled that that treatment for PTSD was often unsuccessful for a particular segment of these patients.

Loren and others began treating PTSD vets at the VA hospital. However, unlike most of his peers, he took one additional step of requesting copies of their military service records. What he found surprised him – many of these supposed war-traumatized vets had never served in Vietnam or in any war zone. A few, it even turned out, had never been in the active military.

Our culture is rife with fiction about Vietnam vets. Movies such as Rambo, and Born on the Forth of July, for example, promote the idea that our war in Vietnam disgraced and dishonored not only our country but the men and women who served there. Almost anyone will admit seeing the supposedly “homeless vet” on the street corner holding a sign on which is scrawled “Vet will work for food”. Having myself worked in state human services, I knew for a fact that many of the homeless "vets" on my caseload had never served in the armed forces. Anyone could claim to be a vet for the simple price of a used cammo jacket from the military surplus store.

In his book, "Stolen Valor", by Dallas stockbroker and Vietnam vet B.G. Burkett, he recounts similar such stories. ^[5] Burkett was interested in raising money for a veterans memorial in Texas. But he was stymied by the negative image of Vietnam vets presented in the media; a hodgepodge of shaggy bearded and long haired misfits, whackos and losers who did not fit his memory of the elite and polished units with whom he served. Armed with the Freedom of Information Act, Burkett confirmed his suspicions; that many of these so called vets either never served or were never in a theater of combat.

What are we to make of this deception? The news media would suggest that significant numbers of our service personnel returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan with significant and permanent mental disabilities. But Loren Pankratz and some others don’t believe the problem is as wide spread as suggested. True, readjustment to civilian life can be difficult particularly in tough economic times at home. Military deployment is indeed hugely disruptive to families and finances. There is no doubt that the traumas of serving in combat can generate life altering changes.

But Pankratz reveals that most returning vets want the same things we all want; a home, loving and supporting family, meaningful work and a happy life and secure future. Most find ways to reconcile their experiences, some of them traumatic indeed, yet eventually reintegrate successfully back into civilian life. Yes, there are indeed substantiated cases of PTSD. However Loren says that the vast majority of cases, these veterans do get better over time.

Yet there will always be the patients who deceive; their symptoms belie a deeper extent of their illness, and in some, their strong need to be ill.

Pankratz: My favorite example is from the National Vietnam Veteran Readjustment Study (NVVRS), research that consumed four years and $9 million (Kulka et al. 1988). Six women in the study claimed that their stress was caused by being a prisoner of war. Not one of the many researchers involved in the study apparently realized that no American military woman ever became a POW in Vietnam. ^[4]

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References
1. “War hero impostor falls to the facts”, KATU TV news web site, March 14, 2010
2. "Fake Heroes", Today's Officer magazine, Fall 2005
3. “Patients Who Deceive”, Loren Pankratz, 1998
4. "More Hazards: Hypnosis, Airplanes, and Strongly Held Beliefs", Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, June 2003
"Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History", B.G. Burkett, 1998

Spitting Out the Truth

Say what you will about the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least American and Coalition service men and women are receiving almost universally unflagging support and the highest praise. We should admire those among us to have the courage to make the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our freedoms. The intelligence, or lack thereof, on the part of our leaders in choosing to enter into such conflicts should in no way overshadow the sacrifice of those who have to do the dirty work. After all, we don’t want to repeat the disgraces heaped upon our returning Vietnam soldiers – of being spat upon and told they were “baby killers” when they returned home from an unpopular war.

Though I was in college at the time of the Vietnam war, I was called for my induction physical in preparation for being drafted. Fortunately, I never received my official “Greetings” letter. However I do have many friends and acquaintances who served, both voluntarily and involuntarily; some of whom were deployed to Vietnam. Oddly, only one of them ever said they were spat on while in uniform upon returning from the war.

Joe mentioned the incident during a party where he was talking about his two sons currently serving overseas. I like Joe but he has always been the kind of guy who likes to impress... particularly if there are attractive women present. Sure like many, he pads his credentials a bit and I usually brush off a lot of what he says as harmless bluster. But truthfully; I don’t believe for one moment that anyone spit on him… perhaps for other reasons, but not likely in the context of his being a uniformed returning vet.

I have always been troubled by these accounts of spitting on returning Vietnam veterans; frankly the image of such alleged deeds chaff against my “reasonableness meter”. Yet these stories persist in the news media. I heard it yet again this week cited by a National Public Radio reporter. Earlier this year, Conservative reporter Glenn Beck conjured up a story of an Iraq War veteran being spat upon at a rally in Washington.

The image of a war protester spitting on a soldier or veteran generates an extremely visceral response – and I believe that is precisely why this myth tends to persist. The metaphor is a strong indictment of those who oppose war in general and certain wars in particular. It has all the elements of a very jagged propaganda tool.

In researching this story I discovered a book written by Jerry Lembcke, "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam" (New York University Press, 1998). Jerry is an associate professor of sociology at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts and a Vietnam veteran himself. Troubled by the pervasiveness of this story, his book is the result of direct interviews of hundreds of veterans claiming being spat upon. What he discovered was that ALL of these accounts appeared to fall apart when the claimants were pressed for details. Indeed, though the media still seems to report these incidents as fact, there remain no substantiating news articles, tape or pictures to support these claims.

What Lembcke found even more remarkable were that in virtually all such accounts, the soldiers always walked away in sadness or shame – never, it seemed, did any of these service men “punch the lights out” of any of these spitting war protesters. Such altercations would clearly have generated some level of media coverage, if not police incident reports.

Lembcke states: ” …the Veterans Administration commissioned a Harris Poll in 1971 that found 94% of Vietnam veterans reporting friendly homecomings from their age-group peers who had not served in the military.”^[1] According to the people I know personally who served in Vietnam, they recall nothing but praise and support for them. In fact, several remember their service as a positive experience.

Then why does this myth of war protesters spitting on veterans seem to persist? As Jack Shafer of Slate Magazine writes: “The myth persists because: 1) Those who didn't go to Vietnam--that being most of us--don't dare contradict the "experience" of those who did; 2) the story helps maintain the perfect sense of shame many of us feel about the way we ignored our (sic) Vietvets; 3) the press keeps the story in play by uncritically repeating it... 4) because any fool with 33 cents [postage] and the gumption to repeat the myth in his letter to the editor can keep it in circulation.”^[2]

With upcoming elections, currently our nation is awash in all manner of urban folklore being spewed forth over the airwaves in an attempt to sway the appeal of one political candidate over another. Unfortunately when emotionally-charged issues are involved, one of the first casualties is the truth.

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References:

1. Spitting on the Troops: Old Myth, New Rumors, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Spring 2003
2. Drooling on the Vietnam Vets, Slate Magazine, May 2, 2000
3. Beck went beyond NY Times' and Sparling's (contradictory) accounts of "spitting incident" to ask: "Have we learned nothing from Vietnam?", Media Matters for America, February 1, 2007