| A msiquoting by O'Neill of what the book Stolen Valor says about Vietnam Veterans Against the War | ||||||||||||||
| p. 113 | ||||||||||||||
| This is a very significant misquoting of what the book Stolen Valor says about VVAW. On page 113 of Unfit for Command O'Neill says that the author of Stolen Valor (Burkett) | ||||||||||||||
| ...reports, for example, that the National Archives can find no service records under the names of eleven of the individuals claiming to be veterans who testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation. This strongly suggests that the eleven were complete frauds, lying that they had Vietnam experience as well as lying about supposed atrocities they witnessed or committed. The likelihood is that these eleven were never in any branch of the United States military at all. | ||||||||||||||
| O'Neill gives the book Stolen Valor as the source (O'Neill strongly implies that that book is the source, by citing it as a source for a claim stated in the sentence immediately preceding the words I've quoted above). O'Neill's words here make it sound like the leaders of the Winter Soldier Investigation either intentionally arranged for non-veterans to pose as veterans, or they didn't check the credentials of testifiers claiming they were veterans. But this is another lie by O'Niell. Incidentally, when I read over newspapers articles about the investigation I found quotes from Jane Fonda and other VVAW leaders saying they checked credentials carefully (they required that each testifier show their discharge papers and a matching driver's license or other kind of ID, one quote of Jane Fonda said). One article said that the VVAW had had experience before with persons faking being veterans, and that VVAW leaders were determined to prevent that from happening again. What the book Stolen Valor says about VVAW isn't at all like what O'Neill says that the book says. O'Neill's words are surely a lie (I suppose there is the small chance that Stolen Valor has a missing page number in its index for a page that actually does have on it what O'Neill says the book has in it). When one checks all of the pages listed in the index of Stolen Valor under Winter Soldier Investigation (pages 113, 131-4, 136, 144, 559), the only words alleging Winter Soldier fraud are these on page 134 that refer to page 317 of the book America in Vietnam by Lewy: |
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| But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they in fact had 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. | ||||||||||||||
| So, O'Neill surely lied about the contents of the book Stolen Valor. I've been unable to find a copy of Lewy's book America in Vietnam to see what additional details, if any, Lewy gives. O'Neill, on page 112-3 also quotes these words, and citing page 317, adding only that "the Naval Criminal Investigative Service" questioned identities of Winter Soldier testifiers. But no further detail is given by either book, which strongly suggests to me that Lewy is lying, because if Lewy weren't lying, surely a newspaper article would exist about such evidence of fraud and Lewy would have supported these claims by referencing article. Also, both Unfit for Command and Stolen Valor should have cited such a newspaper article as a more credible source of evidence supporting the charge of fraud by that famous investigation. And notice the deception of Lewy writing that "one of them had never been to Detroit in his life", which is something Lewy couldn't possibly know. He should have instead wrote that one of them said he had never been to Detroit in his life. |
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