Posted on 12/02/2003 3:08:47 PM PST by Dubya
Posted on Tue, Dec. 02, 2003
Veterans activist gets Army honor
By Chris Vaughn Star-Telegram Staff Writer
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION EAGLE/BUTCH IRELAND VIA THE AP Former President George Bush congratulates B.G. "Jug" Burkett after presenting him with the Distinguished Civilian Service award, the Army's highest civilian honor, on Monday at the Bush Presidential Library.
COLLEGE STATION - B.G. "Jug" Burkett stood at the podium, former President George Bush at his side, and professed embarrassment that he had received the Army's highest decoration for civilians.
"I'm being given the medal for telling the truth," Burkett said.
But there's a bit more to Burkett's story than the room full of future Army officers might have known. Burkett is widely regarded as one of the most ardent defenders of Vietnam veterans.
In presenting Burkett with the Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service on Monday evening, Bush said he "almost single-handedly set the record straight on Vietnam veterans," a group that the former president said, "came in for a bad rap."
The Distinguished Civilian Service award is the highest honor a civilian can receive from the Army.
Burkett, 59, a Dallas investment adviser who served in the 199th Light Brigade in Vietnam, became something of a cult hero in military circles with the 1998 publication of Stolen Valor, How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History, which was co-written with Dallas journalist Glenna Whitley.
Along the way, he made a lot of friends who served in Vietnam, most notably acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee and former Army Secretary Thomas White.
"For those who served, Jug Burkett is a hero," Maj. Gen. Robert Clark said before Monday's ceremony at the Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.
"He describes them in his book for who they are, not the person whose public image is of a drug-addicted, unemployed psychological casualty," said Clark, a Vietnam veteran who is now the Fifth Army commander in San Antonio.
Burkett had, and still has, two missions -- to expose frauds who fabricate or exaggerate claims of heroism in Vietnam, and to debunk what he contends is a long-held stereotype that Vietnam veterans are "suicidal, unemployed or homeless."
Police and prosecutors call on him regularly to decipher military records when a defendant blames a crime spree on service in Vietnam.
News reporters ask his advice when someone claims to be a war hero. At least a handful of college professors use Stolen Valor in their classes, and then there are the cases that he jumps on himself.
His crusade -- and it can be rightfully called that -- has made him a lightning rod for criticism from some people and he has been sued twice for libel.
"I do get flak from a lot of people who think that every man who went to Vietnam came home with post-traumatic stress disorder," he said. "I've had 80-year-old ladies scream at me."
He started his work in the mid-1980s when he was trying to raise money for a Vietnam veterans memorial at Fair Park. He said he discovered an environment in which people had nothing but negative views of Vietnam veterans.
He decided to empirically dispute the stereotypes, launching into a four-year project that became his massive, 697-page book.
There is no subject too delicate for him to tackle, whether it is politicians, Agent Orange, the Veterans Administration or celebrities.
"If my mother lied about being in Vietnam, as much as I love her, then I'm going to expose her lies," he said. "I have never flinched with the truth."
Recently, Burkett worked with researchers in South Carolina who treat veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder at a VA hospital. They pulled records on 100 veterans diagnosed as completely disabled by combat trauma.
"We both came to pretty much the same conclusions," Burkett said. "Of the 100, only about 40 had any close, discernible relationship to combat. About 50 were in Vietnam but they had no relation to combat, such as clerks. And the others either were not in Vietnam or we could not prove they were ever in the service. These are people getting 36 grand in tax-free dollars."
Burkett is often condemned for his contrarian views on post-traumatic stress disorder, which he believes is a legitimate health problem.
What he does not buy into is the number of Vietnam veterans who say they are disabled because of it.
"I majored in economics," he said. "The fact is, if you pay for something, you'll get a lot of people who say they have it. All you've got to say is the right things -- 'I can't sleep at night. I beat my wife. I have a drug problem.' It's the biggest scam in America."
Burkett said he has always resisted the simplistic idea that World War II was good and Vietnam was bad. Bad things went on in both, he said, just as good did.
Burkett said he asked Bush to pin the medal because it brought to full-circle a mission that began with Stolen Valor.
Burkett first met Bush in the mid-1980s, when he began his crusade, and again at the 1989 dedication of Dallas' Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Fair Park.
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION EAGLE/BUTCH
IRELAND VIA THE AP
Former President George Bush congratulates B.G. "Jug"
Burkett after presenting him with the Distinguished
Civilian Service award, the Army's highest civilian
honor, on Monday at the Bush Presidential Library.
Stolen Valor bump!
Thanks Dubya. Saw part of an interview with him on Fox today.
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