The Vietnam era is considered, I think, by the Feds as 1961-1975.
I don’t remember when the term “Vietnam Era Vet” started - maybe to circumvent Stolen Valor accusations ?
Hello all, found this place while trying to research this Nathan Phillips guy. I’ve been seeing him called a Vietnam war veteran, then saw him in an interview say he was a “Vietnam times vet” and that set off red flags. My father and brother both served in Vietnam and I knew that’s not how an actual Vietnam vet talks.
So I started looking into him, here is what I found. He says he joined the Marines when he was 17. So first I tried to find out how old he is. In a story about him from April of 2018 it says he had just turned 64, so that would put his DOB at April of 1954 and would mean he joined in 1971 or 72. He says in the video interview someone else posted here that he served from 1972 to 1976. So if he was 17 when he joined it would have been between January and April of 72.
I knew things were pretty much over in Vietnam as far as combat by April of 71 and they were pulling troops out instead of sending them in so what this Phillips guy is said to have done seems fishy as hell to me. I saw one article that said he was a “combat infantryman” in Vietnam.
I think this guy is full of it about ever having been in Vietnam. Hopefully the information I have found helps. I asked my brother some things about it, he was 101st Airborne in ‘68, but being Army he didn’t really know much about information concerning Marines.