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Stolen Valor
How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History

By B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley

Review by Steven Fantina

Stolen Valor is a much-needed, potent rebuttal to the numerous widely-held fallacies regarding the Vietnam War and those who served in it. Vietnam veteran B. G. Burkett and investigative reporter Glenna Whitley shatter several myths by painstakingly researching hundreds of individuals who fought in America's most controversial conflict.

The authors may have set a record for filing Freedom of Information Act requests for military records (the only way to obtain guaranteed legitimate data), and they provide plentiful documentation refuting common assumptions. We often hear how Vietnam's largely-drafted force lacked the dedication of previous military campaigns, but the authors note that "in World War II, the Army's overall desertion rate was 55 percent higher during Vietnam."

Claims abound that a disproportionate number of black soldiers died in Vietnam, but the facts invalidate such assertions. In fact, blacks constituted 12.5 percent of the war's casualties but comprised 13.5 percent of the draft-age males. The authors also cite evidence that a higher proportion of blacks volunteered for military duty, and thus respectfully summarize,

Blacks were not in Vietnam because an evil government drafted them out of the ghettoes to use as cannon fodder; they were there because of the courage and patriotism of young black men, despite the fact that they lived in a country where they frequently experienced racism.

The bulk of Stolen Valor is devoted to unmasking specific cases of phonies who have betrayed the war's true heroes by masquerading as vets themselves. For example, Patrick Sherill, who murdered fourteen innocent people in Oklahoma in 1986, described himself as a Vietnam vet, but the authors expose him and many other criminals as never having served there.

Likewise, an episode of 60 Minutes entitled "The Wall Within" reported that a disturbingly high number of Vietnam veterans had become homeless scavengers in the forests of Washington State. Thanks to Burkett's and Whitley's annotated case-by-case corrections to these stories, CBS's credibility takes a substantive hit.

Senator John Kerry, who routinely mentions his brief Vietnam combat experience in an indignant effort to stymie any questions about his substantial anti-war activities, is not neglected by the authors of Stolen Valor. They briefly discuss both the boomeranging medal/ribbons he threw over the White House fence and the largely discredited Congressional testimony he gave alleging rampant atrocities.

Stolen Valor is an important work that should be read by those who seek to fully understand the Vietnam War and its implications for current and future conflicts.

Patrick Sherill

The worst post office massacre took place on 20 August 1986, at Edmond, Oklahoma.

Patrick ‘Sandy’ Sherill, a forty-four-year-old part-time postal worker attached to the main post office in this suburb of Oklahoma County, had been warned the day before his killing spree that he was facing a dismissal for unsatisfactory work. It was not the first time Sherill had been in trouble, and reports from the postal authorities claimed that he had already been under suspension once in the year since he joined as a postman in 1985.

Sherill was always prepared to tell anybody that with an inclination to listen that he was a Vietnam veteran, which was quite untrue. However, he was a member of the Oklahoma National Guard, and a considerable marksman with their competition team. In this position of trust, Pat Sherill was able to withdraw guns from the ONG arsenal for the purpose of entering shooting competitions, and on 5 April 1986 he borrowed a .45-calibre automatic pistol. On 10 August he borrowed another, identical, weapon and three hundred rounds of ammunition.

On the hot Wednesday morning of 20 August, Patrick Sherill, wearing his regulation postman’s uniform, drove to work as usual, taking with him the two .45s plus his own .22-calibre handgun and the ammunition. He walked towards the post office, stopping just once to shoot dead a fellow-worker who was crossing the car park, before passing through the employees’ entrance into the single storey building. After locking several doors in order to maximise his kill, Sherill began, in the words of the police, ‘shooting people as though they were sitting ducks’. Although FBI marksmen were deployed around the building after an employee escaped and raised the alarm, Sherill refused to speak to the specially trained siege negotiators.

When the police eventually stormed the building they found the bodies of fourteen men and women, and seven other badly wounded victims. Patrick Sherill lay dead where he had put a single bullet through his own head, his arsenal of guns and ammunition beside him.