[piasa]

Sounds to me like he is deliberately trying to confuse the press by dancing so close to the fire they would assume he was in it :

I was expendable. Expendable to corporate greed. You know, in all wars, …

[Tejas Rob]

Exactly, he has allowed people to think he was a Vietnam veteran. There have been news reports about him for years, since he is such an activists and these stories all call him a Vietnam combat vet. He never made an effort as far as I know to correct people on it.