Thus negative stories about the War and those
who fought it became de rigueur. Particularly, if one could tell them
through the eyes of a veteran. But facts were routinely ignored.
Literally thousands of journalists have
published lies exaggerations and misrepresentation that fit a preconceived
notion that made a story. I first became aware of the media's willing
self-deception in 1981, when I was interviewed by Time magazine for what
turned out to be a lengthy, negative piece on those who had fought in
Vietnam. The veteran who gave the most damning testimony, including claims
that he shot a pregnant woman and her unborn child-was later shown never to
have served in Vietnam at all. It is a simple, matter for any reporter to
verify many aspects of a veteran's combat service by asking for a copy of
his Form DD-214, a publicly available document. But the Time reporter did
not do so, and the magazine offered no reaction after its story was
disproved.
Repeated, conscious misrepresentations have
become conventional wisdom. It is now axiomatic that the war was fought by
the poor and minorities dragged unwillingly into battle after being
conscripted. The truth is that for the first time in U.S. history, the
country's elites, who have inordinate power in the media and academia, did
not show up. The poor and the minorities fought, but so did the middle
class. Defense Department statistics show that 86%, of those who died in
Vietnam were white, and 12.5% were black from an age group where blacks
comprised 13.1%, of the population. Volunteers accounted for 77%, of combat
deaths.
Another canard-frequently cited during the
Persian Gulf War-is that Vietnam servicemen were over- decorated. In his
book "National Defense," James Follows claims that by 1971 the military had
given 1.3 million medals for bravery in Vietnam, vs. 1.7 million for all of
World War II. But compare actual gallantry awards from World War II with
those in Vietnam: The Army awarded 289 Medals of Honor vs. 155 in Vietnam:
4,434 Distinguished Service Crosses vs. 846: and 73.651 Silver Star Medals
vs. 21.630. The Marine Corps, which lost 102.000 killed or wounded out of
some 400,000 sent to Vietnam. awarded 47 Medals of Honor (34 posthumously),
362 Navy Crosses (139 posthumously) and 2,592 Silver Star Medals.
A 1980 Harris survey commissioned by the
Veteran's administration, the most comprehensive ever done regarding those
who served in Vietnam, revealed that 92% of those who served in combat were
"glad they'd served their country"; 74%, "enjoyed their time in the
military"; and 80% disagreed with the statement that "the U.S. took unfair
advantage of me." Nearly two out of three would go to Vietnam again even if
they knew how the war would end. The only national media report on the
survey's results was an Associated Press story headlined "One in three would
not serve again if asked."
In 1986 the New England Journal of Medicine
published a study claiming that veterans were 86%, more likely to commit
suicide than non-veterans. The study's authors, betraying their own
political views, lamented that "men of low socioeconomic status may be less
adept at avoiding military service." The study was junk science: a blind
analysis of 14,145 men born between 1950 and 1952 who died between 1974 and
1983. By comparing their birth dates to the dates on the draft lottery, the
study assumed but never verified who had served and who had not. Those with
high draft lottery numbers had a 13% higher suicide rate, which the study
then 'extrapolated' into 86%-again without identifying a single veteran.
The study ignored the fact that most of those who went to Vietnam
volunteered for military service (among those born in 1952, 273.110 men
enlisted and only 43,706 were drafted).
The media predictably embraced the study's
flawed findings: "CBS Evening News" credited it with "documenting that there
is a cause-and-effect relationship between having served in the military
during Vietnam and problems later, including suicide." Mothers, hide your
daughters-the crazy vet is at the door. Hollywood, too, has manifested a
historically unprecedented, ugly pathology when it comes to the Vietnam War
and the people who fought it. If you want camaraderie, dignity, heroism and
sacrifice, better check out a World War II flick, or "Star Wars." But what
can one expect from the community that gave the producers of the vicious
documentary "Hearts and Minds" a standing ovation at the 1975 Oscars when
they read a telegram from Hanoi that announced the "liberation" of South
Vietnam
The extensive coverage of the 20th
anniversary of South Vietnam's 1975 demise was rife with former foreign
correspondents congratulating themselves on their courage under fire. But
the coverage all but ignored the accomplishments of an American military
that was transported halfway around the world where it met a determined
enemy on its own terms. The coverage seldom discussed the many tragedies
that befell Vietnam once the communists took over. And it ignored the most
significant announcement of that anniversary period: Hanoi's admission that
it had lost 1.1 million soldiers dead in the war, plus another 300,000
missing in action, compared with U.S. losses of 58,000 and South Vietnamese
losses of 254,000.
Earlier this year, CBS's "60 Minutes' marked
the 30th anniversary of the bloodiest year of the war with a feature on the
My Lai massacre. Ostensibly designed to recognize the humanity of two
helicopter pilots who saved several civilians during the killing, the piece
was instead a gruesome rehash of America's darkest moment in Vietnam. In
deciding to revisit 1968. CBS might have looked at the bravery of American
soldiers under attack on battlefields across South Vietnam. If it was
interested in ugliness, it could have examined afresh the systematic
executions of more than 3.000 South Vietnamese civilians in Hue by communist
cadres during the Tet offensive. But its intent was clearly elsewhere.
This unending agenda has shattered many
lives, but there are indications that an accounting may be at hand. Today's,
best young scholars tend to question the. dogma of an antiwar left that has
grown gray without abandoning its animus toward those who served. As one
example Mark Mayor won the 1993 prize for historical research at Harvard
University by peeling away the shibboleths that have surrounded the Phoenix
Program, an effort directed against Vietcong leaders. Mr. Moyar's book,
"Phoenix and the Birds of Prey" (Naval Institute, 1997), is a product of
that research and a groundbreaking piece of revisionist history on the war.
Of equal import, next month B.G. Burkett. a
Dallas businessman and Army veteran of Vietnam, will self-publish one the
most courageous books of the decade "Stolen Valor" (Verity Press,
www.stolenvalor.com) looks at the cases of more than 1,700 people who
have distorted or lied about their service in Vietnam, often it distorting
the public's understanding of the war. His book constitutes a damnation the
major media so great that the CNN Time story on saran will take its right
context as a rare moment when the purveyors of dishonesty got caught, rather
than as the journalistic aberration many would like to term it.
