Stolen Valor

If you haven’t read this book, Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History, I highly recommend it.

It's been probably seven years since I have read it, and I think today that I would seriously question some later parts of the book, namely ones that deal with PTSD. At the time, I was convinced that there could be a bit of fraud involved in using PTSD as a claim. Not anymore- I've met too many returning soldiers in the past few years to doubt it.

But that aside, Stolen Valor lays out a good case for why our soldiers came home to the kind of treatment they received, as facilitated by the media and the John Kerry's of the world. So much of what happened to the Viet Nam vets is happening again today, when a little turd like Scott Beauchamp is headline news, but so few people know who Brad Kasal or Nick Popaditch are, hell, some people can't even tell you who Paul Smith or Jason Durham were or why they are so special!

I'm going to have to read this again, but I have a feeling that parts of this book are extremely relevant to how our Armed Forces are being treated today.