If everyone who said they were in Vietnam during the war had really been there, I expect it would have been standing room only. In fact, if everyone who said they got this or that medal for their combat had, there would have been a cotton and silk shortage during the late 60s. Hell, America would have experienced a period of negative population growth. I find it humorous and comment on it frequently. What would possess anyone to make claims that the VA can figure out with three quarters of their brain tied behind their back and blindfolded. Making claims for DM2 and PCT require being in-country.

Johnny Detroit here has made some claims about being in the RVN. AO claims, for the most part, hinge on having had boots on the ground there. Okay, let see when he was in the service, which branch and what the milrecs have to contribute. Reeeep! Reeeep! Reeeep! You can hear the alarms going off at the Detroit RO and it isn’t the fire door being opened for an illegal smoke break.

Johnny’s records have some holes in them which he quickly backfills. His deployment to that neck of the woods started in August 1975.  The Olympic tryouts for the AirAm Huey skids long jump was on May 7th, 1975. For all you calendar-challenged wannabe war Vets, remember this simple formula : 1/9/1962 to 5/7/1975. I bolded the important numbers for you guys from St. Petersburg. So if you weren’t there in between those two dates,  AO doesn’t count. And as most know, only a few Army and Air Force Vets will ever qualify from Thailand, Guam and the Korean DMZ.

Johnny Rebel didn’t even show up until September of 75 and that was down in the Philippines. However, he did set foot on the “Indochinese Peninsula”:

In addition, the Veteran argues he set foot in Thailand.  
However, while there is a presumption of exposure to 
herbicides for any veteran who set foot in Vietnam, 
no such presumption applies to Thailand.  The Board 
acknowledges some veterans were exposed to Agent Orange 
in Thailand.  However, only veterans who were in the 
U.S. Army or the U.S. Air Force and who served at certain 
specified bases received any exposure.  In light of the
fact the Veteran served in the U.S. Navy, there is no basis 
in the record to conclude he was exposed to Agent Orange 
in Thailand.

Bummer, dude. Back to the drawing board. He was repped by the VVA so I would assume they have that calendar I mentioned above hanging in the office.

We had a Vet who was shopping the big DM2= AO back in 08. He was Navy and claimed he was on an Aircraft Carrier out on Yankee Station in the sunny Tonkin Gulf. The Haas decision hadn’t been handed down yet, so Blue Water Vets were still filing. He was there in 75, too. The biggest problem I found was that his A/C Carrier was never in SEA. It was an old one used for training in the Caribbean. The second insurmountable problem was that they shut down the racetrack and sent the carriers home in 72. He was appealing these findings and needed lots of help. His defense to this was that he worked below deck and didn’t get topside a lot. He was told they were in the Tonkin Gulf, etc.

I’ll admit they do not have a lot of Mensa candidates employed at VAROs. The truth is, they don’t need more than one.  Vets need to understand that they leave a trail where they go in the military. It’s mostly written down. If you’re in the Navy, it’s assumed that you go where the ship you’re stationed on went. That’s a really hard concept for some to assimilate.  I’m not Navy, but I don’t have trouble with it.

Here’s another hard one that some stub their toe on. At the 2008 GOP caucus in Gig Harbor, we were inundated with a large anti-McCain/pro Ron Paul contingent. I went for the maple bars and those donuts with the sprinkly red and green doomoflotchies on top. Well, actually Grandma asked me to drive her.  The donuts were a bonus. The coffee was atrocious and so were some of the advocates for Ron. At one point, an impassioned spokesman for the Ronster stood up and gave us several good reasons for voting for him. First and foremost, he was a Vet like the man who spoke. I noticed he wore a “Vietnam Vet” baseball cap and he made sure everyone knew he was, too. At one point during a vote tally break, I sidled over and ask him a few of the where were you and when questions. He seemed “off” on his answers as if he didn’t quite know them.  He spilled the beans later when he let on how old he was during another “pep rally” for Ronbo. If you were born after 1957, you weren’t there. I’m sorry. Unless you went later with Jane Fonda on vacation, you just weren’t there.

Here’s  a few little things most don’t know. We never called it “Agent Orange”. I heard it called a lot of things including just orange. We used a lot of blue over there, too. They quit using pink and white before I got there. I hear guys say  “Yeah, I was a Green Beret. ” Not. I never heard anyone say they were anything but Special Forces when they weren’t in uniform. If they were in uniform there wasn’t any doubt. Bien Hoa is two syllables, not four. And if you don’t know what dee-dee, mao! means, you probably were not there.

Johnny Detroit was close, but no cigar.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp11/Files5/1145853.txt