Those who served in vietnam, I have a question

[ilbob]

There is a guy I met who told me his Army unit was so secret he didn't even get a DD214 and can't get veteran's benefits. There are plenty of people with stories.

I heard all kinds of stories like that back when I did some hiring for a security guard company I worked for.

DD214s seemed to come in a couple of flavors. A short version that basically just gave your dates of service and a long version that had more details.

I saw some that were obviously fake, as they had non-military style verbage in them.

The longer forms had a more detailed record of where servicemen served and what they did. One guy showed me his longer version that was so vague that you could not tell what the heck he did. It had all kinds of cryptic references rather than duty stations listed. Now-a-days you could probably do some internet research and figure out if it was legit. Back then I figured it was a clever fake. These days I wonder.

 

[GRIZ22]

The DD214s I have have only the last duty station listed. I've never seen one that gives a detailed record of units and duty assignments. DD214s have schools and decorations listed but none of it is too cryptic.

I'd be leery if a guy came in with a "long version".

It all should fit on one page.

 

[ilbob]

The DD214s I have have only the last duty station listed. I've never seen one that gives a detailed record of units and duty assignments. DD214s have schools and decorations listed but none of it is too cryptic.

I'd be leery if a guy came in with a "long version".

It all should fit on one page.

Maybe it was not a DD214, but I saw at least a couple of them, and they did not have that aura of fakery to them. It was a very long time ago, so I recall very little about them other than recalling there were short ones that had very little info on them and longer versions that had more.

Most of them were pretty straightforward. The one I found cryptic had a fair number of acronyms and notations I was not familiar with or had not seen before, but did not jump out and say fake. I recall very little about it other than that.

I think there were some that had a front and a back page to the form, and others just had a front page. Maybe my brain cells are fried. It was a while back.

 

[jaysouth]

There were no 'secret' army units. You might be assigned to a unit that was using a unit name (Studies and observation group, for instance) that had a publically stated headquarters location and goal but was at undisclosed locations doing classified work.

I was once the post adjutant for a local American Legion post. I used to get inquiries from applicants who were in 'secret units' who had no public records or who were doing such secret work that they did not "exist", or from the wannabes whose records were destroyed in the St.Louis records center fire. One of our members was an 0-6 serving in J1 at the Pentagon about ten miles away.

He shared with us, a copy of an army document detailing 'secret units' and the records lost in the infamous records center fire. Everyone in the U.S. Army is assigned to a unit of public record listed in the army TO. The so called records fire in St.Louis only destroyed those records of U.S.A.F. personnel who were decharged in the late 50s or thereabouts.

In my long association with veterans, I have encountered WWII veterans with faulty memories, Korean Veterans who were trying to forget and about 10,000 Viet Nam veterans who were just out and out lying about their service. If you encounter a Viet vet who tells you that he was a clerk or cook or truck driver, he is surely telling the truth. If someone claims to be a 'grunt', he is likely telling you the truth. But if you encounter someone who was an 'airborne ranger, sniper, green beret or CIA assassin, do not leave your change on the bar when you go to the bathroom. To be sure, there were several dozen trained army snipers, hundreds of brave souls serving in division LRRP units that were later flagged as the 75th Ranger Regiment and thousands of gallant men who served in the 5th and 1st special forces in VN. Only problem is that I have met about ten million of them in the ensuing years.