Washington Times: Citizen of the year' denied OK to carry gun
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020129-865799.htm

Donald G. Arnold is a Vietnam veteran and president of his neighborhood association. He was named a 'citizen of the year' by Maryland in 2000 for his work with police in southeast Baltimore to stop drug dealers and make the city safer.None of that mattered, however, when Mr. Arnold tried to renew his permit to carry a gun that he needed in his work as a private detective and security guard. What mattered was that he was convicted in 1969 of a misdemeanor in a barroom scuffle after a man who spotted his Army jacket called him a 'baby killer.' Mr. Arnold no longer can carry a gun on the job, and the restriction, he estimates, has cost him about $10,000 in work he has had to turn down.

Ventura discloses he didn't see combat in Vietnam War http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/1130195.html

Gov. Jesse Ventura, who has used his military record to deflect criticism and bash foes but has kept mostly mum on what he did during the Vietnam War, has disclosed for the first time that he did not see combat.

'To the best of my knowledge, I was never fired upon,' Ventura said in an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press for an article published Monday about his years as a Navy SEAL in the 1970s.

Ventura had suggested in an interview with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis last year that he had 'hunted man,' but wouldn't give details then or now. And he has steadfastly refused to disclose much about his two overseas deployments, which totaled 17 months, saying his commanding officer gave their unit strict orders never to talk about what they had seen or done.

Woman finds soldier whose name was on MIA-POW Bracelet
http://www.heraldargus.com/content/story.php?storyid=239

Jerraly Stark had the resolve and perseverance to locate her biological mother and half-sister at age 33.

It took those same qualities to find Vietnam prisoner of war Ben Purcell -- more than 33 years after purchasing a bracelet emblazoned with the U.S. soldier's name.

Stark, 57, a lifelong LaPorte County resident and a 1963 graduate of Elston High School, bought a $2.50 nickel bracelet in 1968.

Vet Wounded by Disability Rules
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2001/dec/28/vetwounded28.htm

Albert 'Bud' Krapf spent part of the Vietnam War flying Special Forces troops out of Vietnam and into Laos and Cambodia. It wasn't until years later - long after Krapf had resigned from active duty, had helped raise six children and retired from the reserves – that he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Krapf said he lost a job teaching in the Brookline schools due to his condition. The Veterans Administration later classified him as 100 percent disabled, and he was put on disability.

Vietnam War hero learned to turn tragedy into triumph
http://www.messenger-inquirer.com/evening/3877919.htm

In 1967, Clebe McClary was a lieutenant in the Vietnam War leading a 13-man unit behind enemy lines. He was of impeccable health then, with a resting heart rate of 37 beats per minute.

But a grenade that tore off his left arm and ripped out his left eye changed his life.

Today, the 60-year-old travels around the country giving inspirational talks on how to survive life's battles no matter where they occur or how tough they may seem.

'Sometimes you have to get your feet knocked out from under you before you can look up,' McClary .

Vets did and are doing their duty http://www.journalstar.com/native?story_id=115&date=
It was supposed to be a milk run, a routine supply mission of a patrol unit in the field. But the muggy, Vietnamese afternoon spiraled out of control as Matt Jones' chopper crashed to the ground.

The crash killed the pilot and mortally wounded the co-pilot and second gunner. Jones, with few medical supplies and little training, did what he could for his buddies for two hours until enemy soldiers forced him to take to the jungle.

The 53-year-old Kiowa-Otoe-Missouri described those two hours as the worst of his life.

Vietnam Vet Helps to Undo Agent Orange Damage http://www.sltrib.com/11092001/nation_w/147263.htm
A beaming Nguyen Thi Thoa, 16, traced the scars on her face, showing where the disfiguring blotches had been removed. 'I have a new face and I'm so happy,' she said Thursday on her return to Hanoi after surgery in the United States. 'I thought I would have to live with my old face forever.' The surgery was made possible by Vietnam War veteran Tom Joyce, who came back with the teen-ager this week.

Joyce, a political activist who served in Vietnam in the Army's 101^st Airborne, had returned to the country to find out more about Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used by the American military during the war. It has been associated with cancer, birth defects and miscarriages, though a direct link to those health problems remains unproven.

The Last Missing Woman http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/texas/1095260
A headline in the New York Times that day read, '3 U.S. Missionaries Kidnapped by Vietcong in Raid on Hospital.' Photographs of Ardel Vietti and fellow missionaries Daniel Gerber and the Rev. Archie Mitchell accompanied the story.

After almost 40 years and the efforts of many people and organizations to find the missionaries, their fate remains the jungle's secret. To this day, Eleanor Ardel Vietti (she seldom used her first name) is the only American woman -- civilian or military -- still considered missing in Vietnam. The ratio of civilian to military women lost in Vietnam seems staggering; eight military women, compared with 58 civilian women.

Lobsterman helps put the crimp on phony Navy SEALs http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/01/10/22/14583316.cfm

On average, the 55-year-old Waterman -- a lobsterman, photographer, commercial diver and computer consultant -- devotes an hour a day to unmasking bogus SEALs.

Two years ago, Waterman and some of his SEAL buddies traveled to Massachusetts with a BBC crew in tow and knocked on the door of a man who claimed to be a Vietnam-era SEAL who had won the Navy Cross and received
three Purple Hearts. After being dressed down, the man vowed never again to lie about his military record.

But mostly, Waterman just posts the names of 'outed' fake SEALs on the Internet (cyberseals.org) on a 'Wall of Shame' that spells out their transgressions. A one-star rating goes to 'keyboard commandos' who make anonymous claims online. The worst offenders, who are given five stars, are those who lie for personal gain, in some cases to burnish a campaign for public office.

Vietnam Veterans Of America Calls For Immediate Action Regarding Vietnam War Biological Tests http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1018-113.html

Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) National President Thomas H. Corey expressed the organization's deep concern upon learning that the U.S. government used live biological agents on Vietnam War veterans in a series
of experiments designed to test the military's ability to deal with such agents, according to a Pentagon fact sheet provided to VVA.

'We are outraged -- but not surprised -- that American military personnel were used as de facto guinea pigs in these experiments,' said Corey. 'Our understanding is that the Pentagon's Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Medical Readiness, and Military Deployments (OSAGWI/MR/MD) has the names of those exposed but has not released that information to the Veterans Administration. We call upon the Pentagon to release any and all records associated with these experiments and to aggressively seek out those veterans who were exposed to determine their health status.'

So-called Vet's Vietnam stories just that
http://www.sptimes.com/News/101201/TampaBay/Records__Vietnam_stor.shtml

Luney, who is now the subject of a federal investigation regarding the funneling of VA grant money to a non-profit agency he also ran, spent his active military career stateside. He did stints from 1970 to 1974 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, military records show.

'If he had served in Vietnam, it would be reflected in his record,' said William Coleman, spokesman for the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

As for his undercover work with Bob Hope, Coleman said: 'It makes a good story. It might make a good movie.'

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