Stolen Valor Stolen Valor : How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History is a self - published book by B . G . Burkett & Glenna Whitley which asserts both that there is a popular view of Vietnam War veterans as broken men and psychopaths and that this view is false . In addition the book purports to document " wannabes " : people lying about Vietnam experience , often when they had never been there . B . G . Burkett is a Vietnam War Veteran who served with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade as a company grade officer . Glenna Whitley is an investigative journalist who writes about crime and the legal system . Contents . " Stolen Valor " is divided into 4 parts and an appendix . Part I ( The Image ) begins with a chapter about B . G . Burkett ' s time in the Army . The next four chapters detail the author ' s argument that the image of the Vietnam Veteran was tarnished by a combination of media coverage , Veteran imposters , US citizens ' anger against the draft , and a perception of the veteran as a victim . Part II ( The Trauma of War ) looks into the diagnoses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Vietnam Veterans and how it is treated by the Veteran ' s Administration and the rise of war atrocity accusations against Vietnam Veterans . It also does further analysis of the effects of people , the author believes to be Vietnam War Veteran imposters , on the image of the Vietnam Veteran , specifically , the lack of investigation by the news media into the background of these possible veterans . This part delves into what the author believes to be the mislabeling of one of the causes of homelessness , the Vietnam War . Part III ( Stolen Valor ) describes what the author believes to be a widespread wearing of Vietnam War specific medals , ribbons and badges by people who did not earn them . The author , using the Freedom of Information Act , was able to retrieve records of individuals who claimed they served in Vietnam during the War and he used this method to denounce people who didn ' t have records to support their service , badges , ribbons and medals . In this section , the author also demonstrates his disbelief in the idea that minorities participated in rates higher than their percentage of the populations . In Part IV ( Victims and Heroes ) , the author discusses what he believes to be a myth about the effects of Agent Orange , profiling pilots from the Vietnam War who flew Agent Orange delivery missions in Vietnam and who have not had an increase in health effects since then . In this section , the author also denounces the Vietnam Veterans of America , calling them " Vietnam Victims of America . " The Appendices provide lists of Medal of Honor awardees , Distinguished Service Cross awardees , Navy Cross awardees , Air Force Cross awardees and U . S . military POWs who survived their captivity . Reception . Mackubin Thomas Owens , an adjunct fellow at the Ashbrook Center , a professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport , R . I . , and a Marine infantry veteran of Vietnam , praised Burkett as finding impostors by doing " something that any reporter worth his or her salt could have done : he used the Freedom of Information Act ( FOIA ) to check the actual records of the ' image makers ' used by reporters to flesh out their stories on homelessness , Agent Orange , suicide , drug abuse , criminality , or alcoholism . " Vietnam veteran Dave Curry , in a review published by Vietnam Veterans Against the War , accused Burkett and his coauthor of displaying political partisanship , making " errors in research methodology , " making misleading statements about Winter Soldier Investigation participants , and denigrating the experiences and motives of veterans who subsequently opposed the war . A 2009 article in " Columbia Journalism Review " discussed the way " Stolen Valor " exposed the media ' s gullibility in covering con artists who claim battlefield heroics or atrocities .