The phenomenon of veteran impersonation was pretty well established after the Civil War. As I've linked here before,

William Marvel has written that every one of the last dozen recognized living Confederate veterans was bogus.

And in 1917, the rolls of the Medal of Honor had to be purged of actual Civil War veterans who in no way deserved to be there.

Interesting to see the problem continues.:

B.G. "Jug" Burkett, a Vietnam vet who is now a stockbroker in Dallas, feels the same way. Almost any time he reads a newspaper article about someone claiming to be a Vietnam veteran, he digs into their background and files a request for their military records. Over the past 15 years, Burkett said, he has investigated perhaps 2,000 claims of military service; at least 1,500 of them were bogus in one way or another.

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