B. G. Burkett is the author of the book Stolen Valor

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...

. The son of an air force colonel, he joined the US Army in June 1966. Growing up his "heroes were not sports figures like Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Charles Mantle was an American professional baseball player. Mantle is regarded by many to be the greatest switch hitter of all time, and one of the greatest players in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.Mantle was noted for his hitting...

 and Willie Mays

Willie Mays

Willie Howard Mays, Jr. is a retired American professional baseball player who played the majority of his major league career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his...

 but the fighter pilots who had blasted the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

out of the sky". Life on a military base imbued in him "an understanding that the military was the guardian of the freedoms enjoyed by the civilian population."

External links

• ISBN 0-9667036-0-X — Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History