Over the past three decades The War Library has heard from a thousands of individuals claiming they served in military or combat operations either on land or at sea in Vietnam. None of these claimants were able to confirm their alleged war history with any military-issued documentation presented by themselves, or found in military archives by The War Library. Many of these false 'war veterans' claim their alleged Vietnam service was "classified", and therefore never recorded. This, of course, is a lie. The US military never sends Active Duty, Reservist or National Guard military personnel to any war zone without officially documenting that service for the obvious reasons of compiling factual death stats or notifying next of kin in the event of injury or death. Additionally, the Vietnam Service Medal has never been 'classified'... it is not secret. Lastly, all Vietnam War operations were declassified in 1993 by US President William Jefferson Clinton, who with USSR President Boris Yeltsin, publicly agreed in signed documents to de-classfy ALL military operations conducted by both countries dating back to WW1 for the specific purpose of accounting for an individual's war service or MIA/POW status!

As of this date The American War Library estimates that approximately 610,000 Americans who served on land in Vietnam or in the air over Vietnam between 1954 and 1975 are alive today. And approximately 164,000 Americans who served at sea in Vietnam waters are alive today.

PLEASE NOTE: The above numbers do not include the approximate 2500-3000 US Air Force personnel who operated in Guam, Thailand or other countries far remote from combat exposure that were authorized the Vietnam Service Medal by the USAF for providing support to air crews flying over Vietnam, but themselves did not spend any amount of time in harm's way.

Because of faulty record keeping there is no confirmed number of Americans who served in Vietnam. The best estimate that the Department of Defense can conclude is that between 2,709,918 to 3,173,845 GI's served in-country and in-waters Vietnam between 1954 and 1975 (this does not count the handful of Americans who served in Vietnam during WW2). However, veterans groups estimate that today approximately 9 to 12 million Americans fraudulently claim they served in Vietnam.