Brian Dennehy gained recognition for his remarkable roles in movies like First Blood (1982), F/X (1986), and Romeo + Juliet (1996), among others. Besides his acting career, he was a US Marine Corps veteran who served from 1958 to 1963. However, Dennehy’s inaccurate claims about serving during the Vietnam War caused controversy and faced criticism. His statements, reiterated throughout his life, were disheartening for those who truly experienced the difficulties and sacrifices of the war.
Instances of people falsifying or overstating their military service, often called stolen valor, are not unusual. The motivations for this range from seeking financial benefits from government entities and the public to wanting the recognition granted to true war heroes who directly confronted the enemy.
Online platforms have made obtaining medals and uniforms easier, and social media provides a space for people to create any persona they wish. Even before the internet, fabricating military service was relatively easy due to the difficulty in verifying such claims. After all, who would lie about being a war veteran?
While it may seem unlikely for a celebrity to engage in such deceit, history has shown otherwise.
Dennehy got his start in Hollywood in 1977, featuring in two films and three television series. His breakthrough came with the inaugural Rambo film, First Blood, where he played Sheriff Will Teasle. This role marked one of his most memorable performances, leading to numerous opportunities in the following decades.
Dennehy earned the admiration of audiences worldwide, with his military service further enhancing his esteemed reputation.
Here is what we know about Dennehy’s service in the Marine Corps. He enlisted on September 15, 1959, and was stationed for a time on Okinawa, where he played football. He left the military on June 4, 1963, just under four years later, before the Vietnam War had really begun to heat up.
Throughout his career, Dennehy claimed to have served in Vietnam. He told Playboy that he’d done a five-year tour during the war, during which he’d suffered minor injuries in combat. He appeared to go more in-depth when speaking with The New York Times, elaborating that the injuries he’d sustained were caused by shrapnel. He also claimed to have gotten a concussion.
He even acted like he knew the mindset of those who’d had to kill while serving, telling Playboy, “As for killing someone, anyone in combat would agree that it’s pretty much accidental. It’s not what you’re thinking about. You spend a considerable amount of time just trying not to be in a combat situation. You’re trying to avoid coming face-to-face with anything. So when something bad happens, it’s usually accidental.
“But the implication in war movies is that war has this rational beginning, middle and end. And of course none of it does,” he continued. “It’s absolutely f*****g chaos. Apocalypse Now is the movie. Even more interesting is that it was made so soon after the war was over. It was and is the most sophisticated overview of the experience.”
The truth is, Dennehy never served in Vietnam, and he issued a public apology for his lies in 1998 after being called out by B.G. “Jug” Burkett, a real-life veteran of the conflict who’s dedicated his post-war life to outing instances of stolen valor.
“I lied about serving in Vietnam and I’m sorry,” Dennehy told The Globe. “I did not mean to take away from the actions and the sacrifices of the ones who did really serve there…I did steal valor. That was very wrong of me. There is no real excuse for that. I was a peace-time Marine, and I got out in 1963 without ever serving in Vietnam… I started the story that I had been in ‘Nam, and I got stuck with it. Then I didn’t know how to set the record straight.”
As CBS News points out, the closest the actor ever got to “action” during the war was by portraying Marine Sgt. Ned T. “Frozen Chosen” Coleman in the made-for-TV movie, A Rumor of War (1980).
However, despite admitting he’d lied about the extent of his military service, Dennehy began telling the same falsehoods less than 10 years later. As The Denver Post reports, in 2007, he told a journalist with The Wall Street Journal that he’d served in Vietnam. As it turns out, he didn’t feel all that bad about exaggerating the extent of his service; he wasn’t sorry.
Aside from criticism from veterans and the families of those who served in combat, Dennehy’s career mostly remained unaffected by his admission of stolen valor. This may be because the general public didn’t fully grasp the significance of his claims, or because such behavior in Hollywood often goes unpunished.
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Every instance of stolen valor should be examined with the same level of scrutiny, regardless of the celebrity involved. These claims undermine the genuine bravery of veterans who risked their lives for freedom and deserve our acknowledgment and appreciation, whether they served in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, or any other conflict.