Brian Dennehy gained recognition for his memorable performances in films such as First Blood (1982), F/X (1986), and Romeo + Juliet (1996), among others. Alongside his acting career, he served in the US Marine Corps from 1958 to 1963. However, Dennehy caused controversy and faced backlash for falsely claiming that he had served in the Vietnam War. His repeated claims were enraging to those who had actually experienced the hardships and sacrifices of the conflict.
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 in 1998, he issued a public apology for his lies after being called out by B.G. “Jug” Burkett, a real veteran of the conflict who has dedicated his post-war life to exposing cases 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 notes, 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 his military service, Dennehy began repeating the same falsehoods less than 10 years later. As The Denver Post reports, in 2007, he told a journalist from The Wall Street Journal that he’d served in Vietnam. As it turns out, he didn’t feel all that bad about stretching the truth of his service; clearly he wasn’t really sorry.
Apart from facing backlash from veterans and the families of servicemen who saw combat, Dennehy’s professional career saw little impact following his confession of stolen valor. This could be attributed to a lack of complete understanding among the wider population on the gravity of his lies or to the common leniency towards such behavior in the entertainment industry.
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Each case of stolen valor deserves equal scrutiny, no matter the status of the person involved. Such claims diminish the true bravery of veterans who courageously served and sacrificed for our freedoms, and deserve recognition and thanks, regardless of their deployment in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, or any other conflict.