Sole survivor? 50K bounty on his head? They are combat indicators of massive liar!
Claims he arrived in Saigon (actually Ho Chi Minh City ) September 1976! Was he a member of the Vietnamese Peoples Army?
The Barrett 50 Cal Sniper Rifle went into US Army operational service in 1990 during Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm yet, he was making record distance kill shots in 1976!
According to Jack, a sniper is basically classified as a murderer, a killer.
“Nobody likes him. Nobody. Not even your commanding officer likes you, they don’t because you are above them. They’re scared of you.”
The truth is out there, his ex wife put the boots to his fairy tale in an email to us.
Apologies to Staff Sergeant Barry Sandler, the author/singer of the “Ballad of the Green Berets”
Sniper finds love in war of seclusion
Posted by Lyonel Doherty | Nov 11, 2020 | Community, Featured |
(The online story is no longer available however, the text version in available)
Vietnam veteran Jack Proulx grew up with a huge chip on his shoulder, getting into trouble with the law until a judge gave him an ultimatum: jail or the army? That changed his life forever, looking down the sights of a 50-calibre sniper rifle.
Lyonel Doherty
Times-Chronicle
Though he was one of the best, nobody wanted anything to do with Jack Proulx. Maybe it was because his only friend was a sniper rifle that could erase you from a mile away. Maybe it was because he never missed.
Whatever the reason, he didn’t really care. He had a job and he followed orders; that was all that mattered. Until he met Wilhelmina, his resolute protector. But we’ll get to her later because Jack had a war to fight.
His life began in 1954 in Penticton, courtesy of Paul and Alice Proulx. Sadly, they divorced when Jack was only six years old. At age 12 he was old enough to tell a judge which parent he wanted to live with; he chose his father in Penticton as opposed to his mother who moved back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Five years later he found himself in trouble with the law in the deep south. “I had a chip on my shoulder; I would fight at the drop of a hat,” Jack said, recalling his less than desirable upbringing.
In front of one judge in Louisiana, he was charged with assault after seriously hurting someone in a fight. The magistrate acknowledged that he wasn’t a bad person who simply needed some direction, and since he liked fighting so much, she gave him a choice – jail for a year or he could sign up for the army for a two-year hitch. “I don’t like crowbar hotels (jails), been in a few prior to that.” Okay, where do I sign? he asked.
“I had nothing going for me. I was, like she said, a lost soul who needed direction.” At 17, he went down the hall, signed the papers and that was it. You had to be 18 to join the military back then, but the army made an exception because the judge requested it. Jack treated the order as punishment and found his first three months in the army very difficult. He often questioned the officers and the orders they gave him, which was taboo in the army.
One day his drill sergeant told Jack he was a good soldier but had to lose the attitude. “All we’ve done is try to make a better man of you, so you need to get that chip off your shoulder and forget about your past and start living for the future.” Days later Jack received an invite to the sergeant’s house for dinner. Oh, no, here’s another lecture, he thought. But after three days of being treated like family, something happened. “When I left that house and went back to my barracks, back to duty, my life just changed, Jack said, choking up. “I understood what they were trying to tell me.”
After graduating from advanced infantry training in Missouri, Jack was shown a film about the Special Forces division, which trained top notch soldiers. He wanted to be one of them, so he signed up. Among many skills, he learned how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. In the end, he was one of two recruits who graduated from the program; the other three dropped out.
After 30 days leave, he shipped out for his first tour in Vietnam in 1971. From 1972 to 1975 he was training people around the world, training them how to shoot since he was an elite sniper. Jack got out of the service in 1975 and became a civilian for six months, but he couldn’t handle it because he needed a regimented lifestyle. So, he re-enlisted and returned to Vietnam, landing in Saigon in September of 1976. “I remember that I got off the plane and the chaplain was there,” he said, recalling the Special Forces rituals where soldiers talk to priests before their assignments. “It’s hard because this is part of who you are; you train, you live, you breathe, you eat this (profession).”
Jack never talked about his assignments after he left the army. It was too private, too difficult. “When I got out of the army, I was married, um, I uh, was gonna lose my wife because of my . . . life. I was shocked, I was wounded, I figured the world owed me.”
If someone made a loud noise around him, he would crawl underneath a table. If there was thunder outside . . . “I don’t know how many times my wife dug me out of the closet.” Jack came home after his second tour and had the scars to prove it – a gunshot and stab wound, which he sewed up himself.
As a sniper, he and his spotter lived a life of seclusion without a medic.
“There’s no chow line, there’s nothing. You eat your rations and that’s it.”
He noted that being a sniper is a very lonely existence because no one wants anything to do with you. According to Jack, a sniper is basically classified as a murderer, a killer. “Nobody likes him. Nobody. Not even your commanding officer likes you, they don’t because you are above them. They’re scared of you.”
Jack said his finger is only now starting to get its print back. “I used to sit for hours with a fingernail file and file that finger because of the fact that when you pull the trigger, you want every sensation on that trigger.” Jack admitted it was not a good feeling being a killer.
“Hell, (even) my spotter didn’t want anything to do with me. “But when you are given orders, you must carry them out, and you just “pray to God” that they are right. Jack always prided himself on knowing exactly that he was doing the right thing. “They had to prove to me that this needed to be done before I pulled the trigger.”
When he finally came home from duty, Jack stayed isolated from everyone, even his own family. One day when his mother woke him up for his medication, he instinctively lashed out and broke her jaw, which took 86 wires to mend. He felt so low after that he “needed a stepladder to kiss a rattlesnake’s butt.” That’s when he decided to get help by signing himself into a psychiatric hospital in Calgary. He remained there for six months.

Back to the jungle
Jack was always camouflaged with his surrounding area during assignments. He carried a 50-calibre Barrett rifle which he treated like solid gold. His farthest (and last) shot was a distance of 1,785 yards, taking many factors into account, such as windage, elevation and light. He had a starlight/starbright scope for day and night missions, which were dictated by his superiors.
Jack said the intelligence gathering was good in those days.
“I always double checked to make sure it was. I never, ever pulled the trigger on an innocent. I didn’t and I will not, and they knew that.”
Jack and his spotter had to walk to wherever they had to set up, and just waited until the opportunity arose.
“I’ve sat and waited for five days. You take shifts sleeping, you take shifts eating, you take shifts going to the latrine. “His targets were all high-profile people, such as generals and commanders. “They were shots that were necessary. They were shots that were . . . these people were instigating more and more fighting and we had to shut them down.” His superiors knew that if they took these targets out, it would disrupt the enemy and give U.S. ground forces more leverage.
“I’m not a hero; I was just a soldier, just one little piece of the big picture,” said Jack, who doesn’t want the hero badge and never asked for it.
But many times he found himself behind enemy lines, and if he would have got caught . . . he doesn’t even want to think about it.
“They had a price on my head when I left there, for the Vietnamese who would kill me. It was $50,000 U.S. for somebody that could take me out.”
Jack knew there were enemy snipers after him, in fact, there were many times he had to firefight his way out.
He said the unfortunate fact about Barrett is its muzzle flash, which can give away your position. “Once that muzzle flash went off, you better hope to hell you had a good escape route because they were coming after you. They knew where you were.” Jack said he never missed a shot in his life.
He recalled one assignment with his spotter (nicknamed Priebbe), who was a “short, sawed-off little runt.” But, boy, was he good, Jack said.
They got sent into a place to take care of a problem, a warmongering general.
Jack and Priebbe did their usual reconnaissance and waited for four days. Finally, the target showed up and Jack made the shot.
“Just as the shot sounded, all hell broke loose. I don’t know how they found out where we were that fast.” Normally, the target is laying on the ground before you hear the shot, Jack explained. But this time they came under fire immediately. So they ran like hell to their landing zone for extraction. But on the way they encountered three Viet Cong, which forced them into hand-to-hand combat.
Jack took a bayonet in the arm, and Priebbe got one in the leg,” Jack recalled. But they managed to take care of business and make it to the extraction point. In the chopper, Jack proceeded to sew up his own arm, while Priebbe took the sewing needle to his leg.
Jack’s last shot (a general) in Saigon was just as memorable. At the time, all of the American forces were trying to pull out of Vietnam. He said nobody could ever get a clear shot at this general, however, their intelligence told them he would be at a certain spot at a certain time.
The shot was more than a mile (1,785 yards), but Jack figured if this was going to put a stop to the “bullshit,” he was going to do it.
It was the only time he missed the exact mark he was aiming for (off by one inch). “He still dropped. He wasn’t going to walk again, he wasn’t going to live again.” After the shot, they headed to the landing zone, with Priebbe leading the way with the M16 (to deal with any resistance). “We didn’t think anybody was behind us, honestly.”
Jack was shot and he went down, and he heard the helicopter pilot tell Priebbe to leave him because he was dead. But Priebbe said he wasn’t leaving anybody behind, especially Jack. “So, you hold that f–king bird and you keep it on the ground or I’ll shoot you out of the air,” Priebbe told the pilot. He then threw Jack over his shoulder and piled him into the chopper, where a machine gunner was laying ground fire with an M60.
Jack remembered waking up in Frankfurt, Germany where doctors tended to his wound, a bullet in the buttocks. And he still has the bullet in there because it’s lodged in the lower part of his spine.
“If they take it out they (doctors) can’t guarantee I’ll ever walk again.”
Jack was sent home to the loving arms of his wife in Louisiana in 1977.

Veteran soldier Jack Proulx reads an emotional love letter from his wife, who promised her faithfulness and devotion during the Vietnam war.
He reminisced about the time he met Wilhelmina, a Dutch girl. He was on leave and decided to explore Holland. Well, he and his comrades got “tanked up” and they wanted to visit the red light district, but Jack decided to check out a local tavern. He couldn’t remember where his hotel was, so the barmaid (Wilhelmina) invited him to her home to stay overnight. But he explained he wasn’t that type of guy, to which she replied she lived with her parents.
He slept on the couch and awoke the next morning to an older lady standing over him talking in Dutch. “My mom wants to know what you want for breakfast,” Wilhelmina said as she came down the stairs. That night he went back to the tavern to see her and they just “hit it off.” “Finally, (after two and a half weeks) I said to her, ‘let’s get married.’” She said, “Ya.” “We just knew, we knew. I could start a sentence and she’d finish it. She could start a sentence and I’d finish it. We just knew that we were meant to be.”
Rummaging through his war memorabilia, Jack came across a letter she wrote to him 45 years ago: “Sweetheart, I love you very much. I can hardly wait for you to come home. You’re the most important person in my life. No one or anything else is more important than you are. Before I met you, I thought all men were the same, but you proved me wrong. You gave me everything I ever wanted in life. You don’t have to worry about me being unfaithful to you because I will never screw around on you. I’ve got what I want in life and that’s all I need.”
Jack paused a moment before saying that Wilhelmina now has dementia and is in a care home in Penticton. Sometimes she forgets who he is but he still calls her his “rock.” “She has always been right beside me. Always. When I came home (from Vietnam), I don’t know what I would have done without her,” he said in tears. “She saved me. She was my rock. Five foot nothing, a hundred and five pounds and she was my rock.”
That love letter was in a hope chest that survived a fire that destroyed their home in Louisiana. “When the house caught on fire, I literally threw her out of the bedroom window. Went running back in, got my two kids and threw them out the same window, and the last thing she said to me was, ‘Grab the hope chest.’” They sat there and watched their house burn to the ground. What they had left was in that hope chest.
Jack said he is the only one left in his original platoon, noting everyone else either committed suicide or died in accidents or drug overdoses.
“When we came home from Vietnam we were not liked, even by our own people. We were called baby killers, we were . . . (shunned).”
Jack had to pick up odd jobs to support his family. He was never one to freeload and never relied on employment insurance. He visits Wilhelmina, 72, whenever he can, despite her memory getting worse. “She hardly remembers me,” he said. Last week she was having a good day and told Jack to find another woman because “you can’t live alone.” “I told her, no, nobody can ever even come close to you.” The standard (set) is too high.”
Jack turns 66 on Remembrance Day.
And, there’s more!
The Guardians of the Green Beret in the U.S. are also challenging his story, refuting most of the veteran’s tale of war.
Proulx, 66, was interviewed by the Times-Chronicles as part of the newspaper’s annual Remembrance Day coverage in 2020. He detailed his exploits as a Special Forces sniper during the Vietnam conflict in the 1970s.
But the Times-Chronicle recently received more than a dozen emails, some from former veterans, who questioned several of Proulx’s facts that he presented, saying the story is just as fictional as a Rambo film.
The story was featured on Stolen Valour Canada, an independent website consisting of Canadian Forces veterans.
Ant Fisher, representing the website, said they believe Proulx is a US Army veteran, but “it appears he’s also an embellisher.”
Fisher noted there are a few “red flags” related to his story published on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11. For example, Proulx said he returned to Vietnam (Saigon) in 1976, but the fact is the conflict was over by then and US troops left south Vietnam in 1973, Fisher noted.
He also pointed out the Barrett 50-calibre sniper rifle that Proulx said he was using didn’t come into service until 1990 during Operation Desert Shield. Fisher said they were not able to track down Proulx’s records.
“His interview leaves us with many unanswered questions that could be easily sorted out with him providing a copy of his DD-214, a document which every US service member (should have) on the completion of a period of active duty.”
Fisher said Stolen Valour Canada was unable to contact Proulx.
“We understand that misremembering dates is one thing . . . if he was legit, he’d be a legend in the US Army. Soldiers would know of his exploits and ranges and buildings would be named after him.”
In a follow-up interview, Proulx addressed the allegations. “This . . . this is stupidity is what it is. But, I mean, if they want to come after me, they can come after me with guns blazing.”
The veteran stated he has a lawyer looking into the allegations.
Proulx said the Barrett sniper rifle he was using was actually a prototype that was issued to the US Army before it was purchased in 1982.
“There was only about half a dozen of them issued. I can’t tell you exact numbers because it was ‘hush, hush.’ They were an experiment is what they were.”
However, retired Master Cpl. Michael Barclay from Innisfail, AB, said his research proves otherwise. “The rifle wasn’t even thought about until 1982, hence the name M82. There was no prototype before 1982.”
Barclay said the idea for the Barrett rifle came from a professional photographer named Ronnie Barrett in 1982. Yes, there was probably a prototype back then, but Barrett’s first rifle wasn’t completed until 1982, he reiterated.
This information is widely known on the internet and supported by Kenneth Rocheleau, a veteran of two tours in Iraq.
“A Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle weighs about 30 pounds empty. That is not something that you would carry with you trudging through the jungle. It is used only in specific situations and usually by snipers that are static.”
But Proulx said if the people who are questioning his story are military, as they claim to be, “they should know that nobody is going to admit having any experimental weapon.”
Rocheleau came back with: “Of course, he’ll say it (was) experimental and that no record of it exists. Just claim that it’s classified or something, then they have an excuse for why they have zero proof.”
Proulx acknowledged that the Vietnam war ended in 1975, but he maintains being sent back to Saigon a year later for “mop up” duty. “Just to make sure we got as many of our troops out as we could, looking for POWs (prisoners of war). There were troops in there until 1980.”
“If they would do their bloody research. That’s what I mean, these guys (making allegations) are Canadian; they don’t know what happened in the States. And why are they coming after me when I’m an American? This is what’s upsetting me. If they want to raise hell, get a hold of the head hunters down in the States and tell them to come after me.”
But Fisher said Proulx’s storyline of recovering POWs is very reminiscent of the Hollywood movie Uncommon Valour starring Gene Hackman.
Proulx said he doesn’t have his DD-214 military record because it was lost in a house fire in Louisiana. He is still trying (after three years) to get a copy of it from the US Army.
When asked if he embellished or exaggerated any of the facts that he presented in November, Proulx said he did not. He questioned why would he or anyone risk embellishing war facts when doing so would certainly bring heavy scrutinization. “What valour did I steal? I have never said anything about a medal, and I don’t talk about medal, never. Like I told you in that story, I’m a soldier, I’m not a hero.”
He also questioned if his accusers are certain they are talking about the right person.
“Do they even have the right Jack Proulx? There’s a hundred Jack Proulxs in this country. Are they mixing two stories with one or what? How many Jack Proulxs have military records?”
But Steve Antson, an investigator with the Guardians of the Green Beret, said nothing in Proulx’s story adds up historically.
“He would have been much too young to be a Green Beret. Him claiming to be Special Forces is totally bogus.”
According to the Guardians, starting basic training, then completing Special Forces training would take approximately a year.
The Guardians believe the veteran did not join the US Army in 1971, but rather in 1976 after the Vietnam war was over.
“On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to Communist forces.”
Antson said if Proulx was truly a Green Beret soldier, he would have been wearing the hat, instead of a blue beret with unidentifiable patches.
While Antson said his group has not seen Proulx’s military record, the investigator said he is “100 per cent” certain that the veteran was not a Special Forces sniper.
Did he really go back to Vietnam in 1976 to look for POWs?
“One hundred per cent no,” Antson said, pointing to the photo Proulx provided that showed him in a basic training group in 1976, the year he claimed he was sent back to Vietnam to search for missing soldiers.
“If he attempted Special Forces, which he did not, he would still have to complete the basic airborne course, pre-phase, and the Special Forces qualification course before he was assigned to a Special Forces unit,” Antson said.
As far as searching for POWs, he noted there was a former Green Beret by the name of Bo Gritz who conducted a mission in the mid 1980s.
Antson agreed there was no prototype of the Barrett sniper rifle in the 1970s.
“It’s hard to shoot a prototype for a rifle that wasn’t even an idea yet.”
The investigator said his group is more than willing to help Proulx get a copy of his military records (much quicker than he could himself).
“I can tell you with absolute certainty this will not happen as any and all recordings showing him as Special Forces only exist in his mind. You can quote us on that.”
Antson also took issue with a few other facts that Proulx relayed in the story.
One: a drill instructor would never take you away from training and invite you to his home for three days.
Two: the class size for a Special Forces qualification course would be between 70 and 110, not five as Proulx alluded to.
Three: snipers do not file their fingers to increase sensation on the trigger. “This has been portrayed and sensationalized in Hollywood movies only.”
Four: Proulx states he had a $50,000 bounty on his head. “This is completely false as this is more than the record that (sniper) Carlos Hathcock had on his head.”
Five: “If he served in combat as he said he did, he would have earned the combat infantry badge and he should have been wearing it on his uniform.”
Six: “Has anybody seen all those scars, including the gunshot wounds to his buttocks? They don’t exist . . . I’ll give him $1,000 to prove with an X-ray and certified letter from a VA doctor that a round is lodged close to his spine and it has been in him for 40 years as a result of the Vietnam war,” said Antson.
And seven: a photo of Proulx in front of a guard tank shows him wearing a regular army garrison cap instead of a Green Beret. “He looks like an E-1 Private with no parachutist badge.”
Proulx said Stolen Valour Canada has basically taken away his pride in what he has done.
The veteran said he suspects that someone in the Oliver Legion started the ball rolling on this “witch hunt.”
“I haven’t set foot in the Legion since I was aware of this, and I won’t now. I will not have anything to do with the Legion anymore.”
Proulx said he agreed to do the interview with the Times-Chronicle as a favour to the Legion, to make people aware of a soldier’s sacrifice.
Sandy Askewe-Power, 2nd vice-president of the Oliver Legion, was limited to what she could say about the matter due to a directive by Zone Command.
“All I can comment on is he (Proulx) is no longer a member of the Royal Canadian Legion of his own accord.”
One source within the Legion said Proulx did a commendable job raising money for veterans during the Remembrance Day poppy and wreath campaign.
Kathy Dyer, office assistant for Olds Legion in Alberta, where Proulx transferred from, said he was a member in good standing.
“To the best of my knowledge there were no red flags. We did not know him personally.”
