Exaggerations coming back to bite him

Critics weigh Blumenthal's words

Excerpt:

"I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support."

The occasion was the Stamford Veterans Days parade: Nov. 9, 2008.

The speaker was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, as quoted by The Advocate.

A trove of potential bulletin board material was unearthed Tuesday by Hearst Connecticut Newspapers from its archives quoting the once seemingly unflappable U.S. Senate candidate on his military record, one that he has been accused of embellishing.

During a May 18, 2009, military board tribute to veterans in Shelton, Blumenthal was quoted by the Connecticut Post as saying, "When we returned from Vietnam, I remember the taunts, the verbal and even physical abuse we encountered."

A year later at a Stratford Memorial Day event covered by the Post, Blumenthal dropped the "we" reference but didn't go out of his way to say that he never went to Vietnam.

"I am called general all the time in my role, but the highest rank I will ever have in life is as a sergeant in the United States Marines," said Blumenthal, who went on to comment how tough it was for veterans of the unpopular conflict to return to "taunts and jeers."

Blumenthal's critics claim that the Democrat's veiled references to serving in Vietnam, which the candidate himself qualified as rare and unintentional misstatements but now number at least five, establish a pattern of duplicity that calls his credibility into question.

"At one point I wanted to go up to him a couple of years ago and say, 'Hey Dick, you're giving the impression you were on the battlefield," said former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., "I thought that might come back to bite him."

Comment: Update on "since the days that I served in Vietnam"

"since the days that I served in Vietnam"

Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History

Excerpt:

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

...

In at least eight newspaper articles published in Connecticut from 2003 to 2009, he is described as having served in Vietnam.

The New Haven Register on July 20, 2006, described him as “a veteran of the Vietnam War,” and on April 6, 2007, said that the attorney general had “served in the Marines in Vietnam.” On May 26, 2009, The Connecticut Post, a Bridgeport newspaper that is the state’s third-largest daily, described Mr. Blumenthal as “a Vietnam veteran.” The Shelton Weekly reported on May 23, 2008, that Mr. Blumenthal “was met with applause when he spoke about his experience as a Marine sergeant in Vietnam.”

And the idea that he served in Vietnam has become such an accepted part of his public biography that when a national outlet, Slate magazine, produced a profile of Mr. Blumenthal in 2006, it said he had “enlisted in the Marines rather than duck the Vietnam draft.”

My own lack of service in Viet Nam: I was 2S all through college. In the draft lottery of 1969 my number was 311 (August 19th). Selective service did not draft that deep (that high). Had I to do life over again, I would join the Marines. One of the big mistakes of my life!