Richard Blumenthal - Vietnam Service

Summary

Throughout his career, Attorney General Blumenthal has made statements which either directly noted that he served in Vietnam, or eluded to service in Vietnam. He also made no attempts to counter news stories and literature which he did not produce that stated that he served in Vietnam.

After announcing his run for the US Senate, it was discovered that Mr Blumenthal received five deferments to avoid enlisting and then finally received an appointment to a Marine reserve unit which never left the state. Attorney General has admitted that he did not serve in Vietnam and stated that he did not intend to mislead anyone about his service.

 

Vietnam Service Statements

On May 17, 2010, the New York Times ran a story noting statements that Attorney General Blumenthal had made concerning his service in Vietnam. What follows are excerpts from that story.

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal stated the following:

We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam, 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.

In 2003, he addressed a rally in Bridgeport, where about 100 military families gathered to express support for American troops overseas. He made the following statements:

When we returned, we saw nothing like this. Let us do better by this generation of men and women.

At a 2008 ceremony in front of the Veterans War Memorial Building in Shelton, he praised the audience for paying tribute to troops fighting abroad, noting that America had not always done so.

I served during the Vietnam era. I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.

At other times, Attorney General Blumenthal has been more clear about his service. In a Senate debate in March, he responded to a question about Iran and the use of military force by saying:

Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand the effects of military action, and no one wants it to be the first resort, nor do we want to mortgage the country’s future with a deficit that is ballooning out of control.

 

Descriptions of Service

In at least eight newspaper articles published in Connecticut from 2003 to 2009, Attorney General Blumenthal 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 2000, it said he had “enlisted in the Marines rather than duck the Vietnam draft.”

It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes. (text from NYT story).

 

Actual Service

Richard Blumenthal received five deferments while in college.  Two of those came as an under-graduate while at Harvard (1963-1967). He obtained a third deferment in 1968 to attend Trinity College in Britain for Graduate Studies. By the summer of 1968, Mr. Blumenthal’s draft classification changed from 2-S, an educational deferment, to 2-A, an occupational deferment — a rare exemption from military service for men who contended that it was in the “national health, safety and interest” for them to remain in their civilian jobs. At the time, he was working as a special assistant to Ms. Graham, whose son Donald he had befriended at Harvard. Half a year later, after the election of President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Blumenthal went to work in the White House as a senior staff assistant to Mr. Moynihan, who was Nixon’s urban affairs adviser.

But at the end of that year, he became eligible for induction after he drew a low number in a draft lottery held on Dec. 1, 1969. His number was 152, and people with numbers as high as 195 could be drafted, according to the Selective Service.

Two months after the lottery, in February 1970, Mr. Blumenthal obtained a second occupational deferment, according to the records. The status of people with occupational deferments, however, was growing shakier, with the war raging and the Nixon administration increasingly uncomfortable with them.

In April 1970, Mr. Blumenthal secured a spot in the Marine Corps Reserve, which was regarded as a safe harbor for those who did not want to go to war. (Text from NYT Story).

 

Response

In response to the controversy, Attorney General Blumenthal stated that he got into the reserves by picking up the phone and calling the reserves. He notes that he volunteered when others refused to serve.

 

MSNBC Discussion

The issue was discussed on MSNBC days after the news broke.

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