{"id":569310,"date":"2010-05-18T14:28:23","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T18:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.78187"},"modified":"2010-05-18T18:08:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T22:08:55","slug":"richard-blumenthal-defends-himself-on-vietnam-war-statements-says-he-misspoke-and-regrets-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/569310","title":{"rendered":"Richard Blumenthal Defends Himself On Vietnam War Statements; Says He Misspoke And Regrets It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><embed name=\"PaperVideoTest\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\" align=\"middle\" src=\"http:\/\/wtic.vid.trb.com\/player\/PaperVideoTest.swf\" width=\"500\" height=\"435\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" salign=\"l\" flashvars=\"&amp;titleAvailable=true&amp;layoutColumns=1&amp;carouselType=horz&amp;playerAvailable=true&amp;searchAvailable=false&amp;singleURL=http:\/\/wtic.vidcms.trb.com\/alfresco\/service\/edge\/content\/66a3a4ff-9ea7-4dc1-941d-e17c671043eb&amp;adZone=news&amp;adServ=trb.wtic2&amp;propName=wtic.com&amp;hostURL=http:\/\/www.fox61.com&amp;swfPath=http:\/\/wtic.vid.trb.com\/player\/&amp;omAccount=tribglobal&amp;omnitureServer=fox61.com&amp;autoPlayVideo=false\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" menu=\"true\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" devicefont=\"false\" wmode=\"opaque\" scale=\"showall\" loop=\"true\" play=\"true\" quality=\"high\"><\/p>\n<p>Attorney General Richard Blumenthal defended himself Tuesday following a front-page article in The New York Times and a widely circulated&nbsp;video that showed him&nbsp;saying that he served in Vietnam.<\/p>\n<p>With veterans standing behind him at a VFW Hall in West Hartford, Blumenthal&nbsp;said&nbsp;he regrets the times that he has misspoken about his service during the war.<\/p>\n<p>When he misspoke, Blumenthal said it was &#8220;absolutely unintentional&#8221; and &#8220;totally unintentional.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that,&#8221; Blumenthal said. &#8220;But I will not allow anyone to take a few missplaced words and impugn my record of service to my country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, and I am proud of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Regarding a statement from his campaign that The New York Times story was a distortion, he said, &#8220;The article denigrates service in the reserves. &#8230; It really implies there were some special favors or treatment involved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He mentioned&nbsp;several times that, despite his Ivy League background at Harvard College and high-profile positions at a young age, he did not receive any special treatment in the military.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.courant.com\/susan_campbell\/2010\/05\/ag-blumenthal-explains.html\">Susan Campbell: AG Blumenthal&nbsp;Explains<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blumenthal, the front runner for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate,&nbsp;declined to comment about the role of Republican Linda McMahon&#8217;s campaign in providing information to the New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to say anything more,&#8221; Blumenthal said of the McMahon campaign.<\/p>\n<p>In an uncharacteristic move, Blumenthal eventually cut off questioning from reporters and ended the news conference shortly before 2:40 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding his military history, Blumenthal spoke in detail about how he came to serve.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps Reserves 40 years ago,&#8221; he said in his opening remarks at the news conference. &#8220;I went to boot camp at Parris Island.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I looked them up in a phonebook. No special help,&#8221; Blumenthal said. &#8220;Unlike many of my peers, I chose to join the military and serve my country. &#8230; There were no special favors.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/news\/politics\/hc-richard-blumenthal-vietnam-controversy-pictures,0,1549095.photogallery\">Pictures: Richard Blumenthal Under Fire For Public Statements About Military Service<\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As he has said many times in the past at veterans&#8217; ceremonies at the state Capitol and around Connecticut, Blumenthal noted Tuesday that he&nbsp;reached the rank of sergeant before receiving an honorable discharge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am proud of my service in the United States Marine Corps,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I am prouder still that my oldest son, Matthew, is serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/news\/politics\/hc-richard-blumenthal-0518,0,2785016.story\">Blumenthal&#8217;s Claims About Having Served In Vietnam Being Challenged<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/news\/politics\/hc-richard-blumenthal-0518,0,2785016.story\">What was the McMahon campaign&#8217;s role in the Blumenthal bombshell?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.courant.com\/capitol_watch\/2010\/05\/rob-simmons-dick-blumenthal-ow.html\">Rob Simmons: Dick Blumenthal Owes An Apology To Vietnam Veterans; Says Linda McMahon Lied, Too<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As one of the best-known politicians in Connecticut and a national figure as an attorney general with 20 years of service, Blumenthal has been the subject of feature articles for years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t be responsible for all the mistakes in all the articles &#8211; thousands of them,&#8221; Blumenthal said of stories that have been written about him through the years.<\/p>\n<p>Blumenthal was introduced by Peter Galgano, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who&nbsp;said that the allegations were &#8220;malicious&#8221; against&nbsp;Blumenthal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every Marine Corps ball I&#8217;ve attended since 2004,&#8221; Blumenthal was there, Galgano said.&nbsp; &#8220;Marine Corps balls, funerals, homecomings, send-offs. &#8230; Through the hardest times, Dick Blumenthal has always, always been there for us. &#8230; He has always been completely straightforward about his honorable service in the Marine Corps Reserves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The incident in Norwalk in 2008 was &#8220;one quote where he misspoke,&#8221; Galgano&nbsp;said. &#8220;I could see where that quote could have been misread.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During Galgano&#8217;s&nbsp;introduction, a veteran shouted, &#8220;Semper Fi!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has always stood by us, and we are proud to stand by him,&#8221; Galgano&nbsp;said.<\/p>\n<p>Jean Risley, chairperson of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial who brought the Vietnam Wall to Coventry, said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve known Dick Blumenthal for many, many years. &#8230; We&#8217;ve gone to homecomings. We&#8217;ve gone to send-offs. &#8230; We&#8217;ve been at funerals. &#8230; In all that time, I never once heard him say that he was in Vietnam. I did hear him say how passionately he felt about our veterans and how we had to honor them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There isn&#8217;t a nicer, more honorable, more responsive advocate for our Vietnam veterans, our veterans in general, than Dick Blumenthal,&#8221; Risley said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Richard Blumenthal defended himself Tuesday following a front-page article in The New York Times and a widely circulated&nbsp;video that showed him&nbsp;saying that he served in Vietnam. With veterans standing behind him at a VFW Hall in West Hartford, Blumenthal&nbsp;said&nbsp;he regrets the times that he has misspoken about his service during the war. When [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}