{UAH} Ocen//Another day, another liar about military experience
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1:41 PM |
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Folks;
This time, it's the one person who should know better: Secretary for Veteran Affairs!
On learning that the homeless man he had encountered on the street was a former Special Forces vet, Sec. McDonald chimed that he, too, served in the Special Forces!
This was totally an unnecessary, because McD was with the 82nd Airborne, which in itself, is an elite division in the US Army. The impulse to create oneself to a more appealing image will undo all the good some folks have worked so hard to achieve in their lives.
Pojim
White House defends U.S. VA secretary after false statement
2 hours ago
New Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald gestures as he testifies about "The State of VA …
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday defended U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald after he apologized for falsely saying he served in the U.S. special forces, but a top Republican said the scuffle could hurt trust in the department.
McDonald said in a statement on Monday that he had met a homeless man in Los Angeles who said he served in the special forces. McDonald said he incorrectly responded that he had also served there, and he apologized for what he called a "misstatement."
"We take him at his word," a White House spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding the Obama administration does not expect the flub to harm McDonald's work on veterans' issues.
John Stroud of the Veterans of Foreign Wars said in a statement that his group accepted McDonald's apology.
But Republican lawmaker Jeff Miller, who leads the House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Committee, said the misstatement could hamper trust in the VA, which had struggled after a scandal forced out its previous leader.
The department was the subject of searing criticism in 2014 after it was discovered that veterans faced long waits for care at some facilities. Staff also tried to hide how long veterans waited.
McDonald, who served with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army and was chief executive of consumer goods company Procter & Gamble Co, was brought in after former Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned.
Even before the comments about his military service, he was criticized for saying on television that 60 people had been fired on his watch for manipulating wait times. The Washington Post and other news outlets said that number was too high.
Miller said the secretary should make extra efforts to ensure his statements are correct.
"This is the only way the department can regain the trust of the veterans and taxpayers it is charged with serving," he said in a statement.
Several public figures have been in the news over their military activities of late.
Brian Williams, anchor of NBC's top-rated "Nightly News" program, was suspended without pay after acknowledging a story he told about coming under fire on a helicopter in Iraq was not true.
The left-leaning magazine Mother Jones reported that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly exaggerated by saying he was a war correspondent during the 1982 Falklands war, when he actually covered protests in Argentina. O'Reilly says he accurately described his coverage.
(Reporting by Emily Stephenson and Julia Edwards in Washington and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Lambert)
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