[Tennessean4Bush]

Bill, that is true. I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point.

Yes, I saw that exact FB post. And, it is consistent with what Carson said in his book(s) and in other interviews, I think.

Carson gave context to what he meant about this event that happened about 45 years ago, and it is context that was given in those books, too. He was the top ROTC member in Detroit, and was invited to a dinner where he recalled that he had met Westmoreland, who encouraged him to apply and that if he did he'd get a scholarship.

The writer of the hit piece said basically three things:

1. West Point doesn't offer scholarships, we called them and someone in West Point administration said this.
2. West Point said that at the date Carson mentioned, Westmoreland was not in Detroit but was somewhere else and therefore he could not have said this to Carson.
3. West Point has no record of Carson being awarded the appointment, nor of Carson ever even applying.

Wow, looks damning for Carson, until you insert just a little bit of context of what Carson has been saying all along throughout the years regarding this event, and just a tad bit of research.

1. West Point was mistaken about telling people that they did not offer scholarships. There are several advertisements that have been dug up that use that exact word and were in print during this time period.
2. West Point said that while not in Detroit, on the date Carson mentioned, Westmoreland was in fact in Detroit a month later at a similar dinner. And, it is entirely conceivable that he described to Carson a scholarship opportunity that if he applied he would earn a scholarship. I can believe a 17-18 year old young man walking out of that dinner and thinking, I just got offered a full-ride to West Point.
3. Carson, when writing or talking about this incident, has consistently said he never applied nor pursued that "offer" from Westmoreland at dinner, because he was set on attending Yale and becoming a physician, and he only had enough money to apply to Yale.

Context explains all of this. It has been written like Carson has been fabricating and purporting things out of thin air. It is an assassination attempt, very similar to what happened to Clarence Thomas.

[miss marmelstein]

Part of the problem is that a lot of freepers do not use FB and so do not have access to Carson’s pushbacks. All of what you say in your post is true, although I didn’t hear that Westmoreland was in Detroit a month later. Interesting! And clears up the last question. That woman, Chris Jansing? certainly didn’t mention that this morning in the news.

I support Trump but don’t believe in hounding this candidate. It disgusts me.

[jpsb]

The book was written in 1990 right? So that is only 20 or so years after the event not 45. An he says he got an “offer from West Point”. If he got an offer then there would be a record of said offer. There isn’t so no Dr Carson never got an “offer from West Point”. Saying you got an “offer from West Point” is a vastly different when being encouraged to apply to West Point. Way way way different. There where lots and lots of ROTC programs in the USA back in 1969 being a TOP ROTC student doesn’t automatically get you into West Point.

[NKP_Vet]

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/06/carsons-westmoreland-story-match-records/75328960/

“Context explains all of this. It has been written like Carson has been fabricating and purporting things out of thin air. It is an assassination attempt, very similar to what happened to Clarence Thomas.”

No the truth explains it all.

In his autobiography, which was the basis of a movie about Carson’s life, Carson wrote that the dinner with Westmoreland took place after he “marched at the head of the Memorial Day parade.” May does not come before February and that’s when the general was in Detroit. He was in Washington DC for Memorial Day 1969.

Westmoreland’s Memorial Day schedule on May 30, 1969, indicates he was in Washington. The schedule says Westmoreland had a morning meeting with national security adviser Henry Kissinger, laid a wreath at an 11 a.m. memorial service in Arlington National Cemetery and had a 5 p.m. “boat ride on the Potomac.”

You would think that before Carson mentioned in a book that he met with General William Westmreland he could have at least gotten his dates straight. He had no notes? He had no articles from the paper? From his “I love my house”, and the hundreds of certificates and photos of himself plastered all over the walls, I would think he’s never thrown away a piece of paper in his life that had his name on it.