EDIT TO ADD, David French, a former US marine states thusly:
But when you keep reading his book, you see that the Pentagon acknowledges that it “certainly is possible” that Westmoreland talked with Carson, but the event Carson describes — a dinner featuring Medal of Honor winners — likely occurred in February and not around Memorial Day.
So Carson properly described the event, but — five decades later — got the month wrong. That’s a story?
Since I had the privilege of serving with true heroes, I loathe “stolen valor” or any other false claims of military service, but — like you — I simply don’t see Carson’s account in this light.
At the risk of repeating a piece that will shortly be posted over at the home page, his story is plausible because I experienced something similar. Many years ago I was “offered” an ROTC scholarship before I even applied. After speaking with officers familiar with my academic record, they told me I would receive a full academic scholarship, that the application was a mere formality. My teenage self certainly took their statements as an “offer,” and I wouldn’t have fill out the application forms without their word. Unlike Carson, however, I filled out the forms and received the formal offer (which I rejected for a better scholarship from a different source.) So, when did I receive my offer? The lawyerly answer is when I received the formal letter. The real-life answer is when a colonel told me the scholarship was mine for the taking.
LOL, sure.
Rather, no.
This “faulty recollection” is not plausible. He provides too many specific details for it to be the result of “fuzzy memory,” and yet these details do not match the records.
It “certainly is possible” that Westmoreland talked with Carson. That, essentially, means “we can’t say one way or the other.”
Carson provides very specific details. Memorial Day. ROTC banquet. Nothing about the slain Vietnam Vet. “Faulty recollection” is when you can’t remember for sure it it was last Thanksgiving or the one before that when Aunt Edna burned the turkey.
All of this simply smells too much like “damage control.”