They spread stories about how he got injured because he was drunk and dropped a grenade.
The man served in the military and was seriously injured as a result, and any attempt to detract from his service is wrong-headed. That his injury was non-combat related in no way diminishes his service.
HOWEVER. Your statement is wrong and/or misleading on multiple counts. First, Ann Coulter was the person making the original statement, and her statement was factual:
"Then we learned Cleland was a victim only of his own clumsiness and had dropped the grenade on himself in Vietnam after stopping for a beer." -- Ann Coulter
So, there was no mention of him getting drunk, and she properly characterized the situation -- correcting the misrepresentations made by Dems. If someone took this remark to imply he was "drunk", they made an unacceptable mistake IMO that should have been corrected. But to claim that "THEY" (Republicans, conservatives, whatever) spread this story has no basis in fact. Ann Coulter made the statement, and she was correct, according to Jill Zuckman in the Globe:
"Finally, the battle at Khe Sanh was over. Cleland, 25 years old, and two members of his team were now ordered to set up a radio relay station at the division assembly area, 15 miles away. The three gathered antennas, radios and a generator and made the 15-minute helicopter trip east. After unloading the equipment, Cleland climbed back into the helicopter for the ride back. But at the last minute, he decided to stay and have a beer with some friends. As the helicopter was lifting off, he shouted to the pilot that he was staying behind and jumped several feet to the ground.
"Cleland hunched over to avoid the whirring blades and ran. Turning to face the helicopter, he caught sight of a grenade on the ground where the chopper had perched. It must be mine, he thought, moving toward it. He reached for it with his right arm just as it exploded, slamming him back and irreparably altering his plans for a bright, shining future."
The problem, however, is that the Left tried to paint Cleland as having been injured in more glorious fashion than he was. For example, according to Eric Boehlert in Salon: "During the siege of Khe Sanh, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade." Was this anymore fair than Coulter's characterization? Of course not.
In fact, Coulter went on to say this about him:
"Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage." (She also pointed out that he shouldn't allow the Dems to tarnish his accomplishment to "sex up" his record).
So, the Dems are at least as guilty as the Republicans, and frankly, more so, as it is the Dems who tried to make the story more compelling than it was:
The man was sadly injured, not by an enemy grenade but by an accident of his own making. The Dems tried to take advantage of the situation and make it appear he was more heroic than other soldiers. Ann Coulter took them to task for their mischaracterizations, and they retaliated with more lies.
As far as I can see, the only people lying here are the Democrats. McAuliffe has made statements like "Cleland is a triple amputee who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam". Now, this is techically true, but the spirit of the remark is clearly different from the facts of the incident. |
