Reply #30: I think it will depend on exactly what he has said in direct quotes

[karynnj]

Reading the MA papers, I regularly have read things where Senator Brown has referred to himself being in the military and always giving his rank. When this is done while speaking of his utterly unexceptional trip to Afghanistan to imply some expertise, it is just as bad. Yet I think he was never assigned overseas and has worked as a JAG officer in the US.

You also had Ronald Reagan speaking of his service in WWII - even though his assignment was in Hollywood. Bush intentionally allowed his people to push the idea that "he could" have been sent to Vietnam and it was dangerous flying fighter planes. (ignoring he was grounded and the candidate with a pilot's license in 2004 was Kerry.) I notice the NYT points out the truth here - the National Guard, except for a very few exceptions, did not go to Vietnam.

There always have been somethings that become media CW, even though there is no original source that goes back to the candidate and often in spite of the candidate correcting the story (which does not seem to have happened here). Both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton were often referred to as valedictorians - though they weren't. Kerry always spoke of being asked to make that speech because of the prizes he won on the debate team and in Tour of Duty, spoke of not being a conscientious student. Hillary in her autobiography spoke of wanting to drop out in her semester, which was not very successful. (Both had at least some Ds in their first semester and there is no way that can be averaged out and result in being the top student.) Hillary was given the speech because she was class President.

Here, the real test might be his campaign biographies and those on his various government job websites. Even there, if it speaks of going to Vietnam, it likely was written by a staffer - and errors have been made on official web sites. It sounds like his normal comment was a borderline comment - that he served in the marine corps reserve in the Vietnam era. Following form that and using "we" instead of I would have made this misleading - as are Brown's comments, but not untrue. From some quotes this crossed that borderline to copy comments that John Kerry rightfully as made for years on standing with the troops even if you are against the war.