Washington Post declares Coffman a combat veteran
I told you last week that Michelle Ye Hee Lee is quickly becoming my favorite fact checker at the Washington Post and once again she proves that she’s free of the political ties that bind many of the folks at the Post.
This week she examines the charges coming from “somewhere” in Washington, in regards to whether Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) is a combat veteran or not.
Coffman had a tiff with VA Secretary MacDonald when the Congressman was grilling MacDonald on whether the Secretary had affected any real change at the Department and MacDonald shot back that “I ran a large company, sir, what have you done?”
Well, Coffman was a Marine infantry officer in the 1st Iraq War in 1991 and then as a civil affairs officer in the 2d Iraq War. He earned the Combat Action Ribbon, so, of course he’s a combat veteran.
Ms. Lee asked our buddy, Dan Caldwell, legislative director for Concerned Veterans for America and former Marine;
[Caldwell said that] the generally accepted use of the term is for those who were “with a unit, in the military, on the ground, and you were supporting or directly engaged in military effort against an enemy in Iraq or Afghanistan or another combat zone.”
[…]
“The bigger issue is, did somebody blatantly misrepresent their service — i.e., ribbons they didn’t rate, lying about things they didn’t actually experience, and even the larger issues of, ‘What are the larger strategic implications behind the combat that they supposedly are engaging or aren’t’?” Caldwell said. “We, as a veteran community, sometimes get hung up on these things that, at the end of the day, don’t make a big difference.”
Well, after examining his records and the legal, “official” definitions of a combat veteran, Ms. Lee gave Coffman the Post’s seal of approval;
The criteria for the Combat Action Ribbon that Coffman received requires proof he was in actual combat operations. Without having been there with him, this is the best measure to confirm his experience. We award Coffman the elusive Geppetto Checkmark.
I can’t ever remember any Republican getting a Geppetto, I’m sure that there have been some, I just don’t remember any. You might remember that Ms. Lee gave Mr. MacDonald 4 Pinocchios last week for claiming that he’d fired a bunch of folks at the Department when he really hadn’t fired a bunch, just a couple of them.
By the way, if you’re wondering what Coffman thinks of the dust-up yesterday about Secretary MacDonald, Fox News reports;
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., called the misstatement an error but said “it doesn’t dim the fact that he served honorably.”
He said: “We should all take him at his word and Washington shouldn’t spend the next two weeks arguing about it. The Secretary has a job to do — clean up the scandal-plagued VA. This latest controversy shouldn’t shift one iota of focus away from that long overdue task.”
Category: Media
Another distraction for ovomit…
This administration leaves no stone unturned in the battle to deflect attention from the crap they pull on a daily basis…
exactly what “crap” do they pull on a daily basis?
Since it is daily you should have no problem answering that.
How about amnesty? There’s more than enough crap there. How about Øbolacare, which can’t figure out who gets what, and is still putting out the wrong info? http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2015/02/20/ocare-wrong-tax-info-n1959983
if you have to ask, you’re a troll obamabot
Michelle Lee is a solid reporter. Before she joined the Post at the end of last year, Michelle was on the ground in Phoenix with the Arizona Republic helping to break the VA scandal wide open. Michelle had a front row seat to the disaster at the Phoenix VA and she knows everything the VA says needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
She will is a good addition to the Fact Checking operation at the Post.
“. . . everything the VA says needs to be taken with a grain of salt”
A FIFTY POUND grain of salt.
now that is settled… it’s about MacDonald’s “special forces” service….
Not to cast aspersions on Ms Lee’s bona fides, but I REALLY could give a wrinkle on a dead rat’s tail about the WaPo.
Or maybe I should put it this way about the WaPo — That’s one in a row.
Mike Coffman is the man.
I’m getting really fucking sick of this “who’s a combat veteran?” bullshit. A CAR seems like a pretty good metric for Marines, but I’m sure there are Marines w/o CARs that served in combat theaters. So here’s what I think. If you have CIB/CAB/CAR or any medal awarded for participation in a wartime campaign (ACM/ICM/pre ’05 GWOTEM), or a combat patch then you are a COMBAT VETERAN. PERIOD.
IDGAF whether you were a cook, a fueler, or a decorated Ranger like Sales Giunta. If you pit your ass on the line in a combat zone, you are a combat veteran.
Damn, I forgot the CMB. No disrespect intended to any Medics.
That’s very generous of you. I agree anybody with a combat patch is a combat veteran, but I disagree is all the same. A cook or a mechanic *might* get blown up or shot while riding in a convoy from point A to point B. An 11B infantryman, on the other hand, goes out there to knock on the door of the bad guys, and take them down, on a daily basis while deployed. So it is not the same.
Why didn’t that brave cook volunteer to be an infantryman? It is pretty easy. Not, he chosed to be a cook, to be in the relatively safety inside the wire, with minimal exposure to danger.
It really piss me off when veterans say all service is the same. I understand that from clueless civilians, but from veterans? While I was doing two missions a day, both mounted and dismounted, my cook was cooking in our little COP (combat outpost). I liked the guy, don’t get me wrong, and he was all the time in danger of getting hit with indirect fires like the rest of us, but don’t tell me it is the same that going outside the wire every day.
Combat veteran is someone who served in the theater and received the campaign medal. The cook could have stayed home and not joined and have been really safe. No, he’s cooking you food someplace he can be killed. Maybe not as dangerous a place as in the field, but then that’s why you received a CIB, combat action badge, etc. to show you were in the shit. So give a brother his due. We all serve together. When REMF’s die their families greive as much as anyone else. Many guys have never received combat badges because there branch of service didn’t offer any or the MOS didn’t let them qualify for one. So the campaign medal is to make up for that.
Bingo. Incoming fire – direct or indirect – doesn’t give a damn about someone’s MOS.
Two of MURPHY’S LAWS OF COMBAT:
The only thing more lethal than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
Friendly fire – ISN’T.
I was an 11B doing patrols in Southern Iraq during the surge and you know what I consistently saw? Sand sailors manning gun trucks, cooks, admin clerks, and thingamabob fixers doing road block check points etc.and even a Coastie doing god knows what over in Um Qasar.
Times have changed and at the height of the wars they were pulling Navy Sailors off of ships for a little desert duty and a lot of replacements were of all kinds of MOS backgrounds.
Our cooks were TCNs or other contractors (including US civilians)…the cooks were riding convoy escort duty.
Quite an attitude problem you have. Without those support folks taking care of your sorry butt you would be a helluva lot sorrier then you are now. It’s a team and everyone has a place. I suppose you’ve never heard of the spoon platoon? You might want to read a bit of history on American wars and see who some of those real hero’s are and what their MOS was before you try degrading the support elements of combat operations.
Yef, I didn’t say that all service was same. As a former infantryman I tend to hold infantry in higher esteem. It is generally a more dangerous job, and the CIB is prestigious award because not recognizes that fact.
But I don’t look down my nose at other MOS’ either. That cook you talked about in your post enjoyed an overall greater level of safety than you did, but his MOS wouldn’t have stopped a mortar. If Hajji had managed to overrun your camp that same cook would have grabbed his rifle and been out there fighting for his life and his buddies lives just like you would. He wouldn’t be cowering in a fucking corner while the big bad infantrymen protect his ass.
My father was a Marine logistician in Nam. When his base came under attack he ran to the perimeter with his M16 and opened fire along with the grunts as well as the other pogues.
The Sailors that died on the USS Cole arguably had safer jobs than an Army or Marine grunt. Guess what, it didn’t save them. Does the fact that they had safer jobs make their sacrifice worth less?
Not sure if there’s some inside joke, but his name is spelled “McDonald” and not “MacDonald.” http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._McDonald
Just trying to be disrespectful to the liar “McDonald” MacDonald.
We all signed on the dotted line. A blank check to Uncle Sam It should not make a damned bit of difference what badges were awarded we were in the line of fire cooks canon cockers and grunts and incoming never looked at our mos
Cook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Miller