LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Despite not having served in the military himself, Barack Obama used his Memorial Day remarks to speak about his family’s service. “My grandfather marched in Patton’s army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you,” he told a small group of veterans here. “My grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line, but I cannot know what it is for a family to sacrifice like so many of yours have.”
……Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz. He said the family legend is that, upon returning from war, his uncle spent six months in an attic. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important.”
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/05/26/politics/fromtheroad/entry4127479.shtml
The exact quote as said in the speech:
“I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberated the concentration camps.”
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV1sxq8mqvA
Unless his uncle was in the Soviet Army, he never came anywhere close to Auschwitz.
On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.
The US Army did not designate brigades until after WWII.
Patton’s Third Army, the unit in which Obama’s grandfather supposedly served, liberated Buchenwald and Mauthausen, but by Obama’s own admission, he never saw combat:
From his “Dreams From My Father” memoir:
“Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat, and the family moved to California, where he enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill. But the classroom couldn’t contain his ambitions, his restlessness, and so the family moved again…”
From what I’ve read about George “Blood and Guts” Patton, there’s no fucking way his Soldiers could have gone an entire tour of duty without being in combat.
Which “uncle” served in the Third Army? According to his biography, his mother was an only child:
The education of Obama the would-be politician didn’t begin, of course, until after his birth in 1961, in Honolulu. But the parental traits that would mold him — a contrarian worldview, an initial rejection of organized religion, a questioning nature — were already taking shape years earlier in the nomadic and sometimes tempestuous Dunham family, where the only child was a curious and precocious daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly that he named her Stanley — after himself.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0703270151mar27,0,1310554.story
It’s most likely his great-uncle, the one who ostensiby spent six months hiding in his attic:
Dunham, Ralph E. Inducted 28 May 1942, Army 37203549 Registered, order # 1180 Mound City, Linn Co. (Board # 1) Serial # also assigned to Lawrence W. Solomon
Link: http://www.kshs.org/genealogists/military/wwiiveteransresults.php?page=364&branch=A
More fun stuff about this particular Obama embellishment can be found at Ace of Spades:
Link: http://minx.cc/?post=265103
And Hot Air:
Link: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/27/obama-my-grandfather-liberated-auschwitz/
As long as Obama goes to all the trouble of inserting relatives into his historical revisions, he may as well get the military facts straight.
He can say whatever he wants, because he knows no MSM will call him on it.