VA chief takes heat for false claim about service in the special forces

Lawmakers and service organizations for veterans are criticizing Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald for making a false statement about his military service.

On Monday, The Huffington Post reported that while speaking last month to a homeless veteran in Los Angeles, McDonald falsely said he had served in American special forces. The secretary admitted he made an “inaccurate” statement to the veteran and has apologized.

The disclosure comes in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who was suspended from his job without pay after repeatedly telling a false story about coming under fire in Iraq.

For now, lawmakers and veterans groups say they are willing to give McDonald, a former Procter and Gamble CEO, the benefit of the doubt, even if they find his misstatement troubling.

“I’m disappointed in Secretary McDonald’s comments,” said Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, in a statement.

“After a rough couple of weeks that also included inflated claims of accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs, I hope Secretary McDonald will redouble his efforts to ensure his statements — and those of all VA officials — are completely accurate.”

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), who has sparred with the VA chief in the past, said that while McDonald’s misstatement was an error, “it doesn’t dim the fact that he served honorably.”

“We should all take him at his word, and Washington shouldn’t spend the next two weeks arguing about it,” said Coffman, a Marine Corps veteran and chairman of the House VA Oversight and Investigations subpanel. “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.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam War veteran, said that while he has been “very disappointed” in McDonald’s work on a revamp of the beleaguered agency, he should not resign.

“It certainly damages his credibility,” McCain told The Hill. “If he continues to fail to enforce the law that we passed, then I would his question work in office. But not on this issue.”

John W. Stroud, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said his organization “accepts” McDonald’s apology.

McDonald “clearly made a mistake,” said Paul Rieckhoff, CEO and founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

“He called me personally today to apologize for that mistake and we at IAVA accept his apology,” he added, calling the VA chief “a man of exceptional commitment.”

Rieckhoff vowed IAVA would continue to work with McDonald on battling suicide and ending veteran homelessness.

“We hope critics and leaders in the media will commit to the same.”

Other veteran groups weren’t as forgiving.

While McDonald did complete Ranger training and serve in the airborne, “a lie is a lie,” American Legion Commander Michael Helm said in a statement.

“I can’t believe people do this. What a disappointment from the leader of a department whose number one issue right now is the restoration of trust,” he said.

“He should be held to a higher standard. The secretary has apologized, as he certainly should. We hope that he can restore the trust that he lost.”

Pete Hegseth, CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, said McDonald’s “own actions and words reinforced the perception that the VA, and its leaders, still cannot be trusted to tell the truth.”

While it is good McDonald “immediately and unequivocally apologized for misrepresenting his military service,” he has a “long way to go before he, and the organization he leads, can truly be trusted yet again by the American people and the veterans they are tasked to serve.”

McDonald took over the VA last summer after then-Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned amid a scandal over long patient wait times that critics said led to deaths.

A 1975 West Point graduate, McDonald served for five years in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He graduated from jump school and Army Ranger training before leaving the service in 1980, but he did not serve in a Ranger unit or any part of special forces.