Obama Talks of Family's Military Service - From The Road

He may need to go back and read his history books...Auschwitz was liberated in 1945 by the Red Army, wonder if his uncle was Russian????

When I looked this up, I found that there were five concentration camps liberated by US troops, Dora Mittlebau, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen - all occurred from April to early May 1945.

I highly doubt his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz, since for one thing his mother was an only child....a Great Uncle maybe????? Maybe this mystery person was in a brigrade that liberated one of the other five...but his facts are certainly wrong....Get your facts straight Barack!!!! Especially when you are talking to real war veteransSherri

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"It isn't that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan

The youtube clip of that part of his speech.

YouTube - Obama's uncle liberated Auschwitz?

I think I would perfer to get my facts from the Washington Post who took direct quotes from the speech rather than a blogger who is paid to condense the story....

Here is what the Post has to say....and if I can find the transcripts, I will post that too...

Maybe you should get ALL of the facts before you start throwing stones.



Obama Speaks with "Deep Humility" on Memorial Day
By Karl Vick
LAS CRUCES, NM. --- Sen.Barack Obama spoke for most of an hour about doing right by America's veterans without crossing swords with Sen. John McCain, in a carefully measured Memorial Day appearance that kept the focus on the former service members seated around him on three sides.

"I speak to you today with deep humility," Obama said in a speech delivered before an invitation-only town hall meeting at a ranching museum in southern New Mexico. "My grandfather marched in Patton's Army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you. 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.

"I am the father of two young girls, and I cannot imagine what it is to lose a child. My heart breaks for the families who've lost a loved one.

"These things I cannot know," the Illinois Democrat said, "But there are some things I do know."

And with that the candidate edged into his critique of military and veterans affairs under the Bush administration. Along the way, he endorsed legislation that he said would give veterans the same benefits his grandfather's generation enjoyed under the GI Bill.

McCain, the career Naval officer, former POW and presumptive GOP nominee, opposes the measure, citing concerns that it will deplete the all-volunteer army; along with the Pentagon, he prefers a plan that increases benefits with time served.

But Obama avoided renewing a clash over the issue that recently turned sharply personal. On Memorial Day his only named rival was President Bush, for threatening a veto Obama predicted Congress would vote to override.

The campaign's only event was before fewer than 200 people assembled on one end of the museum courtyard, under a mile high bluebird sky.

"Solar!" Obama said to laughter while discussing energy policy, and the need to develop alternative energies to assure economic security, a precondition to military security. "There's a lot of sun around here. I think we can use it."

Oddly, a pair of 18 kilowatt Hollywood-style klieg lights burned from the back of the courtyard, as if the day wasn't quite bright enough.

Obama's speech was first interrupted by applause when he mentioned "giving the same priority to building a 21st century VA as to building a 21st century military," and a moment later when he spoke of "zero tolerance for veterans sleeping on our streets."

The emphasis on the living played well on a day of observance for the dead. The warm crowd warmed to Obama's call for positioning smaller VA clinics more conveniently to rural veterans who face long drives to larger, urban facilities. And there was applause for increased attention to mental health, including routine screening for post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Obama said he suspects that one of the reasons his grandfather seldom spoke of his wartime experience was the trauma he had witnessed.

"In World War Two we didn't have the concept of post traumatic stress syndrome. People had to basically handle it on their own," he said. Referring to an uncle who had been one of the first U.S. troops into Auschwitz, the concentration camp, Obama said: "The story in the family is he came home and just went up in the attic."

Afterward, Paul Weinbaum, 66, beamed his approval of a candidate who had captured both his frustrations and his desire.

"There is hope for America," he said. "The sincerity comes through."

He wore a straw cowboy hat, a Star of David necklace and, on his lapel, the crossed rifles of an infantryman, which took some explaining. Weinbaum served in the Navy during Vietnam, but after the war emerged into an economy that could not give him civilian work. "I got out of the Navy, went to college: No jobs. So I joined the Army."

He laughed, then related another experience that illustrated another of Obama's points.
"I went to the VA one time. They said, 'You're not sick enough.' I said, 'I just want a physical.' They did not yet have, what do you call it, any concept of preventative care."

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I'm the kind of woman when my feet hit the floor in each morning, the devil says "Oh crap, she's up."

Also, when in my family, we don't say GREAT Uncle when refering to members of the family. I've always known /referred to my Great Uncles as just "Uncle So and So". That is just a matter of symantics.

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I'm the kind of woman when my feet hit the floor in each morning, the devil says "Oh crap, she's up."

[quote=Kelliiii;2999069]I think I would perfer to get my facts from the Washington Post who took direct quotes from the speech rather than a blogger who is paid to condense the story....

Here is what the Post has to say....and if I can find the transcripts, I will post that too...

Maybe you should get ALL of the facts before you start throwing stones.


Do you not hear it coming out of his own mouth on the video???? HEllo....he says American troops and his uncle being one of them liberated Auschwitz?????? How much plainer can you get...I also DID say in my post it was probaby a great Uncle...Where are the facts not straight when it comes from the horses mouth????????Sherri

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"It isn't that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan

[quote=sher218;2999078]People can go to youtube.com
Do a search for "Barack Obama visits Las Cruces on Memorial Day" and watch the entire speech if they want.
I agree it is better to hear and watch it yourself.

Oh for gosh sakes, what a silly thing to raise a fuss about. I had uncles and great uncles and grandfathers, who fought in WW II and couldn't tell you if my life depended on it where exactly they were stationed except somewhere in Europe and somewhere in the Pacific. Are you doubting he had an uncle (great or otherwise) that helped liberate a concentration camp or is the fact he mis-named it your petty point?

You are right Sheri, I had only read the article and not had a chance to look at the YouTube.

I'm all about the facts, and I agree that it would be very wrong of him to make up a story like this....but, I would be shocked to hear that he was making this up when speaking to a group of vets. I guess I will wait for the fact checkers to validate....because this will be an easy one to check out.

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I'm the kind of woman when my feet hit the floor in each morning, the devil says "Oh crap, she's up."

My take on this was that he (Barack) was referencing a story told in his family about another family member who returned from war a broken man.

Now, don't we all have stories in our family about some distant cousin/relative who did something or was a part of something--and there really isn't a lot of proof except the story that has been passed down from generation to generation? Or is my family the only family who passes down stories like this???

Regardless of whether Obama knows the specifics or the "facts", the story is still poignant has meaning in today's society. I believe this kind of story would fall under the title of "anectdotal"....

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

http://http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

I couldnt tell you either about my relatives, but if I were running for President and standing in front of WWII veterans I would make sure what I said was true....I wouldnt want to look like a liar just pandering to the vets in front of me Its amazing, if this was a republican, the liberals and the media would be crucifing him by now....SHerri

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"It isn't that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan

He had the name wrong for goodess sake he didn't lie. I know it's hard for you republicans to recognize a lie as has been proven repeatedly over the last 7 plus years but really ...

You mean like You are crucifying and calling him a liar now? Do you even KNOW for a fact that he did not have relatives who helped liberate?

You know you opened this thread to try to discredit Obama, not to praise his family, so to insinuate that only liberals single out and crucify republicans without conservatives and republicans doing some of the same to the good side, ooopppss...I mean liberal democrats ...would be disingenuous.

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"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.

He has made so many gaffes I dont know if he knows the lie from the truth....everything he says in his books, he contradicts now......He just says what the people he is speaking to at the time wants to hear.....No I dont trust him...I think he is a wolf in sheep's clothing....Sherri

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"It isn't that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan

So, my question remains the same, do you KNOW he does NOT have relatives who were in on the liberation? Or did you just want to inflame him without knowledge of his "lies"? Just like the National Enquirer....put it out there and a certain number of uninformed people will choose to believe it.....

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"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.

So, he was mistaken only in the camp his great uncle helped to liberate.........certainly not a legitimate reason to try and discredit him.....perhaps in the retelling to Obama a relative related the incorrect name. Does not detract from the liberation...his family should be proud, and not have to face taunting from those looking for any old reason to discredit him...........seems to me those trying so hard to put him in a bad light must be afraid that his campaign is successful (and, to put the record straight, I am not necessarily an Obama supporter, BUT if he is the candidate I will be supporting his ticket) and are grasping at straws....

Obama mistaken on name of Nazi death camp - Yahoo! News

__________________
"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.

I believe a great many people are counting on that. After all, it's how the Iraq War was sold . . .

Obama's point was not the one of his relatives helped to liberate one of the concentration camps, anyway. The point is how that relative was treated after he returned home, broken by his experiences, and why the new GI Bill should be passed. Unlike McCain (who avoided even putting his opposition to the bill to a vote!), Obama and many others believe our current soldiers should receive no less than the soldiers of WWII. That he misstated the name of the camp -- a misstatement that was corrected within a day -- is really irrelevant, except in that some of the more extreme members of the right wing will start foaming at the mouth over it.