National Commander of the American Legion caught lying about Vietnam service

When Paul A. Morin, the national commander of the American Legion, sought election to the office in August, he described himself in the lead sentence of his campaign biography as a "Vietnam veteran of the US Army." Since he was elected Aug. 31, the Legion's website has featured the same description.

And when Morin testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee Sept. 20, US Representative Steve Buyer , Republican of Indiana, introduced him as an Army veteran of Vietnam. Morin registered no objection, according to the hearing transcript.

And three months ago, Morin said he hopes that servicemen returning from Iraq will be treated better than those who returned from Vietnam. "When we came home, life was a little different. We do not want to see any veteran ever returning to what we did, so we'll be there to be welcoming them home with open arms," Morin said, according to a transcript of his interview with the Pentagon Channel , the Defense Department's television network.

But the only place Morin ever returned from was Fort Dix, N.J. According to his military records, Morin spent his entire two years of Army service, from 1972 to 1974, at that Army training base . In fact, before he sought the coveted one-year term as national president of the country's largest veterans' organization, Morin was content to be known as a "Vietnam-era" veteran -- a signal to other veterans that he did not serve in Vietnam.

Morin, in a telephone interview on Thursday, defended his decision to describe himself as a Vietnam veteran when he ran for Legion president. Neither the US government nor the Legion itself makes a formal distinction between veterans who served in Vietnam and those, like himself, who did not.

Former US Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, and who has been a Legion member since 1969, expressed concern in an interview on Friday that by inflating his résumé, Morin has undercut the credibility of veterans' groups as they seek congressional support for underfunded veterans' programs.

"For the national commander of the American Legion, who never even served in the Vietnam theater, to call himself a Vietnam veteran is a lie," Cleland said.

Cleland, who headed the Veterans Administration during the Carter administration, expressed incredulity at Morin's and March's justification for the claim. "This is the American Legion hierarchy changing the rules in the middle of the game, solely to try to cover the of the national commander now that he's become an embarrassment to the organization," Cleland said.