Report: NY Gubernatorial Candidate’s Claims Of Commanding Fort Bliss Troops Proven False

Claims by Republican Carl Paladino’s campaign that he commanded 250 men at Fort Bliss, during six months of active Army service in 1971 are false, according to a report by The New York Post.

Paladino’s campaign manager, Michael Caputo, admitted the contentions were wrong after The Post obtained military records showing the Buffalo builder was on active duty for only three months, and was at Fort Bliss for training as a newly commissioned officer in the late summer of 1971, while the Vietnam War was raging.

Caputo last month told Dan Collins, editor-at-large of The Huffington Post, that Paladino spent “six months active duty with orders for Vietnam” and was “responsible for training 250 men during that time at Fort Bliss.”

A Sept. 26 profile of Paladino in The New York Times also claimed that at Fort Bliss, Paladino “was soon given command of 200 soldiers training for combat in Vietnam.”

Read the full New York Post article here.