Notice how he says he was a Marine "during Vietnam?"

He does not claim to have served in Vietnam, and his bio on his website www.dalepeterson2010.com says that he joined the Corps in 1963, "returning to Birmingham in 1967 . . ." - again no reference to actual service in Vietnam.

I'm not accusing him of lying or misleading -- heck, he might actually have served in Vietnam for all I know -- but should he even refer to service "during Vietnam" if he didn't serve there?

Given the whole Blumenthal mess, I wonder whether anyone else will pick up on this . . .

I expect a lot of funny business from Government Motors and their fellow travelers.

Back when it was thought that you could do anything to General Motors and Toyota would save us, there were plenty of Toyota recalls. GM recalls were front page, and Toyota recalls (of which there were many) were lost on page 27. Now, Toyota recalls are the subject of government inquiry.

I don't own a Toyota, and never plan to.

For someone who served in the Vietnam era,it is totally legitimate for them to say so.
Many,many service personnel served in capacities related to strategic defense(ICBM's,Polaris subs,etc)where they could never have been sent to Vietnam,yet provided essential service in our defense.Many servicemen served in Korea and Europe,where the USSR was a real threat.Honorable service is what mattered.
George W.Bush,as an F102 pilot, could not have been deployed to Vietnam in any event.We didn't use F102's over there.They were all assigned to the Air Defense Command.
Jack Reed,as much as I cannot stand him,has never suggested he served in Vietnam.He was in Europe.Luck of the draw.It wasn't like he came from a big deal family.
Blumenthal is just a lying POS.
He even lied about being captain of the Harvard swim team.It marks him as someone with a real character flaw.

I don't quarrel with Peterson's mentioning that he served, but I think some who see the ad will hear his reference to Vietnam and will interpret it as meaning that he went, and a savvy political ad person knows exactly what message voters will take from the reference.

Such clever ad tactics are fine if you're selling toilet tissue or laundry detergent, but it's playing with fire in a political ad.

If he didn't go to Vietnam (and maybe he did) he'd be much wiser to say that he served four years in the Marines, which is praiseworthy enough on its own.

I'm just saying that I think the ad may backfire on him, especially in light of the national attention that it's attracted.