--Were Monson and Patton Really Close Boyhood Friends?
So why did Patton's mom feel comfortable calling Monson Tommy...if she had not known him as a young man? To me there was a close relationship here...
But more importantly, what is the point...that Monson didn't get his facts straight? Ok score one for Benson...but really, what is the big deal? Mormon GA's are known to exaggerate stories and focus on the most emotional trigger points to create a spiritual experience in their intended audience...Monson merely doing exactly that in his conference talks.
The fact that he got his facts messed up...people do that...memory is not perfect...I'm sure more to the point is that he focused on what he considered a spiritual experience in his youth and expanded it to make a point that the church is true...big deal GA's caught doing what GA's do.
PS: I hate defending Monson...but unless I'm missing something, I just see the uproar among non believers over Monson's error as playing into the hands of believers who view those of us who no longer believe as bitter, petty apostates...Benson's essay...lends support to this notion
My reply is full of "bitter, petty" facts that torpedo Monson's Good Ship Belly Flop.
I'm not surprised that Monson would embellish in yet another self-congratulatory tale of how he blessed someone else's life. That said, a couple of things stand out as odd:
1. Why the attempts to (almost) correct or clarify in subsequent republication? The story is not about Arthur Patton but about the comfort that Monson gave to a grieving mother. It wouldn't matter if Arthur Patton had died in combat or dropped dead during a gay sex orgy, as long as Monson was able to tell Mrs. Patton that she would see her son again.
2. Why the obsession with tracking down the "real" story (which will probably never be known)? Does embellishing or misremembering equal deception? I suppose it depends.
This whole thing seems rather pointless.
No more pointless than putting a defendant, who claims to be a prophet. on the stand and grilling him with facts that expose his fraudulent guilt.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Nevo wrote:Funny that Steve Benson neglects to mention that nearly all of the evidence he pretends to have sleuthed out himself was located for him by two posters on this board.
Benson's original thesis was that Arthur Patton never existed, and that Monson made the story up out of whole cloth. It turns out Patton did exist, did live near Thomas Monson in Salt Lake, did join the Navy, and did die in the Pacific in WWII—although Monson didn't report the details of Arthur's death correctly.
I have done plenty of sleuthing, both above and below the waterline relying on many different sources of information (with more to come). As to Patton's existence, I initially checked to make sure he actually existed, then skeptically took Monson to task. Patton survived the examination; Monson didn't.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Uncle Ed wrote:I don't see the reason for this materializing in the "exposé". Benson has an ax to grind against GBH and TSM, for their manipulating of his grandfather ETB for the last c. two years of his moribund presidency. He knows that TSM is a manipulator, and he won't stop pointing it out. This story is pale manipulation compared to Dunn. It can even be laid to imperfection, and not malice aforethought like Dunn. Of course when Monson sees his earlier error on some factoids he won't point them out, what would be the point? The story is meant to inspire faith, it was never a history lesson on WW2 campaigns. If Monson wants to paint a casual childhood acquaintance as a heroic best friend at least there isn't any hard evidence that he's mistaken or lying. The "body" is in the right place and right time, which is more than Dunn could produce. "Misconduct" could be wrong in so many ways. Human pique or prejudice. With nothing else to show what the "missing" report status means, we have Steve Benson's obvious mad-on versus TSM's and Mrs Patton's knowledge "by the Spirit"....
Monson has not admitted to any factual errors in his renditions of his Patton fable. He has simply re-baked his latest version to cover over his factual flops in the first, hoping that the faithful flock won't remember the initial rollout and blindly accept the second. There is plenty of hard evidence that Monson was both mistaken and lying, in both versions. The "body" was not in the right place or the right time in either Monson's 1969 first fly-by or in his second 2007 Kamikaze dive.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Bonified wrote:Someone at RFM has hacked Steve Benon's account. This post purporting to be his does not contain a blow-by-blow account of his taking on a Q12 in the mid 80s and emerging victorious.
First, the account you mention is from some guy named "Benon," not "Benson," so he must not be me.
Second, my account involved discussions with Dallin Oaks and Neal Maxwell of the Quorum of the !2 that took place in 1993, not the mid-'80s, so this "Benon" fellow of which you speak definitely is not me.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Well, if Mr. Patton didn't die that day where was he? If Mr. Steve "Sherlock" Benson can sleuth out these nefarious lies then shouldn't he easily be able to sleuth out the truth on Mr. Patton's whereabouts?
- Doc
QFT
Maybe Monson can tell us. After all, he's the prophet, seer and revelator for this kind of stuff.
In the meantime, this is what the U.S. government can and cannot tell us: No official U.S. military record designates "Arthur Frank Patton" as KIA, missing, or dead from wounds received in operational combat zones in WW II. All we have is Patton's ship, the U.S.S. White Plains, officially listing him as "missing due to own misconduct," while the ship was in a non-combat area where it was not engaged in any fighting against the Japanese. That means that, contrary to Monson's fundamental claim, Patton did not go down with his ship and was not killed in battle. So much for Monson's much-ballyhooed baloney.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 3:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
Have you ever ordered a copy of Patton's service record?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Agreed. I enjoy the occasional rumor-mongering as much as the next fellow, but come one Steve, it's been 25 years since the incident and he's still posting daily on RfM. You'd think by now he could create a post without the usual dozen edits.
It was 38 years from the time Monson gave his first sermon on Patton to when Monson delivered his follow-up sermon on Patton; yet, you don't seem to be complaining about that.
Moreover, "the incident" involving Patton occurred not 25 years ago, but nearly 70 years ago.
As to my "incident" of leaving the Mormon Church, that occurred in the fall of 1993. That would be just over 20 years ago, not 25.
You appear to be as bad at math as Monson is at history. :)
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jan 14, 2014 3:24 am, edited 1 time in total.