Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer is quickly backpedaling from her incorrect claim that her father “died fighting the Nazi regime.” The Arizona Guardian reported on Wednesday that Brewer had told another paper that “knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany,” she finds criticism hurtful that compares the state’s new immigration bill to Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
“I lost him when I was around 11 because of that,” Brewer said of her father’s service.
The governor’s father, in fact, died in 1955 in California.
In a statement Thursday, Brewer corrected the misstatement without apologizing for incorrectly saying her father died in combat.
“My father, Wilford Drinkwine, moved our family before I was born from Minnesota to Nevada to work at the Hawthorne Ammunition Depot in Western Nevada at the outset of World War II. He passed away when I was 11 years old,” Brewer said. “His death came after a long and painful battle with lung disease, contracted following years of exposure to hazardous chemicals and toxic fumes while working as a civil servant at the base.”
“I loved my father and was proud to hear him tell me that he was doing his part to help fight the Nazis in Germany,” she said. “Even in the end, when my dad struggled for breath, he never regretted serving his country, helping free Europe from Hitler’s grip. I have proudly recounted his story in many places for many years. My father’s patriotism and sacrifice needs no embellishment.”
In a follow up interview with the Guardian, Brewer blamed the paper for trying to peg her as a “liar.”
“I’m fairly devastated by this, for what it’s worth,” Brewer told the paper, adding that she never intentionally misled the public about her father’s service.
“There is no way I have ever misled anybody,” the governor added. “You’re trying to make a liar out of me.”
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