Kerry Service Record Examined

[ramz]

Got this from my mom this morning and though it does not mention a source, I thought I would share... I'll try to track down the writer of this today and verify its validity...

To be fair, I could care less what Kerry or most anyone else did during their time in Vietnam, but since Kerry choses to make much ado of his record and heroic service, I definitely feel it warrants inspection. The character of the individual--to me, anyway--is far more accurately indicated by his own characterization of personal exploits and not necessarily the exploits themselves... Anyway, an interesting, though not entirely earth-shattering read...
This was written by a retired admiral and Annapolis graduate. The item offers no direct testimony about Kerry, but it does provide informed background useful in assessing what Kerry seems to have claimed for himself. It confirms information I have received from other sources.

Our media should be demanding that Senator Kerry open his service records in the same way they demanded that of President Bush regarding his NG service.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I was in the Delta shortly after he [Kerry] left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:

(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.

(2) Three Purple Hearts, but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong.

(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.

(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.

(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn't return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.

Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering our flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And fishy.

[uberclkgtr]

:yap:

[: ORI :]

yeah...it would be nice to have more sources to verify all this.

[eKiTn]

I saw a commercial last night sponsored by some Vets, containing audio of Kerry's own damning words. He makes me sick. I realize we don't have great choices for President, but I cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone like him.

[Liftedtrance]

I saw a commercial last night sponsored by some Vets, containing audio of Kerry's own damning words. He makes me sick. I realize we don't have great choices for President, but I cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone like him.

why? what damning words are you referring to?

[BizarroCub]

I saw a commercial last night sponsored by some Vets, containing audio of Kerry's own damning words. He makes me sick. I realize we don't have great choices for President, but I cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone like him.

Ever heard the term spin?

"I support Hitler..."

"I support Hitler as the first test subject for lethal injection..."

See the difference?

[zartan]

what a bunch of whiny partisan crap. and i can't believe anyone would pay any attention to the swift boat vet ads.

you realize this is the equivalent of me basing my vote against bush on his former coke habit. which would be totally fucking retarded.

[: ORI :]

you realize this is the equivalent of me basing my vote against bush on his former coke habit. which would be totally fucking retarded.

What about his current one? :bolt:

[zartan]

lol. he doesn't have a coke habit now. i'm sure if its anything its gov't issue uppers and psych meds.

[elad]

... i.e the "good shit."

[zartan]

lol. yeah.

[BizarroCub]

Hes the President...and as such...he deserves only the best...

I wonder if he pays government contract prices for his shit...?

[eKiTn]

why? what damning words are you referring to?

Audio of his own words at a trial (I think), falsely accusing our troops of atrocities against innocents in Vietnam.

I fully realize that both sides put their spin on things. One reason I hate politics, especially around election times, is because it gets so nasty and both (all) sides seem to forget that their true focus should be on important things - like running the country.

So you understand where I'm coming from, I'm a military brat. I've grown up with a big respect for the armed forces. How would I feel if a guy suddenly turned tail & admonished his medals & his fellow soldiers... only to use them later to try to relate to them and gain their votes? I know how my father feels & how my godfather feels. I will not disrepect their honorable service by voting for someone who is only using his service for votes.

I understand that people can change their views over time. To my knowledge, Kerry has not come out and apologized for or even acknowledged his actions after Vietnam. Yet he claims to be a friend of Veterans? If you notice, I'm not singing the praises of Bush by any means, but Kerry doesn't sit well with me.

[BizarroCub]

Audio of his own words at a trial (I think), falsely accusing our troops of atrocities against innocents in Vietnam.

And that is the exact spin I'm talking about...the quote your referring to was him relaying what he had heard from other soldiers about the atrocities that occured in Vietnam. That WERE happening.

I'm sorry if the truth bothers people.

[eKiTn]

you realize this is the equivalent of me basing my vote against bush on his former coke habit. which would be totally fucking retarded.

But how is that even remotely the same thing? Is Bush appealing to former coke addicts, telling them he feels their pain?!

[empath]

Audio of his own words at a trial (I think), falsely accusing our troops of atrocities against innocents in Vietnam.

I fully realize that both sides put their spin on things. One reason I hate politics, especially around election times, is because it gets so nasty and both (all) sides seem to forget that their true focus should be on important things - like running the country.

So you understand where I'm coming from, I'm a military brat. I've grown up with a big respect for the armed forces. How would I feel if a guy suddenly turned tail & admonished his medals & his fellow soldiers... only to use them later to try to relate to them and gain their votes? I know how my father feels & how my godfather feels. I will not disrepect their honorable service by voting for someone who is only using his service for votes.

I understand that people can change their views over time. To my knowledge, Kerry has not come out and apologized for or even acknowledged his actions after Vietnam. Yet he claims to be a friend of Veterans? If you notice, I'm not singing the praises of Bush by any means, but Kerry doesn't sit well with me.
He didn't falsely accuse anyone of anything. He repeated testimony that was given by other soldiers during the Winter Soldier hearings.

[BizarroCub]

I didn't realize speaking the truth made you such a traitor, a bad person, and an incapable leader....guess that's why Bush keeps getting voters...

[vdogg]

:deadhorse: I can't believe the media is still on this service record crap. Let it die already.

[empath]

John Kerry -- Testifying before the US Senate, in 1971. He was 28 years old. Let's not forget, that when George Bush was 28 years old, he had gone AWOL from his unit and was using coke and a raging alcoholic. This, btw, was not a way to make yourself successful or popular in 1971. This took a lot of courage. He got death threats over this. He was taking on Nixon and almost the entire washington establishment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out....

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country - the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

[empath]

ftp://ftp0.thekerrymovie.com/pub/kerry/goingupriver.mov

Btw, before you make a decision about John Kerry based on a 30 second film clip, I urge you to watch this movie. It's the story of John Kerry's anti-war days. It's 2 hours long, and a 650 meg download.. but you can just go see it in theaters now if you want.

[empath]

Goddam reading that speech again is depressing. I wish THAT John Kerry had been running this year. Such an eloquent denunciation of war, and so fucking applicable to what is going on in Iraq now.

[eKiTn]

As I mentioned before, I always take into account there are two (or more) sides to everything. Beyond this, I'm not going to bombard you with more articles to the contrary. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion & I respect that.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Winter%20Soldier%20Investigation

and this:

The Winter Soldier Investigation and John Kerry - Frozen in Time?
By Kevin Fobbs & Lisa Sarrach
February 11, 2004

February 7th represented in many ways a homecoming for front runner Democrat nominee Senator John Kerry, the winner of the Democratic caucuses in Michigan. In many ways, Motown is where his life long journey to capture the White House began.

It was April 1971 at a Howard Johnsons in Detroit, Michigan. Sponsored by Jane Fonda the newly organized Vietnam Veteran's Against the War held informal hearings and heard testimony from approximately 150 Vietnam Veterans. They dubbed the gathering as "The Winter Soldier Investigation." They spoke of the horrible atrocities they had witnessed or participated in. Sitting in on the informal hearing but not participating was recently discharged John Kerry, no longer on active duty but still in the Naval Reserves, John Kerry was now adamantly against the war he just fought and got wounded in, three times.

To hear him tell it as he testified in a Congressional hearing later in 1971, material much of which was repeated from the testimony given during the "Winter Soldier Investigation", you'd think that it would be difficult to make the claim that the War on Terrorism, the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq falls into the same category as this statement:


"Over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did, they relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told their stories. At times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the

power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."


Or this passage:


We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more, and so when in 30 years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.


The entire speech before Congress made John Kerry a rising star and gave him the platform necessary to launch his political career, which he did after law school and a stint as a Massachusetts prosecutor.

Should it matter that the "Winter Soldier Investigation" has been widely discredited in these intervening years by various authors and Vietnam Vets as largely false propaganda delivered by false veterans who either never served in combat in Vietnam or embellished their accounts to achieve their stated political goals?

Senator Kerry has never disavowed the statements he made so long ago in their name. He's never publicly questioned their veracity. The question now is that he is running for president and about to capture the Democratic nomination, does any of this matter? It has been proven in various books, most notably in "Stolen Valor" by BG Burkett, that much of the testimony at that Howard Johnson's in Detroit was exaggerated, embellished, and in some cases boldly fabricated.

With the Democratic caucuses now past and the general election looming with John Kerry the presumptive nominee, it would seem prudent to look back at the "Winter Soldier Investigation" held here way back in 1971 and propose to the electorate -

Does Senator Kerry's history as an anti-war activist matter and what does it portend for his candidacy and the decisions he might have to make as a Commander in Chief?

And what of John Kerry's participation in the "Winter Soldier Investigation," his subsequent organization of the "Dewey Cannon II" march on Washington where he famously threw ribbons and medals over a Capitol fence? Was it true outrage, or a carefully crafted act?

It was later discovered that the medals he threw were not his own, but other Vets' medals. His are in his office proudly displayed for constituents. He stated that he threw his own ribbons and was asked to throw the medals for other Vets who couldn't be there. That's fine, but it was an

embarrassing moment for him to be forced to reveal years later that he allowed reporters and others to assume the medals he tossed were his own.

Does he stand behind the statements made to the Senate all those years ago? Does he still believe it? How do his experiences in Vietnam color his attitudes today?

You could make the argument that all this has no place in our current political discourse. But then you'd have to talk to Terry McAuliffe, Wesley Clark, Michael Moore, and others who have decided that President Bush's service in the National Guard is still fair game. Just this past weekend, Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Committee Chairman said this:


"I look forward to that debate, when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL" in the National Guard, Mr. McAuliffe said on the ABC program "This Week."

George Bush never served in our military in our country," he said. "He didn't show up when he should have showed up."


Just for the record, George W. Bush was never AWOL. He trained as a pilot, his unit was activated at the time of his training, and only because of a restructuring of his unit, was he not activated and sent to Vietnam. He flew for 22 months after training, and completed his required duties. While he did miss some time during a move to Alabama, he more than made up the time at the other end back in Texas. He was honorably discharged after almost six years credited service in the National Guard.

Back to Mr. Kerry. If he, his supporters, his opponents and others are allowed to continually question President Bush's capabilities, war service records, and the decisions he has made since we were attacked on 9-11-01, it seems only fair to be able to look at Mr. Kerry's record as a whole, including the frozen truth from the Detroit "Winter Solider Investigation from so long ago, and not just the parts he wants us all to focus on.

Is it a fair question to ponder how much do we need to know about the psychological make up of our presidential candidates? Is it important to know what makes them tick? It seemed very important in Iowa when Howard Dean appeared to have a melt down on national television after losing that state's primary. His numbers plummeted and he consequently lost much of the advantage that he enjoyed in New Hampshire, coming in a distant second.

Should it matter that after Vietnam he stated that he would never allow troops into battle without the United Nations' approval and as the lead agency. That he has previously attempted to cut back on CIA funding for intelligence and to slash spending at the FBI feeling that in a post-Cold War posture, the CIA was no longer necessary. That he has voted against many military spending bills that included the Abrams tank, Patriot Missile, B-1 Bomber, B-2 Stealth Bomber, and many other current pieces of our arsenal that have been so effective in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The problem with all of this is that this country is NOT in the same place we were 35 years ago. The same rhetoric that was effective during the Vietnam Era and the post-Cold War Era is not where we are as a country today. We are not running this war from the Oval Office, as was

asserted in Vietnam, but from Cent Com, with the generals in the field. They tell us what they need, and the Pentagon fulfills their requests when needed for troops, materials, and supplies.

Some have called Mr. Kerry too liberal; others have said he's not liberal enough. We think the more important question is whether he's capable of making the tough decisions to keep us safe, or has his experience forever colored him from thinking that the United States government is capable of acting honorably for the benefit of mankind and our country.

Is Senator Kerry frozen in time or will he be able to thaw and warm to the new dangers that face our world? Let the debate begin................

--------------

Kevin Fobbs is President, Lisa Sarrach is Vice President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic, and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. Visit their web site at www.NuPac.org.

[empath]

Do you think John Kerry was wrong about Vietnam?

Do you honestly think that was a good war, and trying to stop it was a mistake?

[Agent Sunshine]

Also, what is wrong with trying to start a political career based on something that you believe in? As if it's only legit to get into politics because YOUR DAD HAS CONNECTIONS OUT THE ASS?! What the fuck is wrong with people!?

[ramz]

The problem is that you all seem to make this a Bad vs. Worse debate instead of independent analyses of the deeds of the persons in question. You're weighing a shit sandwich against a turd pie instead of just saying, "Damn, shit sandwiches are nasty..."

[BizarroCub]

The problem is that you all seem to make this a Bad vs. Worse debate instead of independent analyses of the deeds of the persons in question. You're weighing a shit sandwich against a turd pie instead of just saying, "Damn, shit sandwiches are nasty..."

I beg to differ...I know I've repeatedly said this...

[vdogg]

The problem is that you all seem to make this a Bad vs. Worse debate instead of independent analyses of the deeds of the persons in question. "I have done independent analysis of both candidates and it still winds up being a bad vs. worse debate in my mind. Sucks to say that but its true. Such is the sorry state of American political affairs nowadays. The solution: Valid 3rd party candidates (Valid= not lunatics, people who can make a serious run for office without being a protest candidate). Until such time as that occurs however, my leaning is going to be more democrat because they are the ones who's beliefs are closest to mine.

[zartan]

Audio of his own words at a trial (I think), falsely accusing our troops of atrocities against innocents in Vietnam.

I fully realize that both sides put their spin on things. One reason I hate politics, especially around election times, is because it gets so nasty and both (all) sides seem to forget that their true focus should be on important things - like running the country.

So you understand where I'm coming from, I'm a military brat. I've grown up with a big respect for the armed forces. How would I feel if a guy suddenly turned tail & admonished his medals & his fellow soldiers... only to use them later to try to relate to them and gain their votes? I know how my father feels & how my godfather feels. I will not disrepect their honorable service by voting for someone who is only using his service for votes.

I understand that people can change their views over time. To my knowledge, Kerry has not come out and apologized for or even acknowledged his actions after Vietnam. Yet he claims to be a friend of Veterans? If you notice, I'm not singing the praises of Bush by any means, but Kerry doesn't sit well with me.

So you believe nothing was done wrong by the US military in vietnam? And an honorable soldier who sees wrongdoing is honor-bound to hide that fact?

[empath]

This is just one example of a Vietnam war crime. This isn't rumor or innuendo. This is fact. People were convicted of this in a court martial:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_intro.html


On March 14, a small squad from "C" Company ran into a booby trap, killing a popular sergeant, blinding one GI and wounding several others. The following evening, when a funeral service was held for the killed sergeant, soldiers had revenge on their mind. After the service, Captain Medina rose to give the soldiers a pep talk and discuss the next morning's mission. Medina told them that the VC's crack 48th Battalion was in the vicinity of a hamlet known as My Lai 4, which would be the target of a large-scale assault by the company. The soldiers' mission would be to engage the 48th Battalion and to destroy the village of My Lai. By 7 a.m., Medina said, the women and children would be out of the hamlet and all they could expect to encounter would be the enemy. The soldiers were to explode brick homes, set fire to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy. The seventy-five or so American soldiers would be supported in their assault by gunship pilots.

Medina later said that his objective that night was to "fire them up and get them ready to go in there; I did not give any instructions as to what to do with women and children in the village." Although some soldiers agreed with that recollection of Medina's, others clearly thought that he had ordered them to kill every person in My Lai 4. Perhaps his orders were intentionally vague. What seems likely is that Medina intentionally gave the impression that everyone in My Lai would be their enemy.

At 7:22 a.m. on March 16, nine helicopters lifted off for the flight to My Lai 4. By the time the helicopters carrying members of Charlie Company landed in a rice paddy about 140 yards south of My Lai, the area had been peppered with small arms fire from assault helicopters. Whatever VC might have been in the vicinity of My Lai had most likely left by the time the first soldiers climbed out of their helicopters. The assault plan called for Lt. Calley's first platoon and Lt. Stephen Brooks' second platoon to sweep into the village, while a third platoon, Medina, and the headquarters unit would be held in reserve and follow the first two platoons in after the area was more-or-less secured. Above the ground, the action would be monitored at the 1,000-foot level by Lt. Col. Barker and at the 2,500-foot level by Oran Henderson, commander of the 11th Brigade, both flying counterclockwise around the battle scene in helicopters.

My Lai village had about 700 residents. They lived in either red-brick homes or thatch-covered huts. A deep drainage ditch marked the eastern boundary of the village. Directly south of the residential area was an open plaza area used for holding village meetings. To the north and west of the village was dense foliage [MAP].

By 8 a.m., Calley's platoon had crossed the plaza on the town's southern edge and entered the village. They encountered families cooking rice in front of their homes. The men began their usual search-and-destroy task of pulling people from homes, interrogating them, and searching for VC. Soon the killing began. The first victim was a man stabbed in the back with a bayonet. Then a middle-aged man was picked up, thrown down a well, and a grenade lobbed in after him. A group of fifteen to twenty mostly older women were gathered around a temple, kneeling and praying. They were all executed with shots to the back of their heads. Eighty or so villagers were taken from their homes and herded to the plaza area. As many cried "No VC! No VC!", Calley told soldier Paul Meadlo, "You know what I want you to do with them". When Calley returned ten minutes later and found the Vietnamese still gathered in the plaza he reportedly said to Meadlo, "Haven't you got rid of them yet? I want them dead. Waste them." Meadlo and Calley began firing into the group from a distance of ten to fifteen feet. The few that survived did so because they were covered by the bodies of those less fortunate.

What Captain Medina knew of these war crimes is not certain. It was a chaotic operation. Gary Garfolo said, "I could hear shooting all the time. Medina was running back and forth everywhere. This wasn't no organized deal." Medina would later testify that he didn't enter the village until 10 a.m., after most of the shooting had stopped, and did not personally witness a single civilian being killed. Others put Medina in the village closer to 9 a.m., and close to the scene of many of the murders as they were happening.

As the third platoon moved into My Lai, it was followed by army photographer Ronald Haeberle, there to document what was supposed to be a significant encounter with a crack enemy battalion. Haeberle took many pictures [HAEBERLE PHOTOS]. He said he saw about thirty different GIs kill about 100 civilians. Once Haeberle focused his camera on a young child about five feet away, but before he could get his picture the kid was blown away. He angered some GIs as he tried to photograph them as they fondled the breasts of a fifteen-year-old Vietnamese girl.

An army helicopter piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson arrived in the My Lai vicinity about 9 a.m. Thompson noticed dead and dying civilians all over the village. Thompson repeatedly saw young boys and girls being shot at point-blank range. Thompson, furious at what he saw, reported the wanton killings to brigade headquarters [THOMPSON'S STORY].

Meanwhile, the rampage below continued. Calley was at the drainage ditch on the eastern edge of the village, where about seventy to eighty old men, women, and children not killed on the spot had been brought. Calley ordered the dozen or so platoon members there to push the people into the ditch, and three or four GIs did. Calley ordered his men to shoot into the ditch. Some refused, others obeyed. One who followed Calley's order was Paul Meadlo, who estimated that he killed about twenty-five civilians. (Later Meadlo was seen, head in hands, crying.) Calley joined in the massacre. At one point, a two-year-old child who somehow survived the gunfire began running towards the hamlet. Calley grabbed the child, threw him back in the ditch, then shot him.

Hugh Thompson, by now almost frantic, saw bodies in the ditch, including a few people who were still alive. He landed his helicopter and told Calley to hold his men there while he evacuated the civilians. Thompson told his helicopter crew chief to "open up on the Americans" if they fired at the civilians. He put himself between Calley's men and the Vietnamese. When a rescue helicopter landed, Thompson had the nine civilians, including five children, flown to the nearest army hospital. Later, Thompson was to land again and rescue a baby still clinging to her dead mother.

By 11 a.m., when Medina called for a lunch break, the killing was nearly over. By noon, "My Lai was no more": its buildings were destroyed and its people dead or dying. Soldiers later said they didn't remember seeing "one military-age male in the entire place". By night, the VC had returned to bury the dead. What few villagers survived and weren't already communists, became communists. Twenty months later army investigators would discover three mass graves containing the bodies of about 500 villagers.

[zartan]

EMPATH HATES OUR TROOPS

[BizarroCub]

The ICC is just to fuck over Americans!

[BizarroCub]

I'm sorry, but anyone that feels "betrayed" by the people that came back and spoke the truth about what was really happening in Vietnam, obviously has something to hide...

However, I'm expecting the same kinda thing to end up happening in Iraq...

[eKiTn]

So you believe nothing was done wrong by the US military in vietnam? And an honorable soldier who sees wrongdoing is honor-bound to hide that fact?

The thing is, we don't know what really happened or didn't happen over there. CNN and their ilk were not covering the war. We are getting second and third hand information from politicians and people with ulterior motives.

War is always a horrible situation because of the lives that are lost. However, sometimes war is a necessity. Should we have let Hitler take over the world? My take on Vietnam is that some bad things probably did happen there. As happens with everything, the actuality of some of the stories may have become twisted to fit the motives of those telling them. I'm skeptical of the Winter Soldier Investigation because several of the accounts have been disproven.

Calling Kerry an "honorable solider" (perhaps implying he would be an "honorable leader"?) even when there are numerous accounts to the contrary seems a bit naive.

Once again, please don't take this as my standing here on a soap box for Bush. I'm NOT. I just don't like or trust Kerry.

[BizarroCub]

Calling Kerry an "honorable solider" (perhaps implying he would be an "honorable leader"?) even when there are numerous accounts to the contrary seems a bit naive.

And almost every single one of those "accounts" has been disproven or shown to be coming from people with ulterior motives. Did you know that two of the people that helped the people make those commercials worked for the Bush campaign?

The thing is, we don't know what really happened or didn't happen over there. CNN and their ilk were not covering the war. We are getting second and third hand information from politicians and people with ulterior motives.

Actually a fair amount of it was caught on film and photograph. That's not second hand.

War is always a horrible situation because of the lives that are lost. However, sometimes war is a necessity. Should we have let Hitler take over the world? My take on Vietnam is that some bad things probably did happen there. As happens with everything, the actuality of some of the stories may have become twisted to fit the motives of those telling them. I'm skeptical of the Winter Soldier Investigation because several of the accounts have been disproven.

First off...PLEASE do not equte Vietnam with WWII. WWII was a necessary, just, and needed war. Vietnam was anything but.

And you seem to have a rosy colored view of Vietnam. There isn't any "probably" about the atrocities that happened there. It is "certainty" that a lot of those atrocities happened over there.

[empath]

CNN didn't cover WWII either, do you think the gas chambers didn't happen? We don't KNOW how bad the Nazi's were? It's all second or third hand information?

Come on. There are photographs, eye witness testimony, books, film footage, tv coverage. There is as much evidence as you want to find on American war crimes in vietnam. I just posted evidence from one particular war crime that went to trial, but something like My Lai doesn't happen without a lot of smaller crimes leading up to it.

and as far as the Swift Boat Veterans, you're only getting one side of the story. Many of them spoke out in his defense in his previous runs for office. They were conned by this guy John O'Neill, a guy who worked with Richard Nixon in the 70s to take down John Kerry.

[zartan]

1) The numerous accounts to the contrary have all popped up during an election battle. Doesn't that cast some doubt on them? Many honorable men, like John McCain and the guy Kerry pulled out of the water, have come out in his defense.

2) The fact that we don't know what really happened means we should be grateful for those who came back and told us what they saw. It is unconscionable in my mind to hold a position where coming out and saying negative things about the military makes you unelectable - in effect, creating a chilling effect on future whistleblowers who might help us know the truth about world events

3) No one is arguing we should have let Hitler take over the world, or more relevently, that we should have let the Soviets take it over. However, the fact that the Soviets were a legitimate threat does not necessarily make every action taken by our government correct. Much was done wrong. And it is important to learn from our history, not close ranks and protect our troops. The Soviets, and the government of Orwell's 1984, rewrote history as a matter of course to justify their actions in hindsight. In our society, we should be willing - in fact, eager - to "run to criticism" rather than succumbing to the temptation to "see no evil".

4) I'm not saying Kerry is the second coming of Jesus (or Jefferson). I'm saying that his record is generally honorable, that his testimony was heartfelt and supported by much documentary evidence, that the record of his opponent is at least as questionable, if not moreso - certainly less honorable, if only because he didn't put himself in harm's way, and that policy differences matter far more than these politically motivated accusations.

[ramz]

I know this is ancient history, but in the spirit of admitting when I'm wrong, I thought I would clear this up with this snopes article:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

I was admittedly suspicious of the story based upon its origin, but I didn't take the time to really fact check it... My apologies...

[zartan]

good for you. now hopefully we'll see the same thing in the global warming thread ;)

[ramz]

:hahano: :wink: