Locobot

thanks for flooding wonderwench, O'neil was better prepared for that debate but he was wrong, we were no where close to winning in Vietnam. Did you see Kerry's statement made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971? We need someone who can speak truth to power:

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.


Bush's military record: [Missing due to microfilm error] Although I compel you to find anyone who will actually say he even showed up for duty...

compare with:

Kerry 1969 Vietnam Action
The following is a summary of combat actions of PCF94 from February 12 to March 17, 1969 taken from after-action reports and the Coastal Division Eleven Command History on file at the Naval Operational Archives. All locations are near the south end of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

12 FEB 1969
Two swiftboats inserted Navy Seals and conducted normal river patrols the night of February 12 and early morning of February 13.

13 FEB 1969
PCF 94 conducted routine Psyops mission.

14 FEB 1969
Two swiftboats inserted seal team and provided protection for mission.

18 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
Kerry's boat and another swiftboat, PCF72, entered the Bay Hap River in the afternoon carrying Navy Seals. A mine exploded close to PCF72, and a short time later the two boats came under heavy fire. Five B-40 rounds were fired at Kerry's boat, three missed and exploded on the river bank, one passed across the bow and another passed across the boat's stern. A mine exploded about 15 yards in front of Kerry's boat. It was suspected that the Viet Cong had expected the boats to come up the river and planned an ambush.

19 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
As a follow-up to the mission of 18 February, five swiftboats moved downriver in the morning with a company of South Vietnamese marines to engage troops that took swiftboats under fire the day before. The boats came under fire several times during the day, although damage was limited to "several SA (small arms) holes in superstructure and rigging of PCH 72 and 94."

20 FEB 1969 Dam Doi River
On a patrol of the Dam Doi River with five other swiftboats and helicopter cover, PCF 94 came under intense small arms and rocket fire from three personnel in black pajamas on the bank. Kerry and one member of his crew were wounded. Kerry received shrapnel wounds in his left thigh. The second man, EN2 Eugene Kenneth Thorson suffered shrapnel wounds in his right arm. Both were treated aboard the USCGC Wachusetts and returned to duty. Persons filing reports on this mission were highly critical of the cover provided by the helicopters and noted that the area seemed prosperous and lacked offensive bunkers, and suggested that future operations in the area avoid destruction. Kerry received the Purple Heart for this operation.

25 FEB 1969 Cua Lon River
Early in the morning, four swiftboats, including Kerry's, rendezvoused to conduct operations against Viet Cong targets with cover from helicopters. The party destroyed several boats as well as a suspected Viet Cong meeting hall containing Ho Chi Minh posters and Viet Cong uniforms. Later in the day, the boats encountered heavy fire from rockets and automatic weapons. The boats and helicopters suppressed the enemy fire. When a man was seen running into a bunker, PCF94 beached and an assault party was sent to retrieve him. The landing party was fired on shortly after landing on the beach and pinned down until another boat could reach the area. When the Viet Cong refused to leave the bunker in spite of repeated requests from the Officer in Charge, the bunker was destroyed.

26 FEB 1969 Cua Lon River
On night patrol with two other swiftboats, PCFs 43 and 44, the patrol discovered a double-hulled sampan. Five men on the sampan jumped overboard, but were trapped the boats at the waters edge. They resisted capture and boat crews had to jump off the boat and drag them back on board. After taking the Vietnamese prisoners back to the boats, all three boats began to pull away from shore when a rocket fired from shore exploded near PCFs 43 and 44. The boats returned fire and withdrew with five prisoners. One of the prisoners taken on board was seriously injured with a broken leg. When filing their report, the crews believed that the prisoners avoided capture to delay and facilitate an attack on the boats. After interrogation, it was determined that the prisoners were not military.

27 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
On an evening patrol with two other swiftboats, PCFs 23 and 43, about 26 miles south of Ca Mu, the patrol took heavy fire, including five rockets. Three rockets narrowly missed Kerry's boat, and exploded on the opposite bank. Another rocket exploded near PCF 94, and the fifth exploded near PCF 23, wounding a crewmember on that boat. The boats suppressed the fire and withdrew. During the battle, a sailor on Kerry's boat, Crewmember/Trainee Michael J. Givens was shot in the upper right arm. Givens injuries were not serious and he was sent to the 79th field hospital in Can Tho.

28 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
Three PCFs were traveling up the Bay Hap River with 70 South Vietnamese Militia investigating an area where the boats were ambushed the previous night. During the patrol, the boats came under heavy fore from the shore. Kerry, serving as the Officer in Tactical Command of the mission, ordered the units to turn toward the fire and beach. As the boats approached shore, more than 20 Viet Cong troops stood up and ran. They were quickly overrun when the Marines troops reached the shore. While the Militia searched the area, PCFs 23 and 94 left to investigate another site where an Army advisor reported gunshots. Returning from the site, a B-40 rocket exploded close to PCF94, blowing out one of the windows. Kerry again ordered the units to turn into the fire and charge the ambush site. PCF 94 landed in the center of ambush and a man jumped up holding a B-40 rocket launcher and started to run. The forward M-60 gunner on PCF94 wounded him in the leg as Kerry jumped off the boat and chased him inland behind a hooch and shot him. Marines swept the area, and received fire from snipers and small arms that was suppressed with the assistance of mortars and gunfire from the swiftboats. The landing parties found vast stores of rice, ammunition and clothing. The boats were fired on one additional time as they were heading back down the river. The site of the second ambush was believed to be a major Viet Cong supply point. Kerry received the Silver Star for this operation.

1 MAR 1969 Bay Hap River
Four Swiftboats conducted operation "U-HAUL," which involved towing fuel bladders up the Bay Hap River to Cai Nuoc. The units received light fire during the operation.

10 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Four swiftboats, including PCF94, carried troops and surveyed an area where other boats were ambushed two days earlier. No incidents occurred.

11 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Three swiftboats cleared the Cua Lon River of barricades. The mission received no hostile fire and no casualties were reported.

12 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Four swiftboats proceeded up Cau Lon with 20 troops on board. The boats encountered hostile small arms fire, which was suppressed. A short time later, two or three mines detonated and the boats came under heavy automatic weapons fire from both banks. Unable to suppress the fire, the boats moved south to extract the troops and called in air support. After the area received artillery and air strikes, the boats returned and inserted the troops, who observed, but could not capture 9 Vet Cong troops. One female was captured, taken to the USS Washtenaw and later returned.

13 MAR 1969 Bay Hap River; Dong Cung Canal
Four swiftboats were engaged in moving Mobile Strike Force troops on the Bay Hap River and the Dong Cung Canal. Moving down the river in the afternoon following a day of heavy fighting, a mine detonated underneath PCF 3, lifting it 2-3 feet out of the water and, at the same time, a second mine detonated near PCF94, wounding Kerry and knocking an Army advisor on PCF94 into the water. Meanwhile the boats began receiving heavy fire from both sides of the river. Kerry, who had received shrapnel wounds and hurt his right arm, directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire while he pulled the Army advisor back into his boat. PCF 94 then returned to aid PCF 3 and towed the boat down the river to safety. Kerry received the Bronze Star for this action.