John Kerry before congress 1971:
I would like to talk, representing 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, 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 the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape 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 country side 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.
go back and read the whole thing if you like at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/docume...0404231047.asp
The problem with Kerry's antiwar activities during Vietnam is this: he made this broad-based attack on his fellow soldiers when they were still in harm's way in vietnam. the quote was used as propaganda for the communist regime of north vietnam against our POWs. if kerry had witnessed these things in the war why did he not report them to the chain of command himself? as a future AF officer, I can tell you with some authority that the idea of keeping these things underwraps is CRIMINAL. so... either he witnessed these events and kept them from being reported (which is criminal) or he did not see them and reported hearsay before congress that was damaging to his comrades. that could be construed as libelous considering the severity of the charges.
relevance to thread: the washpost article concluded that bob dole had done a less than honorable thing by criticizing kerry... citing a lack of fidelity to veteran's respect. how can you find fault with dole's criticism of kerry in light of kerry's record? especially when he is campaigning for the job of commander-in-chief on that very record.
pan, i've read more books than i can count on the war though
friendly fire isn't one of them. admittedly, i have a preconceived bias against any book made into a hollywood movie. we all know that you don't think the GOP is running on any issues. though, when talking about a specific issue, you seem to find the ammunition to attack the GOP with zeal. yet, when the democratic candidate spends 3/4's of his convention speech and opens it with a report for duty... not a peep from the left about issue's relevance. i think by "not running on the issues" you should say "not running with my issues".