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Ustwo · 09-16-2004, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Ustwo, How dare you accuse anyone else who posts on this thread
of saying false statements ? In your post no. 48 on this thread, you twice
stated that Kerry "lied" to congress in his 1971 testimony:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=48

Your words (linked above):
Opie I don't know why I bother, but I will try yet again.

Kerry tried to get out of going to Vietnam by getting a deferment to go study in France. It was rejected. He took the quickest way out. I would commend him for his service if he didn't lie to congress etc when he got back.

Kerry TRIED to avoid Vietnam, he failed, he figured out a quick way home getting three purple hearts with zero hospitalization time, and then he lied about his service causing suffering for US POW's. We have what he said to congress on tape, with his long face lying his way to political fortune with the left, that can not be denied. You won't address it I know.

I did not expect you to reply to my post, http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=55 because I challenged your accusations
that Kerry "lied" to congress, by posting the conclusion of factcheck.org
that kerry did not lie. Although it was no surprise to me that you ignored
my challenge to your statements, I was very surprised to read that you
used a factcheck.org finding to launch an accusation against another
member who you accuse of "saying false statements". You demonstrate
that you won't admit that you are wrong when confronted with a reliable
and respected source that invalidates a statement you have posted on this
thread, but you are quick to lash out at another member, by using the
same authority, factcheck.org, that I used to refute misinformed
accusations that you made here. You do not hold yourself to the same
standard that you seek to hold others to, and yet you treat others in a
condescending and antagonistic manner. Never admit that you are wrong,
Ustwo, and....attack.....attack.....attack.....you have learned well from
your pResident....you conduct yourself here, just like he and his puppetmaster Rove conduct themselves in the political arena ! Long on gall and nerve, but short on truth and substance.

host, I don't read your posts because of the poor formating, extra long cut and pastes, and the fact that you always seemed a bit out of it. The only reason I read this one is because 'I got owned' which is quite silly.

The question isn't were war crimes commited in Vietnam, of course they were, they have been by US forces in every war. When you get young men in such situations, the worst in people come out. The question is was it policy, was the winter soldier movement really accurate or was it fabricated to fit an agenda, and did the leaders like Kerry know it.

Here is a long, unformated article for you to read.

Quote:

My name is Steve Pitkin, age 20, from Baltimore. I served with the 9th Division from May of '69 until I was airvaced in July of '69. I'll testify about the beating of civilians and enemy personnel, destruction of villages, indiscriminate use of artillery, the general racism and the attitude of the American GI toward the Vietnamese. I will also talk about some of the problems of the GIs toward one another and the hassle with officers.

-- Steve Pitkin, Winter Soldier Investigation, February 1, 1971.

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Steve Pitkin never intended to speak at the Winter Soldier Investigation. He agreed to come to Detroit in January of 1971 mostly to support his fellow veterans, but also to see David Crosby and Graham Nash perform and hopefully meet a few girls. He didn’t really have any place else to go.

Unlike most members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Pitkin had seen combat in Vietnam. He was caught in a mortar attack shortly after arriving in country as a Private First Class, and suffered minor wounds to both legs. During the months that followed his injuries became infected and "jungle rot" set in. He was eventually medivaced to an Army hospital in Okinawa, where the doctors gave him anti-fungals and antibiotics, and managed to save his feet. Specialist Pitkin would leave the Army with a Purple Heart, an honorable discharge, and a lifetime case of hepatitis C from the transfusions.

Back in the States, Pitkin did not receive a hero's welcome. At Travis Air Force Base in California he was showered with feces thrown by anti-war protestors. Later, while he waited in his Class A uniform for a plane at San Francisco International Airport, people stopped to snarl obscenities and occasionally spit. Even a World War II veteran paused to come over and call him a coward. He went back home to Baltimore, but it wasn’t home any more. Steve Pitkin was 19 years old.

"I was in bad shape," Pitkin recalls. "My family was against the war, and so were all my old friends. I had things I wanted to say, but there was nobody to listen. I was angry at our government which should have known better than to let us die in a conflict it had no intention of winning, and I was furious at the American media for making us out to be baby-killers and telling lies about what they saw."

Confused and depressed, Pitkin signed up for classes at Catonsville Community College outside of Baltimore. There he met recruiters talking up a new organization they described as a "brotherhood" of Vietnam veterans. Pitkin started going to Vietnam Veterans Against the War meetings at the campus, hoping to find some people he could talk to about his experiences. Pitkin says he "had no inkling" that VVAW leaders were meeting with North Vietnamese and Vietcong representatives, or that the VVAW consistently supported their positions. He thought the VVAW was just an alternative to older organizations such as the VFW, where so many Vietnam vets felt unwelcome.

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In January of 1971, Pitkin was invited to go to Detroit for the VVAW's "Winter Soldier Investigation," a national conference intended to convince the public that American troops were routinely committing war crimes in Vietnam. "I was just going to show support for the guys who were already picked out to testify," said Pitkin. "Fighting in the war was terrible enough -– I shot people -- but I never saw any atrocities against civilians. The Vietcong hung up tribal chiefs and disemboweled them in front of their own families –- they did that to their own people. I never saw Americans do anything like that."

The Baltimore contingent met up with other VVAW members in Washington, where they were loaded into rental vans with no back seats. It was freezing cold in Pitkin's van, and Kerry and another former officer were in the front where all the heat was, which made for a long drive. Pitkin was unimpressed with the tall, aloof Kerry, who rarely spoke to anyone other than the organization’s leaders, and tagged Kerry with the nickname "Lurch" after the Addams Family TV character. The ragtag group eventually made it to Detroit, got lost for a while, and then spent the night at somebody's house. The conference was held at a Howard Johnson’s motel, in a room Pitkin remembers as having big concrete posts and no windows, with press lights glaring down on the participants. An entourage of VVAW leaders and reporters always surrounded John Kerry, who, Pitkin thought, looked like he was running for President.

Pitkin watched for a day or so while his fellow VVAW members told stories about horrible things they claimed to have done or witnessed in Vietnam. He noticed other people, civilians, going around to the VVAW members and "bombarding them, laying on the guilt," as they told the veterans they had committed unspeakable crimes, but could make amends by testifying against the war.

On the second day of the conference, Pitkin was surrounded by a group of the event's leaders, who said they needed more witnesses and wanted him to speak. Pitkin protested that he didn’t have anything to say. Kerry said, "Surely you had to have seen some of the atrocities." Pitkin insisted that he hadn't, and the group's mood turned menacing. One of the other leaders leaned in and whispered, "It’s a long walk back to Baltimore." Pitkin finally agreed to "testify." The Winter Soldier leaders told Pitkin exactly what they wanted -– stories about rape, brutality, shooting prisoners, and racism. Kerry assured him that "the American people will be grateful for what you have to say."

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Many of the vets, particularly the vets participating in this panel, have expressed the fact that they could go on and on for a long time, talking about various instances of brutality, torture, rape, everything that's been talked about here for the last two days. But one thing they felt was very important and which hasn't, in a sense, been done by many of the veterans was to say why this happened. What happens to them that this happens and how these things came about. Steve Pitkin in particular felt the need to try and express something about how these men become animals in a sense. I know several of the other vets on the panel want to mention it very briefly. So Steve why don't you start off?

-- Moderator, Miscellaneous Panel, Winter Soldier Investigation, February 1, 1971 [Note: the moderators for this session were VVAW founder Jan Crumb and Executive Committee member John Kerry]

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Pitkin appears several times in the documentary film "Winter Soldier," where he comes across as vague and somewhat stunned, especially while being questioned by John Kerry in a preliminary interview. He seems overwhelmed at having to relive his harrowing experiences in Vietnam. But Steve Pitkin says today that what the film actually shows are his efforts to avoid answering Kerry’s questions at all.

During the formal hearings, Pitkin started to slam the press for misrepresenting what GIs really did in Vietnam, but a woman he believes was Jane Fonda shot him an astonished look and started to stand up. Steve could see other members of the group getting ready to cut him off, so he changed course and made up a few things he thought they would be willing to accept. "Everything I said about atrocities and racism was a lie. My unit never went out with the intention of doing anything but its job. And I never saw black soldiers treated differently, get picked out for the worst or most dangerous jobs, or anything like that. There were some guys, shirkers, who would intentionally injure themselves to get sent home, so I talked about that for a while. But the fact is I lied my ass off, and I'm not proud of it. I didn't think it would ever amount to anything."

After the 3-day conference ended, everybody piled back into the vans and headed home. Nobody had much to say to Pitkin. A month or two later he was contacted by a reporter for Life Magazine who asked about war crimes and atrocities. "I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear," said Pitkin. Nothing he said was included in the final story.

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In April, Steve Pitkin went down to Washington to check out the VVAW's weeklong "Dewey Canyon III" protest, where he "ran into a lot of guys who couldn’t answer questions about what unit they were in." At one point he met up with leftist icon Jerry Rubin, who was wrapped in a Vietcong flag. Pitkin told him to take it off. Rubin shrugged, dropped the flag, and walked away. Pitkin and two or three like-minded veterans formed a patrol, confiscating Vietcong flags and T-shirts from protestors and daring them to start something. Nobody took them up on it.

Pitkin was present for the infamous "medal toss" event on Friday, where VVAW members yelled obscenities and threats against the government into a microphone, then threw military decorations and papers over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol. A guy with long hair stood nearby holding a bag filled with military ribbons and a few medals, handing them out. Pitkin noticed that most of the decorations weren't right for Vietnam combat veterans -– some, in fact, were from the Korean War -– and overheard remarks that the VVAW had cleaned out the local Army-Navy stores the day before. Disgusted, he grabbed a handful of ribbons and threw them, not at the Capitol, but at the throng of reporters crowding close to the microphone, and stalked away.

After Dewey Canyon III, Pitkin was no longer invited to VVAW meetings or events, which was fine with him. He soon went back into the military, joining the 5/20th Special Forces Group of the Maryland National Guard in 1974, and graduating from paratrooper "jump school" with honors in 1976, but was unable to get back on full time active duty in the Army. Pitkin joined the Coast Guard in 1978 and served there until his retirement in May 1997.

Steve Pitkin wants to apologize to Vietnam veterans for what he did and said at the Winter Soldier Investigation. "The VVAW found me during a difficult time in my life, and I let them use me to advance their political agenda. They pressured me to tell their lies, but that's no excuse for what I did. I just want people to know the truth and to make amends as best I can. I'd hate to see the troops serving today have to go through what Vietnam veterans did."

Scott Swett
WinterSoldier.com

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Note: the original version of this report incorrectly identified Scott Camil as the individual who recruited Steve Pitkin into the VVAW, and who rode with Pitkin and Kerry to the Winter Soldier event. Steve Pitkin recently saw film footage of Camil, realized that he had provided the wrong name, and filed a new affidavit that corrects this error.

-- Scott Swett, September 15, 2004.

Quote:

Good afternoon brothers and sisters. My name is Steve Pitkin. I’m here today for two reasons – to tell you the truth about what happened in the Winter Soldier Investigation 33 years ago, and to apologize to you for what I did there.

Like many of you, I fought in Vietnam. And like many of you, I came home to find that wearing a Class A uniform in public was an invitation to abuse. I joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War because I wanted to find other veterans I could talk to about my experiences, and because I was angry with the government for fighting a war it had no intention of winning. I had no idea that the national leadership of the VVAW was meeting with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong and repeating their talking points.

In January of 1971, I rode to Detroit with John Kerry and Scott Camil for the “Winter Soldier Investigation.” The second day I was there, Kerry and the other leaders told me they wanted me to testify. They knew I was one of the very few real combat veterans in the room. I told them I didn’t have anything to say. Kerry said, “Surely you’ve seen some of the atrocities.”

I kept saying “no” and the mood turned ugly. One of the other leaders whispered to me, “It’s a long walk back to Baltimore.” I’m not proud of this, but I finally agreed to speak. They told me what to talk about – American troops beating civilians and prisoners, shelling and destroying villages for no reason, and acts of racism against the Vietnamese.

John Kerry knew that the Winter Soldier testimony was a pack of lies. I know, because I was there, and I told some of those lies. You can read the rest of my testimony, and my legal affidavit, on WinterSoldier.com.

After I left the VVAW and I went back into the military, I retired with 32 years of total service. 21½ of those were active duty. Today I want to apologize to you all and ask for your forgiveness.

Sometimes the truth hurts, before you can begin to heal.

Lieutenant Kerry, now’s your turn!

Quote:

o In his April 1971 speech to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, John Kerry claimed that war crimes committed by the American military against Vietnamese civilians were "not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis..." War crimes in Vietnam were actually quite rare.

o Kerry claimed that war crimes were being committed "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." In fact, military personnel were warned that "if you disobey the rules of engagement, you can be tried and punished." War crimes were never a matter of policy, and were prosecuted when discovered.

o Kerry charged that the war in Vietnam was a racist war, that "blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties." Research published in B.G. Burkett's book "Stolen Valor" and other sources shows that casualty rates for black and white soldiers during Vietnam closely matched the proportion of America's overall population represented by each race.

o Kerry claimed that Vietnam was "ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy missions as well as by Viet Cong terrorism..." Later in his remarks, Kerry responded to a question about what might happen to the South Vietnamese after our withdrawal with "So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America..." Yet according to historian Guenter Lewy in "America in Vietnam," "...the number of civilians killed deliberately by the VC is appallingly high. No counterpart to this death toll caused by communist terror tactics exists on the allied side."

o Asked for a recommendation about possible courses of action for Congress to pursue, Kerry stated that he had talked with representatives from Hanoi and from the PRG (Viet Cong) at the Paris peace talks, and mentioned his support for "Madam Binh's points." Madam Nguyen Thi Binh was at that time the Foreign Minister for the PRG. These meetings took place in the spring of 1970, before Kerry ever joined the VVAW.

o Kerry was a leader, fund-raiser, and spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), an organization that staged mock mass murders of civilians to dramatize American atrocities, and handed out flyers that read "if you had been Vietnamese" American infantrymen might have "burned your house" or "raped your wife and daughter" and "American soldiers do these things every day to the Vietnamese simply because they are 'Gooks.'"

o Kerry's used "testimony" from the VVAW's "Winter Soldier Investigation" as the basis for his war crimes charges, although none of the witnesses there were willing to sign depositions affirming their claims. Later investigators were unable to confirm any of the reported atrocities, and in fact discovered that a number of the witnesses had never been in Vietnam, had never been in combat, or were imposters who had assumed the identity of real veterans.

o The deception extended to the VVAW leadership. Executive secretary Al Hubbard claimed to have been an Air Force captain wounded piloting a transport over Da Nang in 1966. Hubbard was actually a staff sergeant who was never assigned to Vietnam.

o The Winter Soldier Investigation was financed by pro-Hanoi radicals such as Jane Fonda and Mark Lane, who hoped to undermine American support for the war by framing American soldiers as mass murderers. At the same time, the North Vietnamese military was torturing American prisoners of war to make them confess to identical crimes. At least one former POW has stated that Kerry's testimony was used by North Vietnam to demoralize American prisoners during interrogations.

o John Kerry has denied any association with Jane Fonda, but he attended the 1970 VVAW leadership meeting that chose Fonda and Executive Secretary Al Hubbard to do a national speaking tour to raise money for the VVAW and launch new chapters. Fonda was also the primary source of funds for the Winter Soldier Investigation, where Kerry was a moderator.

o The VVAW signed the People's Peace Treaty during Kerry's tenure -- the VVAW even sent a delegation to Hanoi. The document was a laundry list of North Vietnamese bargaining points, including the key concession that the United States must agree to withdraw all troops before any negotiations could take place for the return of American prisoners.

o The VVAW was at the heart of the propaganda effort that so effectively smeared American servicemen in Vietnam as murderous, drug-addled psychotics that returning veterans were cursed and spat upon in the streets. In fact, as shown in B.G. Burkett's book "Stolen Valor," Vietnam veterans are more psychologically stable and successful than their civilian counterparts.

o The VVAW was a radical and potentially violent organization that formally considered assassinating prominent supporters of the war. As reported in the New York Sun by Thomas Lipscomb, during a November 1971 meeting in Kansas City the VVAW leadership and chapter coordinators voted down a plan to murder several U.S. Senators, including John Tower, John Stennis, and Strom Thurmond. Two VVAW members who were present, Randy Barnes and Terry Du-Bose, place John Kerry at that meeting, as do the meeting minutes and FBI records. Kerry claims to have resigned from the VVAW at the meeting or shortly thereafter, but there is no evidence that he ever informed authorities about the conspiracy. Kerry continued to publicly represent the VVAW until at least April of 1972.