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Originally Posted by sob
I have met over thirty former "guests" of the Hanoi Hilton. One is a friend of mine.
He got his eye socket caved in with a rifle butt while his torturer quoted Kerry as "proof" that he was a "war criminal." That might not have felt good, even if he HADN'T already been shot.
Kerry will only say that his comments at the time were "a little over the top."
Would you like to guess whether my friend thinks Kerry would be a good president?
As Ollie North said, this isn't political. These Vietnam vets have been waiting thirty years to repay Kerry for what he did to them.
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smooth and shakran have said most of what i was going to say, but I'll add this:
I feel sorry for your friend and anyone else who suffered as a result of that war. I completely understand that he had an experience worse than many of us could even imagine. He was wronged and he is entitled to blame those parties responsible, but he's blaming the wrong guy.
The blame belongs with the people who sent him to fight over there, the people who saw that things were going wrong but told us everything was fine, that our goal was noble and in reach. Now perhaps those people were of some comfort to our troops, allowing them to believe that their tremendous sacrifice would be worth it, that they were fighting for the good of their country, and that the end was in sight. Meanwhile, however, more and more of these brave young men were killed and maimed.
It took other brave men like John Kerry to say the things that needed to be said and put pressure on the government to wake up to reality. Perhaps what he said was unpopular with the government and military commanders, but it helped to save the lives of our troops. Without men like Kerry, we might still be in Vietnam and another young man like your friend would be getting tortured as we speak.