Heroes and others

[Marvelous Marv]

Well, the time has come. Life pulls one in various directions, and mine is pulling me away from online discussion, at least for the time being. Before some of you get too overjoyed, remember that I'll probably lurk here intermittently; it's just that I will not be posting anything. Lately, it wasn't the best use of my time, anyway.

Some time ago (I won't link to the thread) I posted an opinion regarding the military. My credentials for speaking in regard to the military were questioned. It was a fairly transparent attempt to get me to reveal personal information, which would, of course, be used in an attempt to ridicule me. I went along with it, so I could later point out the inherent hypocrisy.

I said was that I had been in the military, and although my personal record was, in my words, "unremarkable," I mentioned several high-ranking officials with whom I have business relationships, and therefore, I am on a first-name basis with them. In my mind, a valid comparison would be someone who worked as a roadie for a well-known musical group. No one expects the roadie to bring a crowd of thousands to its feet, but he has a degree of credibility in matters pertaining to the group, because of his close relationship to them.

I was immediately called a liar. Let's see ... (rustling noises). Ah, here we go:

That gives me reason to doubt any of your credentials as being true.

In other words, this person had been in the service; therefore, I must be lying.

what marv no medals? i'm sorry if you don't have medals you have no military credentials. and i'm not talking any of those medals you earned by lying and such. i'm talking real medals.. it is clear that you don't have enough military background to participate in this discussion.

Oh no! I've been swift-boated! Never mind that I never stated whether or not I earned any medals. The thread was closed before I had a chance to comment again, but at least one other person saw the point I'd intended to make:

It's a shame to see a guy like Marv get swift-boated like this in a thread who's purpose is to complain about just that kind of thing.

To reiterate: I have several friends who are the basis for a great deal of my knowledge of the military. These are the guys who have, or are protecting our country, and I'm proud to know them. The man who continues to impress me the most is a former POW from Vietnam. Here's a little about him:

I dodged about 20 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles)--they always looked like telephone poles going by. On the 21st, I zigged when I should have zagged, and got hit. I went into a dive, on fire, at 500 miles per hour. I ejected, and when I hit the ground, they shot me.

Another source:

At the start, Admiral X experienced much the same shock, which other prisoners experienced, as a result of beatings by both captors and villagers, the “nasty treatment” of initial interrogation, and the physical trauma associated with ejection. He particularly recalls being “dreadfully thirsty.” Upon arrival at Hoa Lo Prison, he endured 30 to 50 days of rope torture, during which his back and both shoulders were broken; leg irons; wrist irons; and boils and mosquitoes.

I also know that his captors were not pleased with his answers during interrogation, and expressed their displeasure with a rifle butt, which fractured his eye socket and knocked out several of his upper front teeth. As you can imagine, he received no care for these for the almost six years he was in the Hanoi Hilton. I should not neglect to mention that his wife is no wimp, either. She was raising kids during the three year period in which she didn't know if her husband was alive or dead.

In March of 1973, he was released. After almost six years of interrogation, his words to his captors were the same as the day he was captured: Essentially, "Fuck You." He then proceeded to go back to work, eventually earning three stars. I never fail to be fascinated by his accounts of his years in the service, and the people he knew, and there is quite a contrast between his lack of complaining, and the draft dodgers who have bitched continually for going-on forty years now.

Like many POWs, orthopedically, he's worse than the average person his age. He has some residual arm numbness from the "rope trick" he endured. Also like many POWs, his mind is still extremely sharp. When he said John Kerry wasn't fit to be president, I believed him.

I expressed my regards to him on the anniversary of his release this year. In return, he sent me a picture, taken about a month ago, on the occasion of his first return to the Hanoi Hilton. It's now a museum, but some cells were left intact. His was one of them. Quite an intense moment, to see a small room that was your world for that long.



I know, "what's the point?" Maybe just a little self-verification. We recently attended a function with his old "roommate" from the Hanoi Hilton. I hadn't realized a photographer would be there, and when he took a few shots, I couldn't resist setting up a shot of my own.









So possibly I've managed to make clear that I have not been making claims of personal greatness; and I've verified one of the many sources who caused me to formulate a dislike and distrust of John Kerry and at least of John Murtha's actions.

Additionally, through a nice twist of fate, I have arrived in a situation where I can usually get the opinions of some people who have a great deal of influence in the military. I never claimed that I sway their opinions; in fact most of the time I shut up and listen to them. I recommmend that everyone engage in that behavior from time to time. By doing so, I've heard some very logical reasons for us to be in Iraq.

It appears that there is a new policy regarding personal attacks. I hope it works better than the old one, whatever it was. Of course, I'm sure several responses to this post (if there are any) will contain the word "Photoshop." Whatever.

I've posted this for two reasons: To describe what constitutes a hero in my mind, and because I don't like being called a liar. I'm sure not everyone believes what I posted; To each his own.

Slán agaibh.

[Ustwo]

I'm going to miss you Marv, and I'll miss your humor, even in all of this in how you blocked out your face in the pictures. I've had my own credentials questioned on some of the environmental topics, but those are a bit easier to prove since I can talk the talk better than anyone who questioned

I may well be migrating from the politics board for somewhat different reasons myself for a while, but if you happen to be in Chicago drop me a PM.

[Rekna]

I will be sorry to see you go Marv. One of the quotes above is from me. I hope you realize my post was a satire on how others in the military have been treated. When I see people like John Mc'Cain, John Kerry, Max Clealand, ect attacked because of their war record by people like Bush, Cheney, and Rove (who have no war record of their own) I cringe. When I see people who say the time they served does not count because "insert some illogicial reasoning" i am disgusted. The fact is that these people put their lives on the line for this country and attacking that is childish and a disgrace to soldiers everywhere.

[Charlatan]

Regardless of what you may think, I too will miss your presence here.

Do drop in from time to time.

(loved the pictures by the way)

[Poppinjay]

Your skin is a little darker than I thought it would be. You're also much taller.

I find swift-boating reprehensible, as well as accusing somebody on TFP of being a liar. I don’t think I’ve ever made that claim or made a personal attack. Hopefully you’ll feel welcome to participate and the new extra strength modding will inhibit such behaviour.

[ubertuber]

Well, it sounds like you travel in august circles. Good luck to you and drop in and see us some time.

[shakran]

At the risk of starting a flame war, I think it needs to be pointed out that

what marv no medals? i'm sorry if you don't have medals you have no military credentials. and i'm not talking any of those medals you earned by lying and such. i'm talking real medals.. it is clear that you don't have enough military background to participate in this discussion.

was obvious sarcasm. No one actually said your military experience or supposed lack there of disqualified you from discussion. It's a shame to see you leave over a misunderstanding like this.

[ubertuber]

I see your point shakran, but sarcasm is notoriously easy to misinterpret - especially in a place like this where emotions and tension run high... I think all of us are prone to misinterpret things that seem obvious to others when we are already feeling like where are in a combative atmosphere. That's one reason (in politics at least) that I strive for simplicity and directness over style.

I absolutely agree that it's a shame when a misunderstanding is taken so personally.

[host]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

....I never fail to be fascinated by his accounts of his years in the service, and the people he knew, and there is quite a contrast between his lack of complaining, and the draft dodgers who have bitched continually for going-on forty years now.....

......Also like many POWs, his mind is still extremely sharp. When he said John Kerry wasn't fit to be president, I believed him.

I can't regard a Vietnam era "draft dodger" as any less of an American patriot than a POW, or any less of an authority on the politics behind American military involvement in Vietnam, or in Iraq.

Marv, the excerpts in your OP above, and your post #45 in the thread linked here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...t=91489&page=2

....IMO, undermine your overall message in your OP.

You never responded to my post #46 on that thread......

What you consider to be patriotic devotion to duty and country, conducted in a "just cause", I regard, at least twice now in my lifetime, as contrived, illegal wars of aggression.

The samples that I've provided of what we've both communicated in posts on this politics forum, speak volumes about each of our POV's. I hope that you will agree that neither of our POV's is "more American" than the other.

I sincerely wish you the best, Marv, please forgive me for not being able to avoid posting this, on the occasion of your announcement. We all post with the intent to "balance" the prior posts that we read.....that is the theme in your OP comments, I suspect.

[The_Jazz]

Marv, I'm sorry to see you go since I think that you added a lot to the discussions here. I certainly understand your reasoning. I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors and hope to run into you somewhere down the road.

[tecoyah]

I would like to point out the ramifications of these new rules in TFPolitics:

"what marv no medals? i'm sorry if you don't have medals you have no military credentials. and i'm not talking any of those medals you earned by lying and such. i'm talking real medals.. it is clear that you don't have enough military background to participate in this discussion."


Would have been acted upon, and edited. The posting member would be warned, and depending on the reply to said warning, given an all expense paid Vacation to another board for a few days. Regardless of the context, the sarcasm was not needed, and did nothing to further the discussion.

[Seaver]

I have to disagree with you Host.

Stating that because you didnt fight you're as patriotic as a person who went through that... no. Doesn't work that way.

[ubertuber]

Well, let's not get too sidetracked here. Maybe another (respectful) thread.

[uncle phil]

Originally Posted by Rekna

I will be sorry to see you go Marv. One of the quotes above is from me. I hope you realize my post was a satire on how others in the military have been treated. When I see people like John Mc'Cain, John Kerry, Max Clealand, ect attacked because of their war record by people like Bush, Cheney, and Rove (who have no war record of their own) I cringe. When I see people who say the time they served does not count because "insert some illogicial reasoning" i am disgusted. The fact is that these people put their lives on the line for this country and attacking that is childish and a disgrace to soldiers everywhere.

this two-tour viet vet agrees with the above...

[shakran]

Originally Posted by tecoyah

the sarcasm was not needed, and did nothing to further the discussion.

Not to disagree too vehemently, but um. . .I disagree Certain members of the right had an absolutely wonderful time bashing democratic candidates over their military experience and lack of (or in Kerry's case, wished-for lack of) medals. The sarcasm pointed out that, if they wish to further that argument, they must be prepared to be held to it, and IMO it did so in a way that would be difficult to achieve by "saying it straight."

[Charlatan]

Shakran... there is a way to make that post that makes it's intent unambiguous. As it stood, it was not clear if it was a personal attack or not.

Sarcasm doesn't translate very well in text.

[shakran]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Shakran... there is a way to make that post that makes it's intent unambiguous. As it stood, it was not clear if it was a personal attack or not.

Sarcasm doesn't translate very well in text.

It was VERY apparent to me that it was sarcasm, but I'll gladly admit that perhaps others may not find it so aparent.

But a simple /sarcasm note at the end of a sarcastic post would be plenty to get the point across.

What I was disagreeing with is the apparent new concept that sarcasm is not allowed.

[Willravel]

Whoa...I see double!

I knew it was sarcasm. Not that it makes a difference now.

[Ustwo]

Just to make it clear to some people, Kerry was not attacked FOR his war record, he was attacked for trying to use it to advance his political goals. In so doing he opened it up for debate and it turns out there was a ton of debate there. Democrats use their war record as some sort of invulnerability shield from criticism. Republicans almost never bring there’s up, even Bob Dole who lost use of his hand in true heroic fashion. I never heard the story though until AFTER the 1996 election was over.

[host]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Just to make it clear to some people, Kerry was not attacked FOR his war record, he was attacked for trying to use it to advance his political goals. In so doing he opened it up for debate and it turns out there was a ton of debate there. Democrats use their war record as some sort of invulnerability shield from criticism. Republicans almost never bring there’s up, even Bob Dole who lost use of his hand in true heroic fashion. I never heard the story though until AFTER the 1996 election was over.

The page linked here, from the conservative National Review's own 1992
print edition archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/...0408231323.asp
makes enough references to the techniques that the George HW Bush campaign used
in 1992 to repeatedly attack opponent Bill Clinton's anti-war record in the Vietnam
War era, to reasonably call into question, the reliability of your central point.

There are even more accounts at the above link, of GHW Bush promoting his presidential
candidacies in 1980, 1988, and in 1992, by making statements in media interviews and in campaign
appearances, that were obviously intended to link his WWII military service with his presidential
campaigns, to promote his own leadership, and to favorably compare himself to his opponents' lack
of combat service.

The next two quote boxes provide ample evidence that Bob Dole promoted his candidacy, as far back as
his 1966 congressional campaign, and in his several presidential campaigns via the recounting of his
WWII military service, and his combat "wound". Dole was still denying how blatant his use of his war
record had been in his politcal career, as recently as on Aug. 23, 2004, in a CNN transcript linked
below.

http://www.slate.com/id/2067/
The Wound
How bashful is Dole about his wartime injury?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Saturday, Aug. 24, 1996, at 3:30 AM ET....

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408240003
<b>Dole falsely claimed that '96 campaign didn't promote his war record</b>

On the August 23 edition of CNN's Crossfire, co-host Tucker Carlson repeated a false claim made by former Republican presidential candidate and regular CNN contributor Bob Dole on CNN the day before, then falsely denied that Dole had made another.....

....On August 23,{2004] Dole <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/23/wbr.00.html">called in</a> to CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports to discuss his comments from the day before. During that call, Dole suggested he was irritated by how much Kerry talked about his war record and claimed, "I reminded him [Kerry] that in 1996, I didn't have anybody out writing these great stories about Bob Dole's war record and I don't think we were feeding them to people."

Though Blitzer didn't point this out, in 1996, Dole and the RNC heavily promoted Dole's war record. For example, the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/campaign.96/the.story.mov">TV ad</a> that used photos of Dole recovering from war injuries. And Dole explained that the RNC ad was coordinated with his campaign.

From a March 15, 1998, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce52/52text/01legal.htm">article</a> published in Capital Eye, a newsletter of the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/">Center for Responsive Politics:</a>

"We can, through the Republican National Committee, through what we call the Victory '96 program, run television ads and other advertising," Dole said on ABC television. "It's called 'generic'....It doesn't say 'Bob Dole for President' it has my -- it talks about the Bob Dole story. It never says that I'm running for president, though I hope that it's fairly obvious since I'm the only one in the picture!"

In addition, a 1996 Dole campaign <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/campaign.96/dole.values.mov">TV ad</a> boasted that he was "tested in war."

The two quote boxes below contain information tha makes a strong case for an argument that it is
doubtful that, examining Kerry's "war Record" <b>"it turns out there was a ton of debate there"</b>.
Who can offer an argument against my observation that, if George W. Bush received confirmation that he had
indeed continued his ANG service when he moved to Alabama in 1973, as he claimed that he did, by a witness
with the independence and integrity of William Rood, the newspaper editor who vouched for the legitimacy of
John Kerry's combat actions that resulted in Kerry's receipt of the Silver Star combat medal by the U.S. Navy,
the controversy over Bush's inability to offer convincing proof that he served in Alabama ANG, would have disappeared.

http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html
Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry's War Record

Ad features vets who claim Kerry "lied" to get Vietnam medals. <b>But other witnesses disagree -- and so do Navy records.</b>

August 6, 2004

Modified: August 22, 2004

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...l=chi-news-hed
Published August 22, 2004

......William Rood, an editor on the Chicago Tribune's metropolitan desk, said he broke 35 years of silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission that resulted in Kerry's receiving a Silver Star because recent portrayals of Kerry's actions published in the best-selling book "Unfit for Command" are wrong and smear the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry......

This exchange with Ustwo, and the link to an earlier exchange with Marv, displayed in my last post,
are excellent examples of the "cycle" that occurs on this forum. In May, 2005, four months after the Duelfer report and the Bush administration conceded that there were no WMD in Iraq, and that there was no evidence that WMD had been moved from Iraq before the March, 2003 U.S. invasion, Marv claimed that the opposite was true.

By making his claim, accompanied in his post with the full text of an Op-Ed published by a Harvard student newspaper, as his sole support for his opinion on existance of Iraqi WMD, Marv, IMO, paralleled a strategy of posting an opinion that I observe in Ustwo's last post, on this thread. The qualifier, "don't say it, if you can't (or won't) back it up", if you're "called on" the opinion that you posted, does not seem to be used as a pre-post "filter" in the example posts.

I see this as a challenge that has similarities with 9/11 conspiracy theory discussions that we've seen "erupt" in the politics forum. Those theories, if they can be "backed up", at some point in the future, would be reasonable subjects on this forum. I'm assuming that they are moved out of here now, not because they are too outlandish, but because they cannot be "backed up". Can we consider removing other "controversies" from the politics thread, in a similar way? Would the discussion here, not improve, if we could "move out" opnions that fail to be "backed up", when they first fail this "test"?

My posts are often criticized for being too lengthy, too full of pasted, third party text and links, but I view them as reasonable, balancing repsonses to the two examples that I described above.

Now, I am hoping that Ustwo will contest the material that I've presented, or concede that he cannot support the points he made in his last post, because of the effect of the additional information, that I've placed here, to be compared with the ideas that he advanced about the way each politcal party campaigns.

[Poppinjay]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Just to make it clear to some people, Kerry was not attacked FOR his war record, he was attacked for trying to use it to advance his political goals. In so doing he opened it up for debate and it turns out there was a ton of debate there. Democrats use their war record as some sort of invulnerability shield from criticism. Republicans almost never bring there’s up, even Bob Dole who lost use of his hand in true heroic fashion. I never heard the story though until AFTER the 1996 election was over.

Without sarcasm, attacks, or any hyperbole, let me assure you that he did, frequently, repeatedly bring up his war record and subsequent injuries in every campaign since he defended his senate seat in a close, bitter contest in 1974.