jcookc6

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Swift Boat Veterans for Truth home page
.

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Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."

But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
.

Before and After
Touch the photo to see which Swift officers support John Kerry, or click it to read more

The purpose of this photo is to correct the misleading use of our
images -- against our will -- to further John Kerry's campaign.
.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience -- our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.

We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.

For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.

The time has come to set the record.


SUGGEST YOU GO TO ACTUAL SITE TO GET LINKS,

Edited to correct the link

Kadath

Way to add your own content, my man.

And do they mean "set the record straight"? Or perhaps they mean "reset the record" to suit their political agenda?

__________________
it's quiet in here

Superbelt

There were 7 men on Kerry's swift boat. 2 are supporting his bid for candidacy, two are dead and their children are acting in their stead in this smear group and 3 are actually against him. The rest of the men who are in this group never actually served with him, but served above him. i.e career military commanders who didn't see the way he actually commanded his boat.

The guy who started Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman who may have taken great offense to Kerry since he seems to be a primary source of attack in Kerry's historic congressional hearings. Hoffman was well known for being into increasing bodycounts any way possible.

Finally the groups real leader, John O'Neil makes the claim that he was on Kerry's boat, but he was only even on it after Kerry was already gone from Vietnam.

Bill O'Rights

There seems to be something a little....ironic(?) with the above statement.

And as for the server being instructed not to allow me access?
I give a resounding....phhpphhhhttttt

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

phukraut

or you could just try:

<a href="http://www.swiftvets.com/">here</a>, however it took one or two tries for it work.

jcookc6

Heard one of the commanders of one of the other boats on the radio today in Boston. He was talking about what really happened in the Rassmusen incident that John put himself in for medals for.
What happened was there was several boats, they took some minor fire, and one of the boats hit a mine. Kerry's boat beatfeet out of there real quick. the others stayed to fish everyone out of the water. When he realized that he was the only who had left, he turned around and went back. There was one survirvor still left in the water. Kerry pulled him out, but was not wounded as his side of the story would leave you to believe.
Another thing that was brought up, was that Kerry was very protective of his own crew.(That might be why they are with him now and no one else is)
Also, the story of him wanting out after 3 purple hearts was not true. When his commander realized he had 3 purple hearts, he sent him back to the states to get rid of him.
Not sure of who was the speaker, but he was from the swift boat veterans and was on todays Pat Whitley show on WRKO in Boston, and he was a commander of one of the other boats.

cthulu23

It's hard to believe that Kerry is getting attacked on his military record. 3 Purple hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star vs. AWOL in Alabama. My mind reels. What's next, attack Kerry's diction?

Superbelt

Yes, Kerry gets hounded for his military record, while the same people doing that hounding give Bush not only a pass but protray his service as somehow honorable.
It's very.... retarded.

nanofever

Get out of my head Cthulu!

__________________
I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

cosmoknight

Mainly because Bush gets an anal probe down to payroll records base commanders etc. none of which is good enough for Dems. Kerry has people who where in his unit question his performance questioned his last medal, questioned his 4 month tour and now his staged 8mm films. Why is ok for Bush to be constantly checked yet Kerry is supposed to get the same pass as Clinton did simply because he's your guy.

wonderwench

Because hating Bush is religion.

I've seen John O'Neill (an SBVFT cofounder and a lifelong Democrat bw) interviewed. He is incredibly articulate and credible. The transcript from the Dick Cavett show on which O'Neill debated Kerry is quite revealing.

http://www.swiftvets.com/staticpages...hp?page=Debate

The following transcript is taken from ABC's special June 30, 1971 broadcast of "The Dick Cavett Show," during which former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was opposed by fellow Navy veteran John O'Neill, representing Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

----------

If you have just joined us, my two guests tonight are, as I said before, they've been on the program separately in the past. They're both veterans. One of them, John Kerry, belongs to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and John O'Neill belongs to a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. Will you welcome them both, please.

This is John O'Neill and this is John Kerry, and I even think that we both asked you which profiles you favor equally.

We will actually start, because it was requested that we do this – this may seem ludicrous – with the flip of a coin because – this is not going to follow the actual outlines of a debate, but I thought it might be well for each of you fellows to start out with some statement of what your organization wants and is, if you'd like to do that.

Do you want to call it in the air?

MR. O'NEILL: Heads.

MR. CAVETT: All right. It's an absolute – it's a U.S. quarter, 1966. You got it.

MR. O'NEILL: I'll speak first.

MR. CAVETT: Okay.

MR. O'NEILL: Hopefully last, too.

I've come here today to speak for peace, a just and lasting peace, in Southeast Asia. There is no one in this country who likes war, least of all, those of us who fought in the Vietnam war. And it is in the spirit of ending that war in a rational manner that I would like to speak today. I think any rational man can see that the Vietnamization program of the president has done more to end this war than all the demonstrations and hate of the last 10 years in this country. When Mr. Kerry and I were in Vietnam there were 550,000 U.S. troops there. When Mr. Kerry marched down in April with his 900 embittered men to Washington, there were 284,000 troops there. When our own organization was formed in May, there were 245,000 troops there. Today there are 215,000, and by the time you see this show tonight, there will be 700 less.

When we were in Vietnam there were 87,000 marines in I-Corps. Today there are 900 in all of South Vietnam, and South Vietnam and I-Corps remain free. The unit we both served in in Vietnam, Coastal Division 11, the first naval combat unit in Vietnam, was one of the last naval combat units out of Vietnam last December. And the South Vietnamese who replaced us there are doing a fine job. They've won victories and they're suffered defeats as any army – as any army does.

But the main story has been that the strength of the North Vietnamese in I-Corps and other areas of that country, including the Mekong Delta where we both served, has been broken.

I think there are three things we can all agree on. First, we all want to see a speedy end to American involvement in Vietnam. Second, we all realize that if we come home from Vietnam leaving our POWs rotting in North Vietnamese jails, that we will leave the heart and soul of this country there also.

Finally, we all want to see the South Vietnamese have the type of government that they themselves freely choose. I suggest that it's time for an end to hate and disruption in this country. I suggest it's time for trust in this country. The same kind of trust we will need when the war in Vietnam is over to live with ourselves here.

I'd like to turn to a second issue. Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, quote, "war crimes in Vietnam are the rule and not the exception," unquote. Who brought 50 veterans down to Washington to testify about alleged atrocities in April, the same 50 who after they had appeared on every major news network refused to provide any depositions or provide any details of any kind.

Never in the course of human events have so many been libeled by so few.

There were two and a half million of us who served there in Vietnam under the most severe restrictions in this nation's history. We have brought this war close to a close. We never engaged in mass bombing of population centers, as all nations did in World War II, and the reason we did not is because we are a moral people.

Fifty-five thousand Americans died there in Vietnam no matter what they thought about the war because they believed in this country, and those of us who survived came back to this country, by and large determined just to resume our normal lives after the disruption caused by war.

We encountered a variety of problems: unemployment, discrimination, other problems, and then we encountered the biggest problem of them all, the big lie by Mr. Kerry and his group, that we were either each individually war criminals or that we were collectively the executioners of a criminal policy.

You've seen that all before, guilt by association. If one or 50 or 150 veterans testify as to war crimes, then all two and a half million of us must be war criminals. That's the same as saying if one Jew or one black commits one murder in this country, then all the Jews and all of the blacks in this country must be murderers, and that is something that we must not stand for in this country.

We've all heard of Lieutenant Calley. He's accused of the murder of 102 civilians in Son Mai Lai, and the operations – and the law will operate in his case.

This man has attempted the murder of the reputations of two and a half million of us, including the 55,000 dead in Vietnam, and he will never be brought to justice. We can only seek justice and equity from the American people. Every man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be told: The brave man does it with the sword; the coward with the word.

Thank you.

MR. CAVETT: Mr. Kerry, I expect you do have something to say to that. We have a message however from Calgon. Here is how a bath can smooth and soften your skin, leaving you radiant and refreshed with Calgon Bath Oil Beads.

[Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: Before that break – and I must apologize for the fact that we do have to keep stopping. It's a commercial medium, and sometimes those things aren't going to mesh very well.

Now, John Kerry.

MR. KERRY: Wow. Well, there are so many things, really, to be said, and it's hard to find a place to start after a barrage like that.

I think, first of all, I'm somewhat surprised at the attitude of somebody who wore the same uniform as I did who served in the same military for the same kind, I hope, of patriotic reasons, and I really haven't come back to this country nor have Vietnam Veterans against the War come back to this country to try in any sense or in any form to show bitterness or to tear the country apart or to tear it down.

I think that what we're doing is we're trying in a sense to show where the country went wrong, and we believe that as veterans who took part in this war, we have nothing to gain by coming back here and talking about those things that have happened except to try and point the way to America, to try and say, "Here is where we went wrong and we've got to change." And I think that the attitude of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace is really one sort of of my country, right or wrong, which is really on the intellectual level, I think, of saying my mother, drunk or sober.

And I think that just as when your mother is drunk, you take her and dry her out – God forbid that she is – you take your country, in the words of Senator Carl Schurz, who said, "My country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right; when wrong, put it right." And I think that that's what we veterans are trying to do.

On the question of Vietnamization, this is something which people can argue about for hours and hours. We've just heard it mentioned that it's succeeding, that the Marines have been withdrawing from the north. Well, just the other day Firebase Fuller was overrun and it took the United States to fly supplies in to take care of it. We hear that the Delta is pacified. Well, a few weeks ago the report came out that 54 naval bases and other bases, all the bases in the Delta, had been overrun in the first three months of 1971, and that the reason they were overrun was because in 22 cases sentries were asleep, in 22 cases there were quislings, people who gave up.

You can contest this question of Vietnamization right down the line. The question really is this: Is the United States of America determined to leave Vietnam, and if we are determined to leave Vietnam – which I believe the president has shown some indications of because he has withdrawn troops. We don't deny that. What we say is the troops can be withdrawn faster. What we say is the killing can stop tomorrow, and it can stop if the president of the United States will set a date certain for the withdrawal for all United States combat and advisory troops from South Vietnam. And that's really the major issue.

Now, on the question of war crimes, it's really only with the utmost consideration that we post this question. I don't think that any man comes back to this country to say that he raped or to say that he burned a village or to say that he wantonly destroyed crops or something for pleasure. I think that he does it at the risk of certain kinds of punishment, at the risks of injuring his own character which he has to live with, at the risks of the loss of his family and friends as a result of it, and he does it because he believes intensely that people have got to be educated about the devastation of this war.

We thought we were a moral country, yes, but we are now engaged in the most rampant bombing in the history of mankind. Since President Nixon has assumed office, we have dropped some 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Laos. That is more than we dropped in the entire Pacific and Atlantic theaters in the entire course of World War II. And I think the question of morality really has to enter in here, so I'd say that Vietnam Veterans Against the War are really trying to approach this from a most constructive point of view.

MR. CAVETT: You are both, actually, there each allowed five minutes, and you took a little less. Have you finished your opening statement?

MR. KERRY: No, I'd like to discuss everything possible.

MR. CAVETT: Yeah, right, but now you can both talk.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to comment on a number of things. Our attitude certainly isn't our country right or wrong. We were all 15 and 16 years old when we happened to get into the Vietnam war. What's so interesting about many of Mr. Kerry's backers including Clark Clifford, Roger Hillsman (phonetic spelling) and a number of others, is that they happen to be exactly the same people who sent us to Vietnam. We certainly, obviously, would never support this country if we felt it were wrong. We just feel we need a rational way out of Vietnam. As far as setting a date, that accomplishes nothing.

Finally, Mr. Kerry said that he didn't come here to show bitterness, he didn't feel bitter. He said in his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22nd, he said, "We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."

A second thing we object to with Mr. Kerry's organization is his attempt to represent himself as speaking for all veterans, which he clearly did in the same statement.

As far as the 54 bases overrun in the Delta, I can refer him to an article by John Paul Vann in U.S. News and World Report of June 1st which states that the number of incidents in that area is running about 20 per month compared to 120 per month two years ago.

I think that, clearly, the biggest question we're going to have to deal with is the moral question of war crimes. There's quite a difference between coming back to this country and putting on a sack and saying, confessing, "I committed war crimes" and running for the Congress of the United States from Massachusetts and saying, "Well, all three million of us committed war crimes," and I suggest that that's the question that Mr. Kerry and I should be talking about because that's precisely and exactly what he said.

MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and –

MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.

But we're not trying to find war criminals. That's not our purpose. It never has been. I have a letter here which I could read to you which we wrote to Washington D.C. in an effort to try and solve the problem of these war crimes, and we sent it to Senator Stennis, and we said, "On behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, we're writing to ask that the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately convene public hearings to examine the testimony presented by these veterans." May I go on?

Among the questions raised were charges. What we're looking for is an examination of our policy by people in this country, particularly by the leaders before they take young men who are the objects of that policy and try them rather than examine the policy at the highest level where it was in fact promulgated.

MR. O'NEILL: that's very interesting that you would say that, John. I've got an article right now. It's from the May 8, 1971, New York Times. It concerns some of the testimony. It concerns a Danny S. Notley (phonetic spelling), who apparently is a member of your organization. The Army pursued him all the way to Minnesota to try and get him to sign a deposition regarding the allegations of war crimes that he made, and he refused to, as have all 50 people that testified there and 150 that testified in Detroit, and so I suggest that if you're honest, you ought to finally produce the depositions after all of us waiting for two months.

The effect of what you've done hasn't been to prevent one or two Kerrys (sic). It's been to label two and a half million of us as – Calleys, not Kerrys, although they may be somewhat interchangeable at times.

That's precisely and exactly what you've done. And I think in honesty, as a just and decent human being, that you'd want to do that. I think there's something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there. I think further that the justification that Hanoi uses for keeping our POWs is that they were engaged in criminal acts there, and I think that someone who comes out and says exactly the same thing could be doing nothing but serving those purposes, although I'm not – obviously those are not your intentions. There's no question about that.

MR. KERRY: We – the Vietnam Veterans Against the War – and I can't even pretend to speak for all the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, let alone speak for all the men who served in Vietnam, and neither in fact can anybody else pretend to speak for a majority. That's entirely in the impossible range. But what we're saying is – and the reason that some of these men have not signed depositions is very, very simple, and it's up to each individual. One reason is that specifically they are not looking to implicate other people. They haven't cited names of individuals involved because they don't want more Calleys. They don't want men to enter double jeopardy, to have to come back to the United States of America and be penalized for those things that they did that were the result of the mistakes and the bad decisions of their leaders.

MR. CAVETT: Uh-huh.

MR. KERRY: And the purpose of them not signing them is literally to call for an examination of policy and not scapegoats and to examine it from the President of the United States to General Westmoreland and others. And when they do that, then they will sign and then they will talk.

Now, there are individuals who are perfectly willing to sign. Nobody's ducking anything.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, who are they? Can you tell me that?

MR. KERRY: well, I have a friend who came all the way from Florida today, and if it's all right with you, he's here now. I'd be very happy to bring him on and let him make a deposition.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, I think just you and I. I've had the same experience of four against one before.

MR. KERRY: You've asked for depositions, and I have the man –

MR. O'NEILL: Yeah, and I'd like to see him sign a deposition after the show.

MR. KERRY: I think you've made a very, very serious charge.

MR. O'NEILL: That's absolutely correct, I have.

MR. KERRY: And there's a veteran here who's come all the way from Florida who, if you didn't mind, would come on television now with names, facts, dates, places, maps, coordinates, and he's be very willing to make it public.

[Pause]

MR. O'NEILL: I've just got two or three things to say. It's amazing, and it certainly is wonderful that you've finally produced someone after two months.

The second thing I have to say is the last time I came on the show, I appeared basically on a four-against-one format, and I prefer it one to one, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing him do that after the show, and I know the people of America would.

It's interesting that you happen to say that you don't claim to speak for all veterans. You said that before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, same testimony previously cited, "I'm here as one member of a group of a thousand, which is a very much – very – which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit here at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."

I'm here, John. I'm a veteran in this country. I'm here to say that's a lie.

MR. CAVETT: Uh –

MR. KERRY: May I answer that, please?

MR. CAVETT: You may, after this message, or we'll be in big trouble. We'll be right back.

Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: And we're back.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish my statement, if I could, Mr. Cavett. I think that it's highly interesting that Mr. Kerry has finally produced one person to sign a deposition after three months of accusing two and a half million of us of being war criminals. I suggest that if he produces another four or five hundred thousand depositions, that his charge might stand up. I think all he'd establish, even if the deposition is correct, is that he has one war criminal that belongs to his organization, and that's kind of pathetic.

Further, I'd like to go on –

MR. CAVETT: [Unintelligible]

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to go on and finish. I served in Coastal Division –

MR. CAVETT: It's easier if we don't jump to a second subject when one is on the table.

MR. KERRY: Well, as to my being a liar, I – in my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I did indeed say what he said. I said I represent one of the group of one thousand, which incidentally was one thousand at any one time. There were some two thousand who came through the whole time we were in Washington. And when I referred to the very much larger group within the country, I referred to our membership of our organization. I didn't say a majority; I didn't say all veterans; I said to a very much larger group, which is the some 20,000 members that we have in the country at this particular moment. And that was my reference there.

As to this question of who speaks for the majority and all this personal vindictiveness, I really think that that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the question of this war and why it is continuing, why – [unintelligible] – and I really don't think it does just justice to those men who have to give up their lives or be maimed or something or are in Vietnam now to have two veterans of the war sit here and go at each other's throats. I really think we can do better justice to the issue than that, and the issue really is why can't we set a date. Mr. O'Neill has simply shrugged this off, saying that would be absurd.

I want to know why we can't set a date when we know that the prisoners will come home, when we know that people will stop being maimed for the most senseless purpose in the world, and when we know that that in fact can be a solution and release the forces of accommodation in Vietnam which will not be released as long as we are there and as long as we are helping the South Vietnamese.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd certainly like to talk on setting a date, but I suggest that we keep talking about the same two issues we have on the table. Once again from Mr. Kerry's testimony, that same committee, was written, "I understand from Adam Walinsky, your friend – It's interesting to see somebody that has a friend write about his experiences in Vietnam. I wouldn't –

MR. KERRY: How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: He says –

MR. KERRY: Wait, wait. How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: Well, Mr. Walinsky admitted it in Human Events, also in the Boston Globe.

MR. KERRY: Did you read Mr. Walinsky's letter yesterday [unintelligible]?

MR. O'NEILL: No, I did not.

MR. KERRY: Did you read his letter?

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish –

MR. KERRY: May I quote his letter – no.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to quote your speech, if that's satisfactory.

MR. KERRY: No wait. You've just made a charge.

MR. O'NEILL: "The country does not know it yet, but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." I think that Mr. Kerry is trying to talk for something more than his little group of 20,000. I think that he was attempting to represent himself as representative of all of us.

Second, on the war crimes issue –

MR. CAVETT: Well, wait a minute. We're way past the thing there –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to -

MR. CAVETT: – about whether or not your speeches were written for you or whether or not –

MR. KERRY: Somehow the group has suddenly jumped to 20,000 in the period of this –

MR. O'NEILL: Whose group has jumped to 20,000? Your group has, you mean?

MR. KERRY: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Two days ago in Leonard Lyons in New York – as a matter of fact, in answer to a charge made by the Vice President of the United States saying a Robert Kennedy speech writer had written my speech, I would be flattered to have one write my speech frankly, but in this letter he wrote to the Vice President, saying, "Dear Mr. Vice President, Thank you very much for insinuating that I wrote John Kerry's speech. I would have been proud to have done it, but I didn't; however, in the future please be sure to mention my name as it will – as it is sure to help me in my next election."

No, Adam Walinsky did not submit a draft to me and he did not write my speech. Now, as to the question –

MR. O'NEILL: I didn't say that, John. If I can quote Human Events of May 22nd, 1971 –

MR. KERRY: Can we move –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to establish this point. "Former Robert F. Kennedy staffer, Adam Walinsky, acknowledged he had helped Kerry put together his eloquent presentation. Walinsky said that Kerry, the 1966 Yale class orator, was pretty darn good with words all by himself, but added he had a hand in drafting those parts of the Kerry address which were on television." I think it is a relatively minor point. It is your speech I disagree with, not with who wrote it.

My understanding is that's what he told a number of people. The same stories appeared over and over. I think that even more important is this point: You happen to feel that you're being vilified. I think you can imagine how the two and a half million of us whom you have vilified feel at this time.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I'm speaking for myself now.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I think, John, if you'd poll the American people instead of taking 75 – poll the veterans in this country instead of taking 75 to Bunker Hill, and you asked them the question, "Do you consider yourself a war criminal," you'd find out that I was speaking for very close to two and a half million.

MR. KERRY: That's very, very interesting. I – you're speaking for most of the guys in your division and everything else? They feel this way, you think.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd say that most of the veterans I have met. I am aware that you did solicit virtually everybody from Coastal Division 11. I had people calling me from all over the country whom you have called. You have financial resources above and beyond ours. And I don't know what results you happened to get. Do you mind telling me, how many people did you get from Coastal Division 11?

MR. KERRY: I didn't reach any, Mr. O'Neill, because I didn't call any personally and talk to any; however, I do have some friends who came back who did.

MR. O'NEILL: Apparently these members of your organization did.

MR. KERRY: Well, it's very strange. You see, I received a letter from one of them, impromptu, that said, "Dear John, about John O'Neill, I can't understand how he could possibly represent any majority whatsoever," and this is from somebody who served in your division with you at the same time. In fact, who turned over the last boat to the Vietnamese.

[Cross talk]

MR. O'NEILL: I should explain the background of this. There were 800 people that served in Coastal Division 11 over the course of the Vietnam war. I've received approximately 12 calls, the furthest away being from Honolulu, from people that your organization has contacted. Now, if you happen to read one letter, all I can say, it's like your organization. Everybody knows about the 10 percent that don't get the word, and your 20,000 make up about 1/20th of the 10 percent that don't get the word.

MR. KERRY: I think – I really think that this is exactly the point that I am trying to make, and that is that we have never purported to represent any majority, nor can Mr. O'Neill sit here and pretend to talk for two and a half million. He can talk for himself. And I think that this contest is ludicrous, that the points to be discussed are the questions of the war, and that's the issue we should get to, and I'd like to talk about that in a rational discussion.

MR. O'NEILL: I suggest it is time to move on. I'd like to make one last point, if I could. I think that Mr. Kerry's [unintelligible] to the American people –

MR. CAVETT: All right, but the world's favorite mother has some important news about bathtub safety. Watch. We'll be right back.

cthulu23

CosmoKnight: I didn't say give Kerry a pass....I said compare his record to Bush's. One privileged man chose to fight, another did not. Lets try to keep a bit of perspective here.

Wonderwench: I'm not religious and I don't hate anyone, but I don't share your adoration for George Bush. That may cause others to regard me as some sort of cultist, but I like to think that I'm a rational human being.

I find the reference to Vietnam a bit confusing. Republicans hawks have always resisted the Vietname/Iraq comparison as it brings up unpleasant memories of another war that seemed to lack necessary justification and that the American people quickly grew sick of.

The posted transcript points to a fundamental misconception held by many American conservatives: just because someone is anti-war does not make them anti-soldier. Kerry, himself, was a soldier. The opposition is centered against the policy makers that demand criminal acts of good soldiers. I can't help but think of the Bush administrations redefining of torture and Abu Graib.

Bill O'Rights

Let's be fair here. You cannot possibly compare Vietnam to Iraq. It's apples and Oranges...night and day. For one thing during the Vietnam war....Bush had an exit strategy.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

cthulu23

Iraq != Vietnam, but it doesn't take very much imagination to draw some parallels between the two. Can you say "quagmire?"

wonderwench

Oh please.

We ousted Saddam's regime in a matter of weeks; he is in custody - Vietnam lasted over a decade. 900 soldiers have died in Iraq compared to over 50,000 in Nam.

A transitional government is in place in Iraq - they are on track for an election early next year and finalization of a constitution by the end of 2005. Not too shabby by any historical benchmark.

The quagmire is in the minds of those who cannot move beyond their ideology to understand the facts.

cthulu23

As I said, I agree that Iraq is not in the same class of conflict as Vietnam (obviously), but the active insurgency, the rising body count, the flimsy justifications and the waning popular support are all fair targets for drawing an analogy. We are allowed to use metaphors , right?

Regardless of that, I don't think that we're going to pull out our troops anytime soon. The series of air bases that we are building point to our continued presence there for quite a while. Things are progressing there, and I hope for the best, but there are still many questions to be answered and there is no sign of an end to the violence there, yet. Some outside force will need to be in Iraq for some time to come.

First "hating Bush" is my "religion," now I'm blinded by ideology. Could we cut back on the thinly-veiled, personal insults, please? I hardly think that my posts here have given you any basis for those opinions of me nor any idea of what type of person I am in Real Life. Could it be that those of different opinions may actually be rational, reasonable people? You often mention the illogical aggression of the left....perhaps you should shine that same light on yourself.

Superbelt

That's your problem. Vietnam lasted over a decade. We haven't completed two years in Iraq yet.

Until about year 4 of Vietnam, the average US casualty was less than the average we are getting in Iraq right now. THEN it started to skyrocket. It took about 4 and a half years for Nam to reach 1000 casualties, we have done it here in less than two.

Look at this page to see some pretty graphs detailing this.

Now that we have set up this government for Iraq, I count casualties of the Iraqi 'government' with our total. Resistance militants blew up 56 applicants to the Iraqi police force yesterday.
Deaths are still flying past at a rapid clip over there.

You should also include our considerably large number of wounded when comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Our wounded's lives are horribly altered forever. We have just short of 6000 wounded now.

wonderwench

And the body count from Saddam's regime is in excess of one million.

A little perspective wouldn't hurt.

Superbelt

You're opening a whole different subject of "justification" when we were taking specifically about combat operations.
Can you focus on the subject or was that a deliberate attempt to derail a discussion that you aren't doing well on?

Superbelt

By the way, thought wildly off topic, I'll bite.
Our current alliance with Uzbekistan and Equatorial Guinea show 'we' don't give a shit about human rights, torture and bodycounts.

wonderwench

I am not the one who made the quagmire comments - so your accusation is spurious.

I am fine with my performance in this conversation. The lack of comment to the Dick Cavett interview is quite enlightening.

Here's more:

Kerry is using a picture in his campaign materials of the group of swift boat captains - the majority of whom do not support him.

What does that say about his character?

KERRY WAR COMRADES PREPARE BATTLE -- AGAINST KERRY

Capped by Kerry's primetime speech to accept the Democratic Party's nomination, Thursday's program will include appearances and remarks by Kerry's Swift Boat crewmates, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced in a press release this morning.

But a group of veterans will soon try to convince a nation how what is presented on the convention stage tonight -- may not be the full story: "Only 2 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from Coastal Division 11 support his candidacy today."

A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.

The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

And that's just the beginning.

The book, previewed by the DRUDGE REPORT, will be unleashed next month by REGNERY.

The book hit #2 on the AMAZON sales chart on the eve of the Kerry acceptance speech in Boston.

Swift Boat Veterans began to fume after Kerry's campaign used a photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11 Swift boat officers [taken at Ton Sun Nuht Air Base on January 22, 1969] in a pro-Kerry advertisement.

William Shumadine, a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pictured in the photograph, explains in UNFIT: "John Kerry's use of a photograph with his nineteen comrades, with knowledge that eleven of them comdemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved, is a complete misreprentation to the public and a total fraud."

[A major campaign is being planned, beginning next week, over 200 anti-Kerry vets involved, with news conferences in battleground states.]

Developing...

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.

wonderwench

I have read Kerry's infamous "Winter Soldier" testimony before Congress. He trashes the memory of thousands who gave their lives and served with honor. He impugnes 2M+ who served with honor and returned home to a hostile environment due to the lies spread by Kerry.

It doesn't matter how honorably Kerry served during his four months in Viet Nam - his behavior upon return has been appalling.

The Swift Boat Veterans are calling him on his lies.

Good.

Superbelt

Hmm, I wonder what I would get out of Kerry's Congressional Testimony if I did it tripping on acid as well....

cthulu23

I guess i'll have to quote myself here:

Yes, some soldiers committed atrocities in Vietnam. However, the true war criminals are the maniacs that gave us terms like "free-fire zone." It is a common tactic of the right to equate anti-war with anti-soldier. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kerry's anti-Vietnam campaign was meant to save his fellow soldiers, not trash them. The same argument was tried 30 years ago, and it rang just as false then.

Wonderwench:

You didn't post these words?

Then I must warn you that someone has access to your account and is taking indirect shots at other forum participants.

Wax_off

That was a bit beneath you Superbelt. But your point, although overstated is well taken. It seems that Wonderwench has taken to massive amounts of retorical wriggling to avoid cognitive dissonance.

filtherton

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4900128.html

It appears that many of his actual crewmates support him. I guess maybe you have to actually serve alongside someone to have some perspective on who they were at the time.

wonderwench

That is rather mean - I've never heard the claim that Kerry testified while on acid before.

Where did you get that info?

wonderwench

Hmmmmm...Let me see. The majority of Swift Boat Captains who served with Kerry are opposed to him being President. Seems pretty cut and dried to me - those who knew him back then don't trust him now.

Good enough for me.

Locobot

How is Kerry lying? Seriously have you ever seen any footage, photos, or testimony to contradict what he has to say. It's not always easy to speak truth to power but that's what he did in 1971. The American leaders made fundamental errors in understanding the very premise for the Vietnam conflict. I think you need to read it again:


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.

cthulu23

I suspect that some of the Swift Boat Captains, like others here, have misconstrued Kerry's condemnation of the Vietnam War as an attack on all soldiers that fought in that war. This is an unfortunate but all too common misconception in the military.

Edit: It's interesting how the same accusations that were hurled at Kerry over thirty years ago have been dusted off and lobbed at him again with no revision or regard for the historical record. Is it not common knowledge today that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam? Does anyone still consider this a controversial idea?

wonderwench

Kerry testified before Congress that war crimes were "commonplace" and that atrocities were carried out with full knowledge of the command structure. He then paraded this fiction around the country.

Atrocities have been and will be committed in any war - this is why war is literally hell. The reprensible actions of a few should not disparage the honor of the vast majority of our service personnel. Kerry's grandstanding and lies harmed many innocent and honorable vets.

cthulu23

What the hell do you think that a "free fire zone" is if not an invitation by the command structure to commit war crimes?

Edit: Forgive me...a "free fire zone" is not an invitation...it is an order.

Kadath

wonderwench, maybe I'm wrong, but I think you are a female. I also think you are under 40. If you meet either of those conditions, you didn't serve in the US armed forces during the Vietnam War. That being the case, you have no first-hand intelligence of what went on. You are choosing to believe one of two conflicting reports (namely, that command was unaware of atrocities carried out during the war). That is your right. Don't cast that belief as the iron-clad truth.

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wonderwench

It is irrelevant that I did not serve in Viet Nam.

There are two conflicting points of view.

1. The Kerry version in which he claims to have committed war crimes himself - and that atrocities were "commonplace" and committed with the full knowledge of the command structure. If that is the case, why were not 2M+ veterans court martialed - including Kerry himself?

2. The Truth. Atrocities were committed by a small minority of soldiers acting on their own. War crimes were not standard operating procedure.

One does not have to experience something first hand to be able to interpret the information and reach a rational conclusion.

cthulu23

As I stated before, tactical designations such as "free-fire zones" were an implicit order to commit war crimes (wanton killing of civilians and all that). These orders emanated from the top, so the lack of war crime court martials should be unsurprising. These men were forced into horrible acts by their superiors. Is this really a new idea to anyone here? Don't the hundreds of books that have been written in the decades since Vietnam fully disclose this truth?

ARTelevision

In instances such as this, each participant of every rank, is bound to inform the chain of command that war crimes are occurring. To have not done that is inexcusable and criminally culpable.

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create evolution

cthulu23

Art,

When I hear that a man is forced into an organization (Vietnam grunts were draftees), taught obedience and then ordered to commit horrible actions, I tend to put the blame for those acts on the organization, not the soldier.

Lt. Calley claimed that his commander gave him his orders....unsurprisingly, nothing ever came of it.

pan6467

I just don't understand how in the past few years Vietnam has become this great lighthouse beacon to the Right.

I grew up watching friends of my dad's come home, torn, beaten, crippled physically and mentally, drug addicts, morally broken, hating the country's leaders for putting them in a war that we had no reason being in.

Hating the country they loved's government for treating the men in VA hospitals like sub human guinea pigs.

Hating the country because the VFW's that wouldn't allow them in.

Hating the American Legions that wouldn't let them in as members.

Hating a country that dumped agent Orange and purple and Napalm on them.

Hating the country because when they got home they were spat on and called babykillers.

Hating the country becausewe didn't go in after the MIA/POW's.

And when I was old enough and talked to them, (because I was interested in history) they said they saw things that WE did and THEY did things they never thought they would do. In THEIR words I heard stories of how they killed whole villages because they didn't know whom to trust and orders were sent to find the guerillas in the village and they followed orders, because those who didn't were sent into the really bad areas (killing zones) or sent out on recon.

I heard stories how they saw men killing our own men because they were loaded up on drugs and heard a noise and shot without thinking.

I heard a lot more stories and NOT ONCE did I hear how great and noble it was, or how moral the men were. Those are myths, fallacies created the past 5-10 years, first to try to defeat Clinton then to defeat Kerry.

I can contrast this to how the WW2 vets will talk on and on about their war and homecomings in a much different way.

So, no Kerry testified seeing what many over there saw. What many reported seeing and having been a part of themselves (anyone ever see Born on The 4TH of July? True story, noone blasted Ron Kovic for showing how evil that war was.)

Vietnam Vets who saw the movie Platoon acknowledge how true that movie was.

WHY ARE PEOPLE BLASTING KERRY FOR SPEAKING OUT NOW? Why now is Vietnam becoming so glorious when the leader of the party trying to glorify it 1) never went: 2) took a year off in his service to "campaign for a family friend".

Did Limbaugh serve? Did O'Reilly serve? Did any of those right wingers who are behind other's efforts to tarnish Kerry's record on 'Nam serve?

You want to attack Kerry on policy fine. Attack him, but attacking him for doing what many did when they came home and how 1000's upon 1000's felt when they came home just shows the depths of your hatred and your uncaring trivialness of what true VietNam vets went through. And when we trivialize Vietnam, we forget, and in forgetting we are destined to repeat history.

Do any of you truly want to do that?

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

wonderwench

People are criticizing Kerry because upon his return from his four months in Viet Nam he testified before Congress that war crimes were common place among his fellow soldiers. He dishnored the memory and reputations of over 2.5M soliders.

Now, he cries up his Viet Nam service - Kerry is the one who made Viet Nam a campaign issue. His ads and other campaign materials make frequent mention of it. The people he dishonored don't like it.

I can't blame them.