Kerry's Military Record

[snyder]

We've got a group calling itself "Swiftboat Veterans for the Truth" who are writing books and running ads alleging that Kerry's medials (three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star) are fraudulent. The guy who runs it is an old Nixon Admininistration political operative who mixed it up with Kerry in the early 1970s after Kerry became an anti-Vietnam War activist. It is financed by big Republican contributors, and at least tacitly supported by the Bush people.

Well, it looks as though they have really got some egg on their face this time. Not only had their star witness recanted but Sen. John McCain, the Republican senator who was tortured in the prisons of Hanoi, has come to Kerry's defense on the issue.

Now folks, this stuff was what got me battling on SFTT. I don't want to do the same sort of battle here about it, and whatever happens I will not do the same sort of battle. My view is very simple. I am a civilian who thinks that, no matter what, if someone in uniform lays his life on the line for his country then no one should try to take it away from him without cast-iron proof.

To me, this one is as solemn as it gets. It's the police and firefighters on 9/11. It's the marines on Iwo Jima. It's the Brits and Americans in the Battle of the Atlantic 1942-1944. Anyone who's ever sacrificed for their country has done it for me personally. That's the way I see it, so I'm capable of getting a little crazy on the topic maybe because it's just about the only real way I can think that a civilian can pay homage to what others have done.

With that, I'll put this one out there for discussion. Oh, I forgot to mention. Here is a link that proves George W. Bush was AWOL from the National Guard in the 1970s.

Addendum: The plot gets thicker. Apparently the main accuser can't decide what he thinks. He has now recanted his recantation. Talk about your flip-floppers. Maybe they should put him to work designing anti-anti-anti-missile missile missiles.

[Whitey]

I'm no Kerry groupie, but he went to a war he didn't have to go to. He holds his rifle like a fag in the video's, but then again he was an officer. One thing I will say is few enlisted men who served with him are speaking out, it is mostly officers making accusations of him being sorry. Officers in the US Navy are almost to a man republicans, so go figure. Loyalty to party over truth. Notice if they were really coward haters and liar haters why would they support Bush who NG'd out and why would they even get political. A group of officers who condemn him, I question that.
The Vietnam war was wrong headed, he spoke his mind. WTF were we going to win anyway? 58,000 dead and our government made veterans buy their own memorial, denied them medical care and never said so much as "Sorry" even now that the attacks on our Destroyers that got us into the war have been proven false. Kerry served, medals? Who cares, never seen too many Officers with medals they deserved.
I don't like Bush or Kerry, but Kerry has been under fire, Bush hasn't.
And no man who never has been shot at should allow a man who has be called out on it in such a petty way.

[snyder]

BTW, if any of you Brits get to New York City, you've got to go to Battery Park at the foot of Manhattan because there stands one of the great war monuments anywhere on earth. This is not a pretty memorial. It consists of a whole bunch of huge, dull and frankly somewhat ugly granite slabs. On those slabs are inscribed the names of several thousand Americans who died to keep the Atlantic Ocean open in 1942-44 so we could keep stuff flowing to Great Britain. (To Americans: The idea of putting all the names on a memorial did not originate with the Vietnam Memorial.)

The slabs are arranged in a semi-circle. At the apex of the circle is a statue of the nastiest eagle you can imagine. On the back of the $1 bill there is the Great Seal of the United States, an eagle with arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. The eagle in Battery Park doesn't look like it knows WTF an olive branch is. To this eagle, the concept of peace is irrelevant. It is prepared to rip your lungs out, and it stares straight out at the Statue of Liberty. I was in my early 20s when I first saw it, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end for several hours.

Every time I go to New York I find my way down there to take a look. This is something everyone should see, including the feckless jabberers at the United Nations up in the east 30s. This is Harry Truman's eagle that nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and executed the Nazis at Nuremberg, and will do it again when needed. Want to know why we overreacted to 9/11? Visit the eagle, and you'll understand. You'll also understand why, in spite of his better judgment, Tony Blair said yes when called, and why even those of us on our side of the pond who don't think much of this war will never, ever hold it against him.

[Frank S.]

Snyder, consider the source.
"Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry"'s co-author is Jerome Corsi (PhD).
Through media matters, you can find posts Corsi made over at New Republic. I'll link and post a few comments so you get the flavor. Corsi admitted making these posts using the handle jrlc:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-new ... ge=201#247

• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

• Corsi on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"

• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"

• Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"

For more of his diatribe:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?id=68645

[snyder]

Interesting stuff! I figured these people were rabid dogs. Nice to have the proof.

[Ploggers]

He may be using his service for political ends, he may be making the world cringe with the shamelessness of his methods, but when you strip it all down; he was there and he was there as a volunteer - endex!!

[Lance]

BTW, if any of you Brits get to New York City, you've got to go to Battery Park at the foot of Manhattan because there stands one of the great war monuments anywhere on earth.

And if you go to Washington D.C. make sure you visit the Vietnam Memorial. I went to it many times when I lived in DC. Every visit was a very humbling experience.

[Tab]

There is a large memorial and a wall with all American Airmen listed who lost their lives while fighting in Britain during WW2, which is in the midlands near the bases that many of the American Aircraft flew from. It was even featured in an Robert Mitcham film some years back. It is no doubt where the person that designed the Vietnam wall got their idea from.

[Phildo]

Now folks, this stuff was what got me battling on SFTT. I don't want to do the same sort of battle here about it, and whatever happens I will not do the same sort of battle.

Thank you for that.

Synder, did you notice that it was mostly civies who all had their noses bent out shape over that stuff?

You might have heard some variation of this . . .
Those who talk don't know. Those who know don't talk.
It sort of fits for this whole Bush/Kerry crap.

Usually if you have seen enough military stuff, you get a sense for BS. All of that (on both sides) sounds like a bunch of BS. May have some truth, may not, but it had the look, feel and smell of BS.

[snyder]

Now folks, this stuff was what got me battling on SFTT. I don't want to do the same sort of battle here about it, and whatever happens I will not do the same sort of battle.

Thank you for that.

Synder, did you notice that it was mostly civies who all had their noses bent out shape over that stuff?

You might have heard some variation of this . . .
Those who talk don't know. Those who know don't talk.
It sort of fits for this whole Bush/Kerry crap.

Usually if you have seen enough military stuff, you get a sense for BS. All of that (on both sides) sounds like a bunch of BS. May have some truth, may not, but it had the look, feel and smell of BS.

Phil, as a civilian myself I feel compelled to defend civilianhood. I vastly appreciate the military but I don't worship it. The military is not the exclusive repository of honor, nor does membership in it somehow confer honor. That's a quality that comes from other sources; in fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you have an honorable military it's honorable because of the society it comes from.

Just as in the civilian world, there can be striking cases of military dishonor. I mean, look at this Swiftboat Vets group. They are mainly military, and have been acting in an astonishingly dishonorable way. I look at them and wonder how the hell they could be trying to do this to Kerry. I know why, of course. I understand the politics of it. But still, you'd think that at some level those people would stop and think about what they're doing.

To diverge a bit, one thing I worry a little bit about is the separation between civilian and military inherent in a professionalized "all volunteer" military. The day that the two groups are walled off from one another is a bad day, or at least that's the way I look at it.

Let me put it differently. I look at the current situation in Iraq and believe that the U.S. military has been horrendously used, misused and abused. I truly feel for these people. But, to the extent that military men routinely rebuff civilian comment on anything with respect to the military, it becomes pretty hard to for civilian opponents of this war to say much because they don't have access to the vocabulary needed to express loyal opposition. As a result, the field is pretty much abandoned to those who tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree and are shamelessly used as photo-op backdrops.

To me, one big element in the solution is to quit fighting the domestic divisions over the Vietnam War. For God's sake that was 30 years ago. These days, the opponents of the Iraq War are not disrespecting those fighting it. I think I'm very typical in this regard. Those soldiers over there are my friends and neighbors; I have literally gone to see them off and personally wish them well. I am worried for them, and I want them back home. This isn't an "us vs. them" thing like in Vietnam, and I really wish it wouldn't be treated as such.

[Phildo]

Phil, as a civilian myself I feel compelled to defend civilianhood. The military is not the exclusive repository of honor, nor does membership in it somehow confer honor. That's a quality that comes from other sources. I mean, look at this Swiftboat Vets group. They are mainly military, and have been acting in an astonishingly dishonorable way.

Oh yeah, with you on all that. Truly civilian is the highest rank there is.

I am just (trying ) saying that most of the Kerry stuff sounds like BS. Without regard to the source . . . . prior military, hacks, whatever. It sounds like BS. No big deal, but I think that is why most military types are not too excited about it either way. Seen BS, smelled BS, sometimes ate BS. And like the SBV, a lot of comes from inside. But, nothing to get excited over.

[snyder]

Understood, Phil. I got off on a little rant there. Sorry 'bout that.

[Phildo]

Understood, Phil. I got off on a little rant there. Sorry 'bout that.

You is a passionate guy. That is OK and a good thing. I tend to be probably too far the other way.

You might have read that I did weapons range officer-in-charge duty for a while. The first, first, first rule on the weapons range is: "Keep your weapons up and pointed downrange."

[Well, second actually, first command is "Take all commands from the range tower." (or range NCOIC, or range OIC depending on the range)]

Anyway, by keeping all weapons NOT pointed at your fellow troops ensures that all discharges (accidental or intentional) will not hit a fellow troop. If these forums (here or SFTT) followed a group policy of that, folks would stop shooting each other.

[snyder]

This seems like a great forum. People aren't shooting at each other here, and they're generally not doing the bumper sticker logic thing either. Funny how stupidity and fratricide seem to go hand in hand, isn't it?

[snyder]

A Swift Boat veteran speaks out


Excerpt:

I am neither a politician nor an organizer. I am a retired police officer with a passion for orchids. Until January of this year, the only public presentations I made were about my orchid hobby. But in this presidential election, I had to speak out; I had to tell the American people about John Kerry, about his wisdom and courage, about his vision and leadership. I would trust John Kerry with my life, and I would entrust John Kerry with the well-being of our country.

Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions. I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great commander in chief.

Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat.