This is but one of several articles by Bangert that show up on Veterans Against The War In Iraq, which is a rabid hate-America site.
A Marine's Reponse to Flak Attack on Kerry The following is a reply to an essay posted on GOPUSA and other web sites by Rick Erickson, Director of Americans for Military Readiness, accusing Senator John Kerry of disgracing the nation and in particular the Marine Corps Memorial during antiwar protests in 1971.
By Joe Bangert
Special to VAIW, February 25, 2004
I was one of those Marines who marched in Northern Virginia with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War alongside John Kerry and many personal friends with whom I served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps in Viet Nam.
Erickson belies the actual scene with words like ‘mocking’ and ‘ridicule’ as we merely passed by the Iwo Jima Memorial. My uncle fought at Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Saipan and Okinawa. Yes, I am what Erickson refers to as ‘Kerry’s cronies’ and I was on that march. Erickson lies when he wrote of ‘our flag’ being flown upside down and why.
Prior to this freeze frame photo at the Iwo Jima Memorial, our very clean column led by new Gold Star Mothers attempted to enter Arlington National Cemetery where the crying newly motherless merely sought to lay a giant floral red white and blue wreath in memory of not only their own sons but in honor of all who had by then had fallen in the still running battles in Viet Nam. The White House under Richard Nixon ordered the gates to Arlington shut. It was then that our colors were inversed as a sign of ‘international distress’ and never in ‘sedition and treachery’ as Erickson propagandizes like an atavistic Soviet avatar. Our march never even lingered near the Iwo Jima Memorial, for we marched back into Washington D.C. to our encampment on the Mall.
It itches Erickson to no end that two very special groups of constituencies lifted Kerry’s campaign when some thought it was moribund, the IFF or International Fire Fighters association and Kerry’s band of brothers, including his shipmates from the Mekong Delta in 1969 and many many other veterans, from World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, the Gulf War and loads of active duty GI’s. For Erickson to attempt to wrap the war dead from Iwo Jima around his shoulders is sacrilegious. Those Marines and Corpsmen died defending freedom and democracy and never to squelch its voice at home in any manner.
As we Marines, sailors, soldiers and Airmen and Coast Guard personnel returned home in waves we became sick and disgusted along with John Kerry, angry and at a loss for words about how the war was going. It was killing our own brothers and sisters- and each night Walter Cronkite would show flags and body counts for the day. The insanity of that war was that no one was negotiating an end to it all and the human toll kept growing.
The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) started in 1967. Some of its members had their heads bashed in in Chicago. This is why we joined in. Sure there was opposition by then by students, parents and others. VVAW generally ran our own show because we valued our message as veterans. The Vietnam War was a gross atrocity at least by those of us who sat in door gunner canvas chairs. This is why I resent you alluding that Kerry and me and my VVAW comrades were betraying those still fighting.
Those of us who spoke out and marched were saving lives! Our actions were out of principle and conscience. We shortened the list of the names on the ‘Wall’. We saved Vietnamese lives as well. These actions affirm life and betray nothing but our bold humanity put into practice. We were hounded by a paranoid Nixon and his minions. John Kerry aided in the construction and dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Kerry has helped veterans for over 19 years in the Senate. He lead the fight for service-connection for Agent Orange and supports our Gulf War vets and stand up now for the lack of protective equipment for our GI’s in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush has said he supported the war in Viet Nam but personally he saw fit to use his priviledged position to sit it out in the Texas National Guard, and you and I both know what happens on active military duty- if any airman, soldier, Marine or sailor missed even a few days of work, there were consequences. One faced an Article 86 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The president went AWOL and cannot disprove it.
Now we cut to the heart of the matter. Erickson would have readers believe that Kerry and other antiwar veterans ‘ betrayed his fellow servicemen who remained at war’. Sheer poppycock. Now I don’t pretend to be omniscent but I did work on Kerry’s campaigns in NH and Virginia. Most of the veterans who support Kerry do not look like those which Erickson cites in Phoenix. And we are committed to John Kerry precisely because Kerry is the ONLY veteran in the race. Logical don’t you think, as well as in our mutual self interests.http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=546
Big surprise, huh?