Posted on 07/31/2004 2:29:11 PM PDT by doug from upland
Why it Still Matters Thirty Years Later
Most people do not realize that a commissioned officer's obligations do not terminate when they leave active service; commissioned officers are still are still obligated to their oath, and are subject to being recalled to service, as many are. John Kerry, however, obviously felt no such obligation to his officer’s oath, using his naval service only to further his career. But why does any of this still matter now? Most liberals would want us to believe that this is “old history” and that Kerry was simply “being courageous to speak out against an unjust war in the first place.” In a recent interview with Alan Combs of Fox News, he continued to maintain that he is “proud” of his role in “cutting and running” from Viet Nam since “it saved lives.”
Let us suppose that we revisited the long years that Washington and the colonists spent in armed and bloody struggle against Great Britain, receiving help from a number of foreign officers such as the Marquis de Lafayette, General von Steuben, Col Pulaski, and General Kosciusko (who wrote the first artillery manual for West Point). The war had finally reached the point where Washington was able to bottle up Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula, needing only the support of the French fleet to bring the war to a close and win the Revolution.
But suppose that at this critical moment, Lafayette claimed injuries, returned to France, and then, not as a common person, but as an influential aristocrat and commissioned officer campaigned vigorously and continuously against the American Revolution for which he had previously fought and against the people who had trusted him with their future and the future of their children.
Also suppose that he culminated this campaign by appearing before the French Court and falsely accusing the Americans of barbarous atrocities, the Americans of being barbarians, and accusing officers such as George Washington, Henry Knox, and Francis Marion (the Swamp fox) as encouraging systematic, command structure genocide and atrocities. He then even further embarked upon a lecture campaign with other people who are later determined to be fakes in that they make similar claims while impersonating American officers. The entire effort is underwritten by an underground British subversive group, with which Lafayette and many of the other fake veterans cooperate readily.
The subversives and fakes also constantly circulate flyers describing what they falsely claim as the almost total destruction of the country of America by the violence of war. The French, stunned, withdraw their fleet, the entire American effort collapses, and Great Britain overruns the entire country within four years.
Years later, Lafayette runs for public office, with his platform being that "I was just being courageous; that was thirty years ago anyway, and a lot of people really never wanted to separate from Britain since the war was unpopular (Remember that historians report that only about 1/3 of the population of the colonies actively supported the Revolution). You should forget all that and elect me on the ideas I have to run your country today. After all, I fought in the war and I was a hero. I saved someone after they fell in the Delaware River. Plus, I am really proud that we saved some of the lives of Americans fighting at Yorktown when we quit.”
With the exception being that the British would undoubtedly never murder 1-2 million Americans and enslave the remainder as reprisals, this is exactly what John Kerry did at the end of the Kennedy-Johnson war. If this had happened, would one not expect the Americans to be angry years later, especially the soldiers, and for them to hold this officer to a higher standard than just an ordinary citizen who voiced an opinion of disagreement? Would one not worry that this might be a case also of "fool you once, shame on me; fool you twice, shame on you?" Would you risk the further security of the nation to a person like this?
Remember also that at the time that Kerry was peddling his faked testimony to the Senate, President Nixon had already essentially cut U.S. forces in Viet Nam by half from the high point reached under Johnson, and he withdrew 100,000 servicemen that year alone. In addition, North Viet Nam had completely expended all of their SAMs, giving us complete and total air superiority, and pushing the LINEBACKER air operations would also have won the war at that point as well, as we could have done by following Westmoreland’s advice and finishing the job after decimating the VC forces at Tet.
And finally, the Vietnamese community in Dallas/ Ft. Worth recently held a memorial service and forum at the University of Texas Arlington in commemoration of the betrayal and fall of Saigon in April of 1975. The sight of several hundred of still fit, proud military men ramrod straight in their uniforms as they saluted pictures of fallen comrades; the weeping girls in flowing native dress offering 29 flowers to the shrine of war dead, one flower for each year of Vietnamese captivity; and film footage of thousands dying on the seas as boats sank, being herded into squalid refugee camps, and being carried, many times in chains and screaming, back to be “repatriated” to certain suffering and likely death in communist Vietnam was heart wrenching.
Such scenes also belie the other lies told by Kerry and the communist Left – lies that the South Vietnamese did not care about their country and did not fight for it with fervor. The memorial service, of course, was not reported by local or national press, but was forgotten, just as Kerry quickly forgot these same people whose safety was entrusted to him 30 years ago, once they served his political purpose. No film or picture showed Kerry attempting to help the refugees once their homeland had been enslaved by the communism which he so vociferously claimed “was not a threat.”
Thank God Lafayette did not attend Yale and that Washington’s army was not continuously accompanied by a press corps intent on reporting how the war was “unwinnable” and focused upon broadcasting each and every problem encountered.
Consequences of Appeasement rather than “ending the war”:
The “Peace” and “Anti-War” movements were, of course, nothing of the kind, as they unleashed total war rather than peace upon the Vietnamese.
An estimated 36,000 village Chiefs and government officials were murdered by the Viet Cong as terrorist tactics that anticipated today’s brutality by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Queda. The entire village would be assembled, with the Chieftain usually being decapitated and his head place on a stake at the village entrance. Often the Chief would be tied to a pillar, disemboweled, and left to suffer a slow and excruciating death as a wild pig was allowed to eat his intestines while he was still alive. Another tactic was to kill all the members of the family, the children, infants, all servants, the dog, the cat, and in recorded cases, even goldfish, as the “family unit” was to be completely extinguished of all life. An additional estimated 36,000 village Chiefs and government officials simply disappeared; their fate remains unknown to this day.
1,000,000 South Vietnamese are estimated to have been killed outright after Kerry helped convinced the Senate to “cut and run” and Saigon was overrun in April of 1975.
1,000,000 South Vietnamese are estimated to have spent years in “re-education” camps.
Up to 1,000,000 South Vietnamese are estimated to have fled or perished as refugees.
20,000,000 remain enslaved in a communist state.
3,000,000 Cambodians were murdered in the accompanying holocaust. The United Nations, along with the “peace movement,” did nothing to help any of these peoples.
John Kerry had been sent as a commissioned officer of the Unites States Government to help and to aid these people.
C. Alan Hopewell, Ph.D., M. S. Psy.Pharm, ABPP
Diplomate, American Board of Professional Psychology
American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology
Master's Degree in Clinical Psychopharmacology
How dare you question John Kerry's patriotism!
Hell! Man!
he served in the 'Nam....Wasn't that enough?
Remember, Benedict Arnold was a war hero, too.
Kerry? Shame? Kerry has no shame.
You might want to read this. Or you might not.
What I hate is the way conservatives all defer to Kerry's supposed war record as being legtimate, calling him brave and a hero and all the rest. Why can't they question it in public, are they afraid of insulting other legitimate heroes of that war and all others?
Why wasn't he held responsible to tell of these atrosities when they happened? Why did he wait until he came home and then appeared before Congress to tell all? If these things he was part of happened in the field of war, he should have reported it THEN, not afterward or NOW. I think he should answer some of these hard questions before the election. I would hate to think this kind of person might be Commander in Chief of the fine young men and women putting it on the line for me, for all of us, and especially for KERRY today, as we speak. I understand there are many who will refuse to stay in the service if Kerry is elected.
And there would be no new volunteers. Clinton depleted the military, Kerry would finally destroy it.
Kerry would have to reinstate the draft. It's the only way anyone would end up under his....ahem...."command."
And, he'd have them all wearing pink uniforms to match his tie (Wouldn't want to clash for that photo op, you know!), and pink triangles (for the campaign contributions).
(Kerry is such a dork)
If he did speak out about the assumed atrocities and wrong doings while in Vietnam the term "killed by friendly fire" stirs in my mind! He is a loose cannon and not fit to be our commander-in-chief! I'm enjoying following his bus to never-never land. The Democrats are a party of numbskulls, fit for nothing!
If he did speak out about the assumed atrocities and wrong doings while in Vietnam the term "killed by friendly fire" stirs in my mind! He is a loose cannon and not fit to be our commander-in-chief! I'm enjoying following his bus to never-never land. The Democrats are a party of numbskulls, fit for nothing!
It matters because John Kerry has NOT changed.
They're not deep thinkers.
It says he STILL BELIEVES HIS LIES about our Troops in Vietnam.
Thanks, I saw it.
"President Bush said John Kerry is on both sides of every issue. And Kerry replied, 'No, I'm not ... but there is some truth to that.' " —Craig Kilborn
There is something for a reporter to ask.
"Senator Kerry, have you, or will you repudiate the oath that you swore upon your commissioning as an officer in the Army?"
John Kerry's actions thirty years ago would not have mattered at ALL if he has just said, "It was a different time, and I had different aspirations." John is the one who has chosen to dwell on the events of 1969 through 1972. We can't get him to shut up about it. The important and relevant things are the last ten years in the Senate, after he has accumulated some experience and seniority, and presumedly some acumen in the political wisdom of our times.
And John Kerry comes up a huge zero. Indifferent to his obligations as a Senator, missing votes and committee meetings, and not much of a record on sponsorship or introduction of legislation, with NO serious bills bearing his name (like, maybe he could have been in on something similar in nature to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, or gotten his name on the Kennedy education bill, or SOMETHING besides vague resolutions), Kerry leaves almost no footprint that he ever passed this way.
If a Kerry Administration leaves no more of a legacy than his Senatorial career, that will only greatly enhance and embellish the record left by Jimmy Carter. Jimmy did carry out the duties of the office, if not very competently, but he had the virtue of showing up on time, almost every day.
If we can believe half of what Kerry has said or done, which we cannot, he is an admitted war criminal and should be prosecuted for his admitted crimes. I pray every day that the Lord will spare us from this evil man.
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