Posted on 09/01/2004 5:45:22 AM PDT by kattracks
NASHVILLE — A full-page advertisement attacking John Kerry's post-Vietnam anti-war activism appeared in The Tennessean on Tuesday, the day President Bush spoke to the American Legion national convention and a day before Kerry was scheduled to speak.The ad by Dexter Lehtinen, a Vietnam veteran with Republican ties, accuses Kerry of "bearing false witness against me and a generation of young Americans who fought and died in Vietnam .... "
The ad was denounced by Bob Tuke, who coordinates the Tennessee branch of Veterans for Kerry.
Lehtinen, a former Republican appointee as U.S. Attorney in Miami, is married to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., but says he wrote and paid for the ad "without any connection to other individuals or groups."
His ad attacks Kerry for remarks in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 comparing the behavior of American troops in Vietnam to the armies of Genghis Khan, testimony that vaulted Kerry into the national spotlight for the first time.
Lehtinen said the ad also is running in magazines devoted to the armed services.
"This is not a he-said, she-said about what he did on the river," Lehtinen said, referring to allegations made by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that Kerry's accounts of the river battles for which he was awarded medals were inaccurate. Most of those claims have been disputed by official records and the accounts of other veterans who were there.
"This is the uncontroverted actions of John Kerry when he testified at the U.S. Senate. That's what I think is essential," Lehtinen said. "That speech from beginning to end was an attack on his fellow veterans."
Lehtinen was at the American Legion convention in Nashville, where he said he was distributing literature denouncing Kerry. President Bush spoke to the conventioneers on Tuesday; Kerry was scheduled to speak on Wednesday.
Tuke, who served as a Marine in Vietnam, called the ad "a scurrilous attack."
Tuke said he was "walking through a rice paddy" with his Marine patrol when Kerry was testifying to Congress.
"I think John Kerry and people like him who responsibly exposed the war for what it was, which by then was a miscalculated mistake, probably saved my life and the lives of my Marines," he said. "I take huge offense at Dexter Lehtinen's mischaracterization of what Kerry was doing, in the first place, and I specifically disagree with his contention that his testimony was a disservice. In fact it was a service to all Americans, not just veterans."
Lehtinen contends Kerry's testimony "smeared an entire generation of veterans. He's the leading cause of why people like me have to explain to our kids that we didn't rape and torch every village we came to."
The ad says Kerry "shamelessly drapes himself in the imagery of Vietnam, military service and the support of veterans, devoid of any media scrutiny. Meanwhile, the criticism and disapproval of Kerry by scores of veterans continues to fall on deaf ears."
Tuke said the escalating verbal campaign war over the real one in Vietnam can be boiled down to a very simple equation.
"John Kerry volunteered to serve and did," he said. "The current president specifically avoided service by joining the National Guard through his family influence and specifically requested not to be sent overseas. There is no comparison. John Kerry earned the right to come back and voice his opposition to the war by fighting in it, and so did I."
Tuke said "the problem with the Bush administration is there is only one senior official, Colin Powell, who has ever felt the sting of battle. The rest of them are chickenhawks. They avoided service, and now they send our young men and women off to war. To add insult to injury they stand behind these scurrilous attacks against real heroes. They ought to be ashamed."
He HAD to. He was "vamping" John Kennedy, and the Nave didn't have PT boats any more.
The PBFs were the best substitute available.
It is ...
The ad was denounced by Bob Tuke, who coordinates the Tennessee branch of Veterans for Kerry.
But I find it interesting that Tuke, like many Kerry supporters fail to try to follow the logic conclusions: Kerry and supporters say that his record is beyond inspection, because the Navy has issued awards and citations. Who could question the integrity of the Navy "brass"? (Unless one has returned from Viet Nam after 4 months, and chooses to slime all the military as being next to Genghis Khan ... WITH THE FULL KNOWLEDGE AND SUPPORT OF THE SUPERIORS!.) Were the superiors who wrote the awards and citations the same as who endorsed criminal actions that were violations of the Geneva Convention? Were the awards and citations a testimony of excellent and honorable service to Kerry ... which is the reason he threw them away!!! [Or was it the fact that Kerry knew, deep down, that the awards were based on his own lies, his own falsified after-action reports, etc., that there was nothing to respect about the awards and medals ... thereby making the ribbons or medals EASY to toss away and disrespect - since he really had no respect for them in the beginning!!]
Mike
The only thing I can imagine being dumber is "Embryos for Abortion."
So, why wasn't he described as having Democrat ties?
He did not attack the feds over the war. He did attack his fellow veterans accusing them of warcrimes.
Mr. Kerry anyone who has not seen you is truly blind. That leaves only yellow dog dems to vote for you this Nov. Your campaign is over.
Volunteered to fight the Ferocious North Vietnam NAVY!
Now that we know for sure you're a liar, why should we give anything you say any weight, Mr. Tuke?
Maybe Kerry was bored on the destroyer and saw the swift boat's shore patrol duty as a chance to get a good case of the clap. As soon as the boats went to river duty, Kerry started focusing on "three and out".
Looking at the character of the man, I'd say my version reflects a more likely chain of events.
"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."
But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous. Under the newly launched Operation SEALORD, swift boats were charged with patrolling the narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta to draw fire and smoke out the enemy. Cruising inlets and coves and canals, swift boats were especially vulnerable targets.
Kerry - Boston Globe (Candidate Part 2)
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml
LOL... aw heck, they gave ya plenty of chances to catch the clap in the fleet... ever heard of Kaohsiung, Taiwan? That's how I got my first "Purple Heart". ;)
He HAD to. He was "vamping" John Kennedy, and the Nave didn't have PT boats any more. The PBFs were the best substitute available.
Now this has a more realistic ring to it...
Thanks, I hadn't seen that.
P. 198 "Unfit For Command"
February 18, 1966: Kerry enlists in the U.S. Naval Reserves, status inactive" after request for deferment is denied."
Sorry, quotation marks got misplaced:
"February 18, 1966: Kerry enlists in the U.S. Naval Reserves, status 'inactive' after request for deferment is denied."
Hey, you better believe anyone who enlisted, or was drafted, but had previously attended college for more than one semester had a student deferment.
They handed out undergraduate student deferments like crackers and cheese at a sorority social.
'twarn't no big thing!~
We often discuss how that fact is left out and that Bush was on call to defend the United States while in the ANG. Is Bob Tuke one of the "Doghunters"? Another DH is a David Englin whose page is full of misquotes about what the Bush Administration has done for Veterans and the Military at large. Mr. Englin faults Kerry for now being hawkish in his campaign rhetoric and wants him to be the appeaser he really is.
I suspect the DH are the Kerry ‘goons’ we hear about threatening the POW/MIA people and the SBV’s. If someone has information about these men and their names, please post...the Kerry pay roll must be enormous. When did Johnfonda Kerry see actual combat?
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