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Since the McCain campaign has resurfaced the matter of Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers--the former terrorist now Chicago education professor---there are some matters I am curious about. I say this as one who has explained time and again in print and on television Ayers, by the time Obama met him in the 1990s, was a respected academic who was welcome into Chicago's civic life. On Monday, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod said Obama was not aware of Ayers' terrorist background when he attended a political coffee at Ayers Hyde Park home at the beginning of his state senate race...

To say goodbye, 41 years too late Vietnam War officer, missing since 1967, comes home to rest Sunday, October 5, 2008 3:39 AM By Holly Zachariah THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH WEST LIBERTY, Ohio -- He called her Tootsie. Pat Zook doesn't know exactly why. She thinks maybe it was because her husband always liked that old Al Jolson song: Yesterday I heard a lover sigh, Goodbye, oh me, oh my. Toot, toot, Tootsie, goodbye. Oh, no, Tootsie, don't cry. She last touched his face -- those bedroom eyes, the full and pouty lips, that Elvis Presley hair -- as he left...

THE remains of Australia's last missing soldier from the Vietnam War will be repatriated next week. Private David Fisher, of the Special Air Service Regiment, fell from a rope as he was being evacuated from Vietnam by helicopter in September 1969. His remains were found in the Cam My district in August this year. ..... Pte Fisher was the last of the missing army personnel to be found in Vietnam following the recovery of the remains of three others last year. There are still two members of the air force - Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver...

More than 38 years after being recommended for a Bronze Star, a Texas man has received the medal for helping avert a Viet Cong attack in South Vietnam. Jim Greenwalt of Rockwall, Texas, a former U.S. Army sergeant, helped to prevent a surprise attack by Viet Cong, the Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday."I fired at muzzle flashes, sounds, any movement," Greenwalt said, recalling the violence that repelled a Viet Cong attack.Greenwalt's bravery on Jan. 30, 1970, was remembered at a ceremony at Fort Hood, in central Texas, after a paperwork snafu delayed the honor.The U.S. Army has awarded more than...

Goon squads went into action last night in Hanoi. About a hundred thugs raided the prayer vigil held by Thai Ha faithful under the indifferent eye of some 500 police agents—they destroyed a chapel, sullied a statue of Our Lady with motor oil and proffered threats against the people who were praying.The same thing had happened at night on Friday when another bunch of thugs attacked the faithful, ransacked St Gerard chapel and an outdoor altar, destroying statues and images despite a police presence.

In what is believed to be the biggest public protest since 1954, over 10,000 people have gathered in Hanoi to protest the demolition by the Vietnamese government...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Communist authorities in Hanoi have threatened to take legal action against the city's archbishop unless he immediately disbands illegal prayer vigils to demand the return of former church lands, state media reported Monday. The government campaign against Archbishop Ngo Quang Kiet escalated over the weekend, with state television calling into question his patriotism in an apparent attempt to turn public opinion against him. State-controlled newspapers on Monday quoted a letter to Kiet from Hanoi Mayor Nguyen The Thao, accusing the cleric of instigating unrest. "Stop your illegal acts immediately or you will be dealt with according...

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James E. Cartwright, U.S. Marine Corps, will host the Pentagon ceremony for National POW/MIA Recognition Day at the River Entrance Parade Field on Friday, Sept. 19, 2008, at 11 a.m. EDT. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Congressman Ike Skelton will be the guest speaker. Observances of National POW/MIA Recognition Day are held across the country on military installations, ships at sea, state capitols, schools and veterans' facilities. This observance is one of six days throughout the year that Congress has mandated the...

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, U.S. Senator John McCain issued the following statement on National POW/MIA Recognition Day: "Today, we mark National POW/MIA Recognition Day, and I salute my comrades who served their country in unusual circumstances, and remember those who never returned. "During my time in Hanoi, I was witness to a thousand acts of kindness, courage, and love by some of the finest Americans I've ever had the privilege to know. They, like thousands of others before and since, served our nation proudly and with honor. They would all agree, though, that the real heroes are those who never...

For over a generation, the Democratic Party’s left wing has been determined to lose America’s wars.Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9-11, by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson (Spence, 224 pp., $22.95) From the days of ancient Athens, the citizens of democracies have been querulous warriors. Key democratic institutions such as free speech and citizen control of the military ensure that ordinary people take an active interest in the progress of war, freely (and often loudly) offering criticism and demanding results. Such criticism typically expressed impatience with military and political leaders...

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal carried a page-one story by Yaroslav Trofimov reporting the unlikeliest endorsement of this campaign season: [T]he jailers who once tortured Sen. McCain are lining up to offer effusive -- if somewhat embarrassing -- endorsements for his presidential candidacy."If I had a vote in the U.S., I would choose McCain," beams retired Col. Tran Trong Duyet, the [Hanoi Hilton prison] camp's former commander. "I want him in the White House."Col. Duyet's sentiment is not an eccentricity: This unlikely sentiment is widely shared in this fast-growing country of 85 million. "The majority of the people in Vietnam know...

John McCain has won an unusual endorsement for his presidential campaign - from the man who was his jailer in wartime Vietnam. John McCain was shot down and badly wounded while bombing a Hanoi power station on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam in 1967. He was a prisoner for over five years. Because Mr McCain's father was commander of all American forces in the Pacific theatre, the Vietnamese called him "the prince". Tran Trong Duyet, the commandant of Hao Lo prison in Hanoi from 1968-73, recalls Mr McCain "as a typical child of a traditional military family. He was...

FIGHTING BACK AT THE OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON A WAR HERO

New Film released By the Swedes Showing McCain’s release in 1973 to the US Military in Hanoi. (Video Included in post)

This iconic image is from the Battle of Ia Drang. The grimy, unshaven, soldier, bayonet fixed, jaw set in fierce determination, is Lt. Richard Rescorla, a platoon leader with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cav Division. It was taken on the morning of November 16th, 1965, the third day of the battle as he leads a bayonet charge forward. Although most of the soldiers under his command were new to war, he was not. And this would not be the last time he would bravely lead others in a crisis. Cyril Richard Rescorla was born in...

Democratic VP nominee, Senator Joe Biden (Del) touted his past experience as a key plus in preparing him for the job of keeping this country out of war during an Obama/Biden Administration. “I never fired a shot in anger and what I have been able to accomplish on this personal level has given me the insight that will help me keep America at peace when I’m vice-president,” Biden boasted. “Compare this to the experiences of our opponents. Not only did Senator McCain go to war, he was amazingly unsuccessful at it. He lost his plane and got captured by the...

Maybe having been a POW does qualify you to be president. At least if you emerge from the experience in the way it appears John McCain did. McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday may not been oratory for the ages – although it wasn’t bad and it had its stirring moments to be sure – but to listen to it, you got the impression that so much of what McCain has done in his political career suddenly made sense. And you got the sense that for all the people we’ve sent to Washington hoping they would really change the place, this...

Maybe having been a POW does qualify you to be president. At least if you emerge from the experience in the way it appears John McCain did. McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday may not been oratory for the ages – although it wasn’t bad and it had its stirring moments to be sure – but to listen to it, you got the impression that so much of what McCain has done in his political career suddenly made sense. And you got the sense that for all the people we’ve sent to Washington hoping they would really change the place, this...

From ABC's This Week today. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: One of our viewers wrote in—you talk about service—and asked, Brenda Godfrey Bryan, Marietta, Georgia: did you ever consider joining the armed services to protect and serve our country? If not, why? BARACK OBAMA: You know, I actually did. STEPHANOPOULOS: When? BARACK OBAMA: You know, I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school. And I was growing up in Hawaii, and I had friend whose parents were in the military, there were a lot of Army, military bases there. And I always actually thought of the military...

During a nationally televised news program today, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Barack Obama disclosed he once considered serving in the military. This is a very transparent move to bolster his national security credentials and occurred the day after a release of a Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner poll that showed a widening credibility gap that the Democratic Party has with the voters over national security issues. Obama is also running against John McCain, whose compelling personal story derives, in part, from being an heir to a long line of sailors who defended America, and from his own military service during the Vietnam War....

In response to my wondering if VP nominee Joseph Biden dodged the military draft after Vietnam's bloody Tet offensive, in part a reader wrote: May Have”, “What if” -- [t]his article is presuming much. ... It is a bit refreshing though to see the same B.S. tactics employed against Biden as were/are against Sara Palin, who does have Foreign Policy experience, for no other reason than her State shares borders with two Sovereign Nations. Maybe B.S. is a bit strong -- yet it appears to be over reaching at the moment. I honestly can’t say I got my draft board...

Having fun at Vietnam's expense Posted by Tim Johnson Fri Sep 5, 2:34 AM ET Some curious things get by the internet censors in China, and sometimes that raises a lot of questions. ADVERTISEMENT Take for example the curious situation of internet users who are openly discussing China???s supposed plans to ???occupy??? Vietnam. This has rattled Hanoi. According to an article today in the South China Morning Post, an English-language daily in Hong Kong, Hanoi has summoned Chinese diplomats twice in the past month to seek explanations. China, after all, is said to employ 35,000 people to sanitize internet content,...

Former president Jimmy Carter said Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s prisoner-of-war experience in Vietnam gives him an unfair advantage over his rival, Senator Obama. “Senator McCain had the good fortune of being called to fight for his country,” Carter complained. “Getting captured and tortured by the Communists was an opportunity denied to Senator Obama. He was only six years old, living in Indonesia at the time. By the time Barack would’ve been old enough, there were no similar opportunities for him.” Carter rued the fact that voters weren’t apt to appreciate the hardships Obama had to endure when he was...

Hanoi, Sep. 1, 2008 (CWNews.com) - At least 20 Vietnamese Catholics were hospitalized on August 31 after police in Hanoi disrupted a religious procession at an embattled Redemptorist monastery, spraying a priest, altar boys, and lay people with tear gas at close range. The Sunday-night police raid was the latest in a series of confrontations at the site of the Redemptorist monastery, where Catholic activists have been protesting the government's seizure of Church-owned property. In Catholic churches around Hanoi, priests had read a statement at every Sunday Mass, asking the government "not to use any sort of violence against the...

<p>A SEARCH team believes it has found the grave of the last remaining Australian digger unaccounted for after the Vietnam War.</p> <p>Special Air Services Regiment (SASR) soldier Private David Fisher fell from a rope suspended by a helicopter over thick jungle in southern Vietnam in 1969.</p>

Simultaneously with the ceremony, which was intended to express solidarity with the faithful of Hanoi, police in the capital intervened forcefully to disperse the faithful. Arrests and beatings.Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) - More than 3,000 people took part yesterday evening in the prayer vigil (in the photo) organized at the Redemptorist monastery in Saigon, as a sign of solidarity with the Redemptorists and with the Catholics of Hanoi, who are demonstrating for the restitution of the property illegally seized from the monastery and from the parish of Thai Ha. While the vigil was taking place in Hanoi, the police...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

For the better part of 60 years, two old Army pilots who loved each other argued over many a meal and drink as to which of them was the second best pilot in the world. The two shared the cockpits of old Beaver prop planes and Huey helicopters; they shared rooms in military hooches all over the world; they shared a love of practical and impractical jokes and they shared an undying love of flying and soldiers and the Army. They also shared membership in a very small and revered fraternity of fewer than 105 men who are entitled to...

In my last post I referenced the Days of Rage - put on by the Weathermen AKA Weather Underground in Chicago, October, 1969. I was in Chicago a few days later with my 2 little kids to get visas to travel to Korea for a year with the US Army. This was not fun & games like Woodstock. It was scarey as hell. This is Barak Obama's buddy Ayer's group. His lovely wife Bernadine Dohrn was also a part of it. They were rich, white kids playing revolutionaries. Whether Barak was 8 or not back then, does not take away...

Hanoi, Aug. 20, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Vietnamese Catholic demonstrators have again clashed with police in a confrontation over the use of property that had been owned by the Church but seized by the Communist government. A standoff between protesters and police at a Redemptorist monastery in Hanoi erupted yesterday as security forces tried to destroy crucifixes and icons of the Virgin Mary that protesters had erected on a piece of disputed land. Police in Hanoi took strong measures to disperse Catholic protesters who have sought the return of the monastery, and have been demonstrating at the site since January. On...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It was September 1967, and Lt. Cmdr. John McCain was back from Vietnam on home leave. He invited Chuck Larson over for dinner, and during a late night game of bridge, McCain pulled his buddy from the U.S. Naval Academy and flight school aside. Larson recalls being stunned at what he heard. "You know Chuck, I might have to get out of the Navy," McCain told him. "And I said, 'Why is that John?' and he said, 'Well I want to be a serious naval officer. And when I go places now, people tend to not take...

John McCain rarely speaks about his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, but one of his cell mates at the Hanoi Hilton on Thursday described some of the conditions and character traits that earned McCain the commendations he received for his war service. Col. George “Bud� Day, 83, is the most decorated service man since Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with more than 70 medals. A living legend, Day was blown out of the sky two months to the day before the North Vietnamese shot down a propaganda prize, whose father and grandfather were renowned American admirals....

This appears to be a large topic of discussion over at Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. The diary at Daily Kos has over 800 posts, and three diaries have been spawned from it. They are discussing the Daily Kos diary at Democratic Underground as well. If you check out the link, you can read the diary with Solzhenitsyn's story. The stories are similar, but they aren't identical. The liberals are speculating that McCain either knowingly stole the story, or he is in the early stages of dementia and mistook Solzhenitsyn's experience as his own. I give McCain the benefit of...

The modern Winter Soldier movement now operates as the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Similar to the Vietnam era Winter Soldier anti-war movement, the modern effort uses the alleged testimony of carefully cherry-picked soldiers who claim to have witnessed systemic American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan to make their ten point case against the war. The organization lists the following ten primary reasons why they oppose todayÂ’s war on terror, specifically taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan. â–ª The Iraq war is based on lies and deception. â–ª The Iraq war violates international law. â–ª Corporate profiteering is driving the...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNawbuG4mTg

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Vietnam War, has been identified. He is Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Manuel R. Denton, U.S. Navy, of Kerrville, Texas. He will be buried as part of a group on Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On Oct. 8, 1963, Denton was one of six men who crewed a UH-34D Choctaw helicopter that was on a search-and-rescue mission. While over Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, the helicopter came under intense enemy ground fire and crashed. There were no survivors. Over the next several...

In December 1966, when John McCain requested his first combat assignment in Vietnam, Barack Obama turned 5 years old and was enjoying the freedoms a child should enjoy. As Obama turned 7, McCain had survived a burning jet fire on the USS Forrestal and had just flown his 23rd bombing mission over communist North Vietnam. In 1973, as Obama reached age 12, McCain was finally released from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Hanoi Hilton. At age 15, when Obama was still in high school, McCain became the commanding officer of a Naval Training Squadron in Florida. He turned a poorly...

John Rich's latest hit performed before a crowd in the panhandle of Florida.

PART II of our discussion of John McCain's Military Years. A blogger raises the issue of Affirmative Action: Did McCain Receive Affirmative Action?McCain’s military record is fair game The War Secrets Sen. John McCain HidesFACT SHEET: Military record of John Sidney McCain IIIMcCain's Military Record Shows He Is Unfit To Be PresidentMcCain's Secret, Questionable RecordFlummoxed By Vietnam Vet, McCain Falsely Claims He ‘Received Every Awars...McCain's military recordIs McCain's War Record Fair Game?Does John McCain's Military Record Really Qualify Him to Be President?McCain’s Spotty Military Record Is Declared Off the Table - And Obama Appears to Accede

.NEVER FORGET."Much has happened between the fall of Saigon in 1975, after America had ..BEEN PARALYZED.. with demonstrations opposing the war, and 2008, which comes after the Sept. 11 attacks and a war on terrorism many see as vital to the nation's survival."FINALLY..!!!.NEVER FORGET.

The truth is often overlooked in a sea of lies and mischaracterizations. The truth is not someones opinion or away of looking at something, it is simply the truth. Gen. Giap planned and directed military operations against the French and defeated them in 1954 in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The NVA under the command of Gen, Giap planned the now famed and offten lied about Tet Offensive against the United States in 1968. In his book Gen. Giap plainly shows that the NVA had few supplies and had been defeated in battle time and time again. The NVA...

The New York Times has turned down an op-ed written by Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. They are a private organization, and I suppose it is fair to say that they are welcome to publish or turn down whomever they want. His article, Getting Iraq Right, can instead be found at the New York Post. I felt compelled to expand on a couple points in his article. One: McCain makes the point that the Bush Administration waved the “Mission Accomplished” banner “prematurely” as is Barack Obama with his Iraq withdrawal policy. Well, the thing is: the banner did not signify...

Energy: Big Oil is easy to kick around — just ask any Democrat in Congress. But China's threats to Exxon Mobil are in another league. Its bid to use Exxon Mobil as a wedge against its rival Vietnam is a case in point.What China's doing in the South China Sea these days is not trade, but blackmail to assert regional dominance. On Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported Chinese officials are threatening to exclude Exxon Mobil from doing business in China if it doesn't pull out of an exploration deal with Vietnam's state oil company, PetroVietnam. The region in...

HONG KONG - CHINA has warned Exxon Mobil Corp to pull out of an exploration deal with Vietnam, describing the project as a breach of Chinese sovereignty, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday, citing unnamed sources. The article, which cited 'sources close to the US firm", said Chinese diplomats in Washington had made repeated verbal protests to Exxon Mobil executives in recent months, and warned them its future business interests on the mainland could be at risk. The protests involve a preliminary co-operation agreement between state oil firm PetroVietnam and Exxon Mobil covering exploration in the South China...

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries—often with surprising results. More than fifteen years since its original publication, the number one New York Times bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young is still required reading in all branches of the military. Now Moore and Galloway revisit their relationships with ten American veterans of the battle—men such as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley and helicopter pilot Bruce "Old Snake" Crandall—as well as...

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." That was retired Gen. Wesley Clark's condescending assessment of John McCain's military service. Clark's words have great weight because he was speaking as a key political/military advisor to Barack Obama. If Gen. Clark had been talking about me, his remarks might be true. After all, I rode in a fighter plane and got shot down over North Vietnam. In no way do Clark's words apply to McCain. I know, because I was a firsthand witness to his singular leadership and courage....

The following is a Term paper written by a young Vietnamese woman now married to one of the Pilot's I served in Viet Nam with. Lily was born after American involvement ended in Viet Nam and the Communist takeover. She is enrolled in a Business Law Course and the Term paper was for that class. Her effort was awarded with a 100% Posted with the permission of Lily. Do You Really Want to Rear Your Child in a Socialist Society?By Lily Cuc WhiteI was born and reared in a Socialist Society. Here is my personal testimony as to how good,...

Former President Bill Clinton (D) warned voters against electing former prisoner-of-war Senator McCain president. “POWs are not like us,” Clinton observed. “They’ve been held captive in barbaric conditions, tortured and humiliated by this country’s enemies. How can they ever be objective enough to deal with our country’s enemies as president?” Clinton argued that his evasion of military service saved him “from building up the prejudices against and hatreds for different cultures and political systems that could have compromised my ability to govern effectively. My judgment was untainted by any suffering and privation that could have biased my views. The same...

These are the never-before-seen last known photos of Sen. John McCain's Hoa Lo prison cell, images that prove that even after being cleaned up for an American historical filmmaker, the terror of the Hanoi Hilton is real. Debra Watkins, who took the pictures and video in 1993 and 1994 before this and other areas of the century-old prison were destroyed, provided them to Whispers as part of a story that appears in the Washington Whispers column. Watkins did volumes of research before traveling to Hanoi, sparked by reports the government planned to rip down most of the facility. She...

THOMPSON FALLS — Rod Knutson is hardly the recluse dug up by John McCain’s campaign, as some bloggers and critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee contend. The former prisoner of war is a decorated war hero who earned two Silver Stars, served 32 years in the U.S. Navy, moved up the ranks at the Pentagon, lectured at the prestigious Top Gun flight school, wound up in the popular 1986 movie of the same name, lived in as many ports on the West Coast as on the East and after retirement, sailed with his family throughout the Caribbean for 4½...