Free Republic

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...

I called Orson Swindle, a fellow POW who is campaigning for McCain, to ask him about it. “I recall John telling that story when we first got together in 1971, when were talking about every conceivable thing that had ever happened to us when we were in prison” Swindle told me a few minutes ago. “Most of us had been kept apart or in small groups. Then, in 1970, they moved us into the big cell. And when we all got to see each other and talk to each other directly, instead of tapping through walls, we had 24 hours...

Here is video of an interview done by CNN's John King with Sen. John McCain, in which McCain describes his treatement as a Prisoner-of-War in Vietnam. He talks describes the prisons he was kept in, and is asked about what it was like to come to the breaking point physically. But as you watch and listen, you can see something of the kind of person McCain is - stoical, determined and not a quitter. . .

ON Wednesday night Harry Smith uncorked two bottles of fine red wine to celebrate the award of gallantry medals to his men for their role in the epic Battle of Long Tan. "The fat lady has finally sung," Smith told The Australian. ..... The main problem with the retrospective awarding of gallantry medals is deciding what point to stop, says historian Michael McKernan, former head of the Australian War Memorial. He warns of possible legal problems with awarding the Victoria Cross of Australia to World War I heroes, for example. ..... McKernan says it remains incomprehensible that 18-year-old Oerlikon gunner...

FORTY-TWO years after the Battle of Long Tan, Harry Smith's long campaign for due recognition for his men is over. Mr Smith and two fellow officers will get top gallantry awards for the 100-odd men of D Company 6 RAR who on August 18, 1966, fought against 1500 North Vietnamese regular troops and Viet Cong guerillas. This follows approval by the Rudd Government of the main recommendations of an independent review, by a panel of retired senior army officers, of the battle regarded as a classic study in the use of combined arms to defeat a superior enemy. It restores...

Gawker.com notices that the New York times never balked at calling McCain a "fighter pilot" until this year. Their full commentary is at this URL: http://gawker.com/5035890/times-retracts-12-years-of-calling-mccain-fighter-pilot An excerpt: "The Times published two amazing corrections this morning, starting with one stating that the newspaper had erroneously called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a "fighter pilot" on Sunday and in "numerous other Times articles the past dozen years." Wow, a correction that spans more than a decade! When McCain was famously shot down over Vietnam, he was flying his usual plane, a small jet aircraft known as the A-4 Skyhawk, which the...

<p>STURGIS, S.D. (AP) -- Republican John McCain has gotten an approving roar from the thousands gathered at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.</p> <p>He mentioned how Democrat Barack Obama was cheered by a large crowd recently during his speech in Berlin. McCain told the Sturgis crowd, "I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day."</p>

<p>They come wearing motorcycle leather and business suits. They sport crew cuts and ponytails, some wearing long un-trimmed beards, others clean shaven. They park their Harley’s, Gold Wings, and three wheelers in rows flying the Stars and Strips and the black POW/MIA flags. Many bear scars and tattoos commemorating their service in Vietnam .</p>

(dpa) - Senator John McCain, 71, heads to the unlikely town of Sturgis, South Dakota, on Monday to rub elbows with the rowdy tattooed rebels of the American roads at a campground rock concert. With a population of 780,000, South Dakota on the Great Plains is hardly an election-day prize for either McCain's Republican Party or rival Democrats. But the state doubles in population during the annual August motorcycle rally in Sturgis, at the foot of the Black Hills, that draws an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 out-of-state "wild hogs" who roar cross country to celebrate their bike culture. McCain plans...

.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.

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...

Code Pink was sickly sweet in our presence on Wednesday night, trying to look good in front of their pot luck dinner attendees. We were offered ice cream cones, soda, beer and to participate in their pot luck dinner. All declined since we didn’t have the antidote to strychnine or a shower was not close by. In the Politico article Some on left target McCain's war record, “Suzzie” Medea Benjamin was quoted as saying: "I wouldn't characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the theatrical anti-war group Code Pink. "In...

In the decades since they shared a prison cell in North Vietnam, George "Bud" Day has remained a close friend of Republican John McCain and emerged as a staunch opponent of Democrats seeking the presidency. As he did in 2004, when he took the lead in questioning Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War record, Day is eager this fall to do whatever he can to retain the White House for the Republicans _ especially this Republican. "I just want everyone to understand the difference between a board-certified physician and a student in medical school, because that is the difference,"...

Correction Appended Years ago, when William Miller talked about being in the Vietnam War — if he talked about being in the Vietnam War — he would tell people he served on a Swift boat. At least now they have heard of it. But not in the way he would like. “I was proud of what I did, and all the guys I was with,” Mr. Miller said. “Now somebody says ‘Swift boat’ and it’s a whole different meaning. They don’t associate it with the guys we lost. That’s a shame.” “Swift boat” has become the synonym for the nastiest...

Smearing McCain   By Jacob LaksinFrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 DURING THE 2004 ELECTION, Democrats and their allies on the activist Left were adamant that a candidate’s military record was strictly off-limits to criticism. John Kerry was a war hero, and to suggest different was, as columnist David Ignatius averred, defamation. It turns out these partisans meant to exempt themselves from the rule. As an example, observe the nascent smear campaign against John McCain’s military service. This past weekend, retired general and declared Barack Obama backer Wesley Clark went on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he proceeded to...

Obama advisor Rand Beers was asked by a member of the audience about Sen. John McCain's foreign policy credentials on June 30 at "McCain U.," a McCain-critique session at the Center for American Progress on Monday in Washington. Beers says his captivity during the Vietnam War “sadly limited” McCain’s ability to be a war-time leader: “Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him," said informal Obama adviser Rand Beers. "I think that the notion that the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were...

For most people, “Swift boat” has become a political verb, a synonym for the kind of attack that helped destroy the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry in 2004. But for a group of Vietnam veterans at the center of the attacks, it is still a fresh fight. On Friday, the group, who served with Mr. Kerry in Vietnam, sent a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman who helped finance the 2004 attack advertisements, taking him up on a challenge he issued last November: that he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single...

Now a senator who is the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, Mr. McCain often points to his nine months at the War College as the time that crystallized his views toward foreign conflicts like the war in Iraq. He has talked about his studies as a tutorial in the hows-and-whys of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. But the 40-page final paper he produced was limited to an evaluation of the military code of conduct through the prism of his “narrow, but personal, viewpoint.” ... Mr. McCain’s paper sheds new light on the experience that first brought him national attention and remains...

SEOUL — Kim Chun-su had to join the army, but he didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Almost four decades ago, Kim, then a soldier doing his mandatory three-year service in the South Korean military, opted to fight in what was even in his country an unpopular war. He wanted to get away from the army’s notoriously abusive officers, who he said would wake soldiers up for no reason and beat them. He also wanted to show his gratitude to the United States for helping South Korea during the Korean War. Kim and most of the 97 South Korean veterans...

The Press: When it comes to smearing John McCain, the mainstream media don't sleep. Now it's "raising questions" about the disability pension he got for torture injuries as a prisoner of war. Where's the shame? Hard to believe, but true. The industrious beavers who "raise questions" about McCain's fitness for the presidency, citing his $58,000 disability pension, are this time from the Los Angeles Times. First, the Times' April 22 hit piece implied that, since McCain is in good enough shape to walk across the Grand Canyon, there's something dishonest about his tax-free disability pension. Second, it implied that McCain...

Both the media and Obama supporters closely watched every word uttered by the Clinton campaign and her supporters for a racial connotation. Undoubtedly, such scrutiny will only be doubled as we head into the general election. But equal attention ought to be paid to the line of attack being directed at McCain. And it seems liberals have already begun to push the envelope. John Aravosis, who writes at Americablog, had this headline yesterday: "Why is McCain getting $58,000 a year in disability income?" In his post, Aravosis wonders why the GOP nominee is receiving a military pension for the injuries...

POW, War Hero, President 

Did U.S. Rep. Lane Evans(D)Illinois,actually dress like a bum and mingle with homeless Veterans?Now I know he has Parkinson's Disease,and I don't want to sound mean spirited,but I just don't believe he saw veterans that were actually fighting for access to DumpstersI know he was was one of the most liberal members of the House,and probably Illinois' most liberal congressman from outside Chicago,but c'mon he actually saw homeless veterans fighting over access to the dumpsters.

After this, I cannot WAIT until McCain gets to actually debate Obama in front of a live audience. Obama's gonna get schooled, son! First, Obama tried to make McCain look like he didn't care about veterans. Bad move number one. Here's Obama's statement: "I respect Sen. John McCain's service to our country," Obama said on the Senate floor this morning. "He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this GI Bill. I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our...

THE PRESIDENT: It's been a pleasure of my presidency to get to know the leaders of Rolling Thunder. For our fellow citizens who don't know Rolling Thunder, Rolling Thunder is the moment in time here in Washington, on Memorial Day Weekend, when thousands of motorcyclers come to the nation's capital to pay tribute to those who have died in service, to those who sacrificed, and those who serve. And it's a magnificent sight. We just choppered in, Artie, and saw your brothers and sisters cranking up their machines and driving through the nation's capital -- many of them have got...

Now you can add your story and remembrance to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In collaboration with the archival search company Footnote, The Times has made each of the 58,000-plus names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial searchable, a place where you can add personal stories. A digital image of the wall — actually thousands of photos fused together — locates each veteran’s name where it appears on the memorial. From there, any visitor to The Times site can leave their stories and remembrances or upload photos of veterans. Start by clicking on the "Search the Wall" box, where you can select...

Rolling Thunder, Inc. 21st Anniversary Memorial Day Demonstration in Washington, D.C., May 23-25, 2008, To Include Families of Iraq War POWs/MIAs ROLLING THUNDER MISSION STATEMENT The major functions of Rolling Thunder®, Inc. are to publicize the POW/MIA issue, to educate the public of the fact that many American Prisoners of War were left behind after all past wars, to help correct the past, and to protect future veterans from being left behind should they become Prisoners of War/Missing in Action. Rolling Thunder is committed to helping American Veterans from ALL WARS. • Rolling Thunder, Inc. is a class 501(c)(4) non-profit...

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Philadelphia was defaced sometime late Friday night or Saturday, according to the maintenance supervisor. Someone destroyed wreaths and ripped out flags, the memorial's maintenance supervisor said. NBC 10 found the remains of one wreath lying on the ground and saw flowers ripped out and thrown on the ground. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24566579/#storyContinued

Run for the Wall returns More than 400 bikers rolled down Hobsonway last year, the first time Run for the Wall came through the town. This year a pair of helicopters plan to join in the parade to the Colorado River Fairgrounds. By Marty Bachman Over 400 motorcyclists will return to Blythe on May 14 as part of the 20th anniversary of the "Run for the Wall," paying tribute to veterans as they make their way to visit all the war memorials in Washington, D.C., including the Vietnam Wall Memorial. Veteran bikers from the Vietnam War, Somalia, the Gulf War,...

Like John McCain, Col. George E. "Bud" Day spent over 5 yrs in Vietnamese POW camps. Day and John McCain were cell-mates for about 2 and a half years. Day is a legendary military hero with more medals and ribbons than anyone since General Douglas MacArthur.

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.

WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain's Navy record boils down to a series of unadorned paragraphs that bestow upon him some of the nation's top military honors. The Navy recently released McCain's military record - most of it citations for medals during his Navy career - after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. McCain was awarded a Silver Star Medal for resisting "extreme mental and physical cruelties" inflicted upon him by his captors from late October to early December 1967, the early months of his captivity, according to the citation. The North Vietnamese, according to the Navy,...

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2008 – The names of four U.S. servicemembers were etched into the glossy black walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this week alongside more than 58,000 of their fallen comrades. Finishing the addition today was the name of Raymond C. Mason, a Marine lance corporal who died a year ago as a result of ailing health stemming from a bullet wound that paralyzed him in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive. In a ceremony at the wall here, Mason’s widow, Priscilla Mason, watched as an engraver inched a sandblaster over the Marine’s stenciled name with surgeonlike precision....

4/10/2008 - WESTHAMPTON BEACH, N.Y. (AFPN) -- A retired chief master sergeant was awarded the Air Force Cross 40 years after the mission which earned him the Air Force's second-highest honor April 5 here. Nearly 300 members of Chief Master Sgt. Dennis Richardson's former unit attended the ceremony for the flight engineer with the 106th Rescue Wing for 30 years as he was recognized for his actions during a rescue mission in Vietnam March 14, 1968. Twenty-one enlisted Airmen have been awarded the Air Force Cross since its inception. Since the end of the Vietnam War, only three Air Force...

MORE than 40 years since serving under the command of the US Air Force in Vietnam, members of the so-called Wallaby Squadron have finally been honoured at a ceremony in Canberra. A total of 128 USAF Air Medals were belatedly awarded to the Australian pilots and ground crew of the RAAF's 35 Squadron, in recognition of their efforts when they flew with the Americans during almost a decade of battle. They were the first RAAF operational unit sent to Vietnam in 1964, and the last to leave in 1972. Operating Caribou aircraft, the RAAF 35 Squadron, also dubbed Wallaby Airlines...

After suffering through name-calling in the early 1970s, and then the years of denial that followed, Roger Rahor finally is ready to own up to his Vietnam veteran status with pride. The Signal Mountain resident plans to march as a veteran for the first time on Saturday, which marks a first for Tennessee and the nation: the first official Vietnam Veterans Day. “Time does heal many wounds,” said Mr. Rahor, who has been in counseling for the past nine years and still fights post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a yearlong deployment to Vietnam with the U.S. Army in...

MISSION VIEJO — Ronnie Guyer summarized Saddleback College's new veterans' memorial when his speech at the college's campus Wednesday turned into song. "To fallen soldiers let us sing, where no rockets fly nor bullets wing. Our broken brothers let us bring to the mansions of the Lord," he said. The words come from the hymn "The Mansions of the Lord," written for the 2002 film "We Were Soldiers" and sung at the funeral of President Ronald Reagan. Guyer, who served in the Vietnam War, joined three fellow veterans at Saddleback College for a forum discussing the significance of the new...

One of the core charges that John Kerry’s media-aided campaign made in 2004 and since to delegitimize the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that its leader John O’Neill, who had opposed Kerry in 1971, was a creation of Richard Nixon’s White House. I was there, and know better. Until now, the central purported prop for the charge went unrebutted. Charles “Chuck” Colson has now spoken up. It’s time for reputable media, and even Kerry’s advocates if they have any integrity, to cease this charge. Like a dime-novel legend, based on little, this charge has been frequently repeated and embellished...

CAMP WRIGHT, Afghanistan — Shot down over Vietnam on his first tour of duty in 1972, 1st Sgt. James Spears is back in the U.S. Army — one of hundreds of retired soldiers whom the Pentagon has ordered to suit up and serve the nation once more. "If you cut me, I"d probably bleed Army green, but this is definitely my last deployment" said the 54-year-old veteran, who is better known to his fellow soldiers as "Grumpy." Sgt. Spears said he did not expect to end up in a war zone dodging bullets and rockets, and that such business should...

CAMPAIGN 2008 What These Eyes Have Seen He's endured the unendurable, and survived. Inside the mind and heart of John McCain.During the 2000 election, Republican smear artists trying to stop the presidential campaign of John McCain spread rumors that the former POW was "nuts" because he had been "in the cage too long"—in the Hanoi Hilton for five and a half years. The campaign decided to make public Captain (now Senator) McCain's medical records, which showed that he had an enlarged prostate and trouble lifting his arms (repeatedly broken in captivity), but had been judged perfectly sane by a series...

Vietnam Vet's Prosthetic Arm Stolen in the video section click "Man's Prosthetic Arm Stolen" click here for video link

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/ Ted Sampley, a Vietnam Veteran and former Green Beret, issued a CHALLENGE to John McCain "If you can show us that the information presented in our mailer is untruthful . . . we will Stand Down" This CHALLENGE was issued during an interview with INSIDE EDITION on January 17, 2008. John, family members of Vietnam POW/MIA(s) have been waiting for more then 14 years for you to have the courage to face them eye to eye in front of the American Public - Here is your opportunity for some "STRAIGHT TALK." Stop hiding behind your fabricated "War Hero" persona....

Jo Hanna Schaffer's dog is more than a best friend. The 67-year-old Vietnam veteran, a former Army medic, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and three years ago, she decided to get a service dog, a Chihuahua named Cody. Cody barks if someone is approaching from behind and cuddles with her when she is depressed. -snip- Schaffer is one of a growing number of veterans with PTSD who are turning to an alternative therapy: psychiatric service dogs. Like guide dogs for the blind, psychiatric service dogs aid people with mental illnesses, from anxiety disorder to bipolar disorder to PTSD. The...

I had the distinct pleasure and privilege this weekend to screen a true anomaly in the cinematic world: an unflinchingly patriotic movie, about the Vietnam War no less.Coming soon to DVD (and, quite possibly, a theatre near you), Jack Marino's Forgotten Heroes bucks the image of the Vietnam vet as the murderous and drug-addled scumbag portrayed far too often in films by axe-to-grinders like Oliver Stone and Brian DePalma.Forgotten Heroes could not hit the shelves and/or screen soon enough, either. Despite the abysmal failures of the recent anti-victory movies, Hollywood ...

The Story of Buu-Vy In 1962, I was sent to the Naval Air Training Command at Pensacola, Florida. I was soon assigned as a primary flight instructor at the outlying Saufley Field, and for three years trained student pilots in the Beech T-34B. I had many memorable experiences and flight students, including my long time friend, Dick Joiner. Perhaps the most memorable of all, however, was my 20 year old South Vietnamese student, Buu-Vy. One year before I met Buu-Vy, he spoke no English, had never operated anything more complicated than a bicycle, and perhaps had never seen an American....

Decades ago, they came home to a country that had lost faith in them and their mission. "We didn't lose the war in the jungles," Roy Burns said. "We lost it here on our streets." Now Vietnam veterans Burns and Bill Reynolds are making sure that the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have the same experience they did when they came back to the United States. Reynolds and Burns hosted a "Support Our Troops Rally" Saturday to proclaim their support for the soldiers overseas and the mission in the Middle East. "You can't have one without the other,"...

IOWA CITY, IOWA It's the time of year when the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life" is aired on cable channels at all hours. You know the story: How George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, arrives on a bridge in a fit of despair, ready to take his own life. How the angel Clarence steps in and gives him a glimpse of what Bedford Falls would be like if he had never existed. How in the end the town comes together to save George from financial ruin, and the angel Clarence gets his wings. Well, after the death of...

Church guard's courage under fire awes Vietnam vet By Kieran Nicholson The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 12/11/2007 12:57:27 AM MST Larry Bourbonnais, a combat-tested Vietnam veteran, said it was the bravest thing he's ever seen. Bourbonnais, who was among those shot by a gunman Sunday at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, watched as a security guard, later identified as Jeanne Assam, calmly returned fire and killed the shooter. "She just started walking toward the gunman, firing the whole way," said Bourbonnais, who was shot in the arm. "She was just yelling 'Surrender!' walking and shooting the whole time."...

We just started a cross-country tour called "Honoring our Heroes for the Holidays" that will take us to New York City at the World Trade Center site. We are collecting more than 100,000 cards of love and support that we did not show our veterans of more recent wars, which I will take to our soldiers in Iraq. Our first stop on Monday was in Santa Nella, Calif., at The Remembrance Memorial for California Korean War Veterans. The names of 2,495 California veterans are engraved there. Our people were overwhelmed with the service of these veterans who gave their lives...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — Throngs of veterans gathered on Sunday under a clear sky on the Mall to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a stark symbol of a war that bitterly divided the nation. In a poignant reminder of that tumultuous time, the veterans wept, prayed or reminisced at the stone memorial inscribed with the names of 58,256 Americans killed or missing in the Vietnam War.