Posted on 01/25/2004 9:00:01 AM PST by veronica
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations
April 23, 1971
I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out....
In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.
We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country - the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.
An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.
We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
But it isn't lunacy to say "I raped, I tortured and the government hid the fact. How can you believe what they say now about another war?"
Mind you, the idea that the government's misbehaving in the present situation may well be wrong; but it isn't lunacy.
What should have been asked by the then (as opposed to the now) gutless members of the U.S. Senate: "Mr. Kerry, weren't you and officer in the U.S. Navy? Did you have personal knowledge of war crimes being committed? Did you report those war crimes as your training as an officer taught you was your duty to do? If not, why did you become an accessory-after-the-fact to the war crimes you apparently witnessed?"
What really bothers me is that Kerry has tried to make it sound as if war crimes of the sort he describes were the norm for U.S. forces in Vietnam. In fact, he has very little first-hand knowledge what happened outside the Swift Boat squadron to which he was assigned. My conclusion is that if Kerry has knowledge of any war crimes, his knowledge is limited to war crimes committed by members of his squadron and the forces they supported.
A few years ago one of the members of Kerry's crew, the gunner, stated he had wounded a Viet Cong who had aimed a rocket at Kerry's Swift Boat. When Kerry beached the boat in the midst of the group of Viet Cong, that wounded soldier fled behind a "hooch". Kerry pursued him and killed him. If that individual's story is accurate, Kerry committed the war crime of murder. So perhaps Kerry's testimony before Congress was to make him feel more comfortable about his own criminal activities.
By the way, officers in our armed forces can be recalled to active duty at any time during their lives. That normally happens only in a few cases: (1) the need for a senior commander such as Douglas MacArthur to return to command a major operation, (2) the need for an officer with special skills to be returned to active duty such as Admiral Grace Hopper, and (3) the need to court martial an officer for serious felonies he committed.
Still and all, our soldiers' behavior is far superior to that of the enemies we face (and some of our allies) --- so the "natives" are truly glad to see us....
The vast majority of these were phonies: men who never served. A few were, contrary to Kerry's statement, dishonorably discharged deserters, like Chuck Onan. Only 24 soldiers deserted "to avoid combat with the enemy" in the entire Vietnam War (Stolen Valor, p. 63). At least two of them showed up in the Winter Soldier Investigation (Onan and Michael Schneider). Some of these guys were exposed at the time by war correspondent (and antiwar activist!) Neil Sheehan, writing in the antiwar, pro-VVAW New York Times.
Apart from Ketchup Man himself, none of the authentic Winter Soldier was highly decorated.
They weren't all deserters and nutcases. Some were actors recruited by Kerry and other VVAW leaders to play the parts of disgruntled veterans, in an early example of what we now call, "identity theft." This is documents in a Naval Investigative Service report which, ironically, is not public today to preserve the "privacy" of the phonies who postured before cameras, using others' names.
These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
Bullshit. Over ten years, 95 soldiers and 27 Marines were convicted of homicide for murdering Vietnamese noncombatants -- this doesn't really sound like they met with command approval.
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
It's a neat trick to relive someone else's experiences. It's actually very easy "to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit": a bunch of leftists and Communist sympathizers put on a sophisticated instance of "street theater." That's all.
They told stories that at times they had personally ...
Since they weren't personally there, they couldn't personally have done this junk.
...ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it,
Well, of course JFK Lite didn't think that the "reds" threaten the country. He was one of them, after all.
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever
This line is right out of period Communist propaganda.
We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.
Classic moral equivalence. But, if the equivalence was true, then the net balance of postwar refugees would be zero -- as many would flee the capitalist as the communist terror. But, alas, history records that the flow of refugees, a handy barometer of the good or ill of nations, was all one way.
We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. This implication that the American leaders is scurrilous and false. He also has to advance the myth that blacks suffered disproportionately -- that's pervasive in far-left Vietnam victimology. I'm sure we'll find it before we're done fisking this pack of lies.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
A bit incoherent here, but I will explain it to him what we were trying to Vietnamize was not the Vietnamese, but the combat operations of the war. Which was actually successful as long as the US-style army we built had US-style logistics and airpower.
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
This paragraph, like the preceding one, shows the labours of Kennedy family retainers, including a former RFK speechwriter, on Kerry's behalf. ....
I wonder what the deletion is that these ellipses signify. Want to bet it's something that Kerry has suppressed, in the same way that his shame and fear of exposure have caused him to suppress his VVAW book, The New Soldier?
... this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything ... - the question of racism which is rampant in the military
I told you that was coming. Of course, as a naval officer, Kerry had lots of exposure to black sailors. They served him food, polished his shoes, and ironed his uniforms. Just like it was growing up. Or maybe he, like Ma Dean, "didn't even treat the servants like the servants."
.... the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions
Ah, actually, you illiterate putz, we took umbrage at enemy violations of the Conventions -- which your NVA pals never tired of pointing out to their prisoners, in torture sessions, that their nation never signed.
... we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions
This is an outright lie. But don't take my word for it. Professor (emeritus) R. J. Rummell of the University of Hawaii has done extensive research into the problem of state killings of civilians; his research is available to all here. You tell me (and JFK Lite) what Rummell says about Kerry's beloved Communist regimes (and no, Rummell doesn't whitewash American crimes -- where we killed civilians, he calls us on it).
in the use of free fire zones
This was the practice of clearing areas of civilians and then assuming anything that moved there to be enemy. This is arguable either way.
harassment interdiction fire
This is random artillery fire into enemy-held areas; it's basically just make-work for bored artillery units, and has not much military utility. It is not, however targeted against or a threat to innocents.
search and destroy missions
This ominous-sounding term had been changed to "cordon and search" years before Kerry went to Vietnam -- he was probably still wearing the kind of sailor suit his nanny (you knew he had a nanny right? I mean, you don't think his mother loved him, do you?) buttoned him into. Anyway, what you "searched" for was enemy soldiers and units, and the "destroy" came in if they did not surrender.
... the bombings...
Dirty secret of war: bombs cost money, and you only get so many. So there is a built-in incentive to drop them on the enemy. In fact, most of the bombs that were dropped in Southeast Asia were either dropped on well-documented troop bases
...the torture of prisoners...
I won't deny that the ARVNs tortured some of their prisoners. However, the NVA tortured all (except Kerry's pals, the collaborators) and executed quite a number.
...all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.
Now that's a pretty breathtaking logical fallacy. Take some stuff our guys were doing that was policy (and legal), some stuff that was harmless, some stuff the ARVNs did (after all, we have to take responsibility for our little yellow brothers who have no free will), and some stuff like My Lai that was done by criminals who were tried for it, and lump it all together.
An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz
I think that this copy of the speech has been edited to remove some of the more extreme New Left stuff that didn't age very well, but JFK Lite's guardian angel missed this one. The "Indian Nation of Alcatraz" was a takeover of the abandoned prison by the armed, terrorist wing of the American Indian Movement, which were doctrinally violent and Communist, and close Kerry allies of the period. These are the same guys who murdered FBI agents and tribal policemen. Ultimately the news creeps got tired of the prison occupation and it petered out... only the truly whacky thought of those people as "freedom fighters," which puts Kerry firmly in the whacky column.
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service
For a guy that wanted to forget about Vietnam, Kerry sure brings it up a lot. He might have been better off leaving it wiped away: his service was honorable, but what he did at VVAW meets the dictionary definition (and the Constitutional one) of treason.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Tell that to the boat people. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands imprisoned in reeducation camps.
Tell that to the 2,000,000 dead Cambodians. Ooops! You can't. They're dead.
That's the Freedom of Kerry: No freedom can be lost to the left / communists, even if they kill you.
Ah, I knew that was in there somewhere. Missed it first time. This is completely untrue. Stolen Valor has a whole chapter on it, beginning on page 452. Let me nick some statistics from Burkett and Whitley:
The people who suffer the worst are probably the kids who get fed this victim drivel in school. Do you think the schools tell 'em about Fred Cherry? Don't you think they should?
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Looking for a source that Onan and Schneider testified at the WSI. I find it hard to believe that two deserters would risk a public appearance in Detroit.
Sheehan debunked Mark Lane's book "Conversations with American's, not the WSI. Please correct if I have that wrong.
Or to put it more uncharitably: "uh huh, right, sure". If we can't find this NIS document, then we shouldn't cite it.
The NIS investigation appears to have only looked into Marines. See Stolen Valor p. 133, bottom third. Apparently Sen. Mark Hatfield asked the Commandant of the Marine Corps to look into the Marine "atrocities" Kerry's phonies claimed. The VVAW leadership - that would be Kerry -- ordered the rank and file not to cooperate. SV in turn cites Gunter Lewy's America in Vietnam for the NIS story. Supposedly it's on p. 317 of that book. A direct quote from Lewy (SV p. 134, top): "But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in his life."
And further down SV p. 134, another Lewy quote: "The VVAW's use of fake witnesses...."
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I don't have it handy, but I've read a couple of times that Lewy read the NIS investigation but now can't locate it. I got the idea of a clerical error, and the Navy wants to find it but can't. You've heard different - a privacy dodge.
As far as I know from just clicking on the Web, the witnesses in the WSI itself stand untouched.
Doesn't seem likely, but I don't know how to rebut those that say "prove it".
No, it is not. I don't have a link to point you to, but the source was multiple veterans of Project Delta, aka Detachment B-52, 5th Special Forces Group. In fact, you will have a hard time finding anyone who remembers him at all. If you ask enough you will find
One think you can do is look in B-52's section of Steve Sherman's "Works in Progress." Start at The Main Page and go to Works In Progress... then thrash around a bit. You will find the Delta rosters but he is not there. Like I said, my sources said he did serve there briefly but was injured and went to Japan for treatment and never came back. Injury in a helicopter crash for mechanical reasons, during pre-combat training, and he saw zero combat. B-52 was assigned to "E Company Special Projects" and did mostly in country denied-area recon. Sorry to hit you with so much "trust me," but you should be able to establish everything I did.
After WSI Pugsley became a small-time actor and screenwriter, and also wound up going back in the Guard Special Forces. He told them combat stories (!) but nothing about his stint as a hippie protester. He is now retired. He may have worn uniform appurtenances to which he is not entitled -- waiting for St Louis on that one. We could probably destroy his reputation but he already works in Hollywood -- what reputation?
In fact, if you really, really want to investigate WSI and VVAW, you would be well advised to FOIA the record of each of the characters that "testified." Then track down the individuals.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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