Posted on 01/29/2004 8:27:56 AM PST by Texas Jack
Click On The Picture
I also used to see newbies who were hot to get in combat and loved to find any excuse to fire away at anything they could see. It's all a big game to these types until they kill some innocent. I'd not be surprised if Kerry was one of the gungho John Wayne wannabee types. That is until he machined gunned some woman and her child.
When Kerry goes on and on about all the atrocities that occurred, and many did occur, he conveniently leaves out that several hundred US officers and enlisted men were court-martialed for atrocities. There were atrocities, but never in such numbers as commies like Kerry or Stone would like us to believe.
For the Viet Cong and to a lesser extent the NVA, atrocities were policy implemented regularly in an organized campaign of terror against the people of South Vietnam.
In fact, Kerry himself committed an atrocity. Maybe accidentally. But commit one he did. In usual liberal fashion he tries to make people he never met guilty of his own evil acts.
Perhaps he should take real responsibility for his atrocity and step down from the Senate and resign instead of maligning others. As is usual for liberals, he projects his own evil acts onto others who are utterly innocent of such acts. He harbors the delusional and paranoid suspicions that everyone else is as evil as he is.
He may be even more crazy than Howard Dean. Just not obviously so.
Even if Kerry was wrong in every particular, then, he's had a lifetime since to learn and it's what he says and does now that matters.
That said, I'm not one of his admirers.
Kerry uses his Vietnam experience as an immunization against any and all criticism. It does get tiresome and his fellow vets may really detest it.
By constantly bringing up Vietnam, Kerry appears (to me at least) to view everything through that lens. We have had multiple military actions and several successful wars since then. Why would he constantly use Vietnam as the measuring stick? That's like judging American values by slavery.
Could it be that some parts of him were left behind? Combat changes you forever.
As a gunboat veteran have you read the David Brinkley book?
If so, what do you think of it?
God Bless you for your service.
However this article I find quite on the mark.
Though gunboat service was hairy at times, what I (and John Kerry) went through was child's play compared to the horrors the ground pounders faced. Those guys really suffered.
Vietnam was over twenty nine years ago and there aren't all that many who care very much any more.
I beg to disagree. Vietnam was a watershed event for a generation. It affected tens of millions in the US (there are over 9 million Vietnam veterans excluding family members) and many millions more in Indochina. Vietnam also shaped our foreign policy (for better or worse), our military strategy, and our national psyche. Some call Iraq another Vietnam, which is an oft used pejorative description for every US military involvement since.
I could go on and on about the impact Vietnam has had and continues to have on our country. But the bottom line is that the current political luminaries, to a lesser extent the military leadership, and the media elite have been shaped and defined by Vietnam. Kerry, Bush, Dean, Cheney, Gore, Clinton, Powell, Rather, Brokaw, Jennings, etc. are part of the Vietnam generation. They are in charge now, which makes the Vietnam experience very relevant.
The problem is, they are who they are and they aren't going to go back and reexamine how they got to be that way, so what actually happened in Vietnam isn't a subject except for historians. 'Vietnam' is now a myth, or myths because there are so many versions of 'the truth', and everything that can be said about it (as well as a lot of things that can't) has already been said.
Also... if we assume the youngest vietnam veteran was a 17-year-old Marine guard at the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975, he is now 46 years old. For everyone younger than that, Vietnam is history and for an increasing number, ancient history.
As a Vietnam veteran, I agree that a bunch of guys debating the pros and cons of a war fought over 30 years ago does not add significantly to the Presidential debate. But, there are personal issues of character. Kerry views his wartime service as a resume enhancer and I am sure GWB is proud of his service. Despite the fact that Vietnam was a long time ago, it contiues to be invoked, e.g., the recent cover of Newsweek with Kerry and Bush in uniform, and the band of brothers accompanying Kerry on the campaign trail. With more than 35 million living veterans from all wars, military service does matter.
As the Vietnam veterans grow older and the war recedes in the rear view mirror of the country, Vietnam will become less and less an issue. But to reiterate, the Vietnam generation (those who served and those who didn't) is in charge today. They are our leaders and opinion makers. Terms such as quagmire, exit strategy, etc. populate our political dialogue. I would also add that Vietnam was a global event that spawned political movements throughout the world. Guys like Joschka Fischer (German Foreign Minister) cut their teeth on anti-US, anti-Vietnam demonstrations and are now in power around the globe.
Vietnam as ancient history. LOL. Lincoln said in his second annual message to Congress, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and the administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves...The fiery trial through which we pass will us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation." In many ways, the Civil War is still around. Look at the Confederate flag issue.
The Vietnam Memorial is by far the most visited attraction in Washington. The war will fade in our collective national memory, but it will not go gently into that good night.
Not hardly; I did 3 TDY tours in SEA and flew about 160 B52 missions, including Linebackers 1 & 2. Personal history aside, I still think that Vietnam is important only to a small and decreasing part of the electorate, and that even they are as divided in their opinions as the country was thirty years ago. In other words, the things you find appalling about Kerry may be the very things which cause someone else of our generation to vote for him.
To the limited degree that people care about Vietnam, their opinions of what happened cancel out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.