Can John Kerry hold on to his lead? (Zumwalt:"virtually had to straight-jacket him ")

Taipai Times ^ | Feb 11, 2004,Page 9 | By W. Scott Thompson

[Jet Jaguar]

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[onyx]

I'm so sick of this guy and it's not yet mid February. Lots of swearing between now and election day. He is an undeniably dangerous man. Like Clinton, he lies without impunity, Wonder if the sycophantic press will cover for him also?

[dalebert]

Does anyone really believe Kerry ever set one foot in Nam.

[Carolinamom]

Dittos to all you said. Will someone tell me EXACTLY what Kerry did that justifies the "hero" part of his stint in Vietnam?

I know that he got minor shrapnel wounds, jumped onto a bank, ran behind his cover, and shot a wounded enemy, brought back the enemy's gun, and admitted to killing civilians, including an old man, a woman, and a child. Where is the heroics?

[radiohead]

Kerry sounds like a real psycho.

Boy, that's no lie. How did a guy in the Navy get so close to civilians? Is he shooting them from the boat? Jeez.

Oh my, this reminds me of something my late husband said. One day he just blurted out that he didn't know if he would go to heaven because of the stuff he had done in VietNam. He never shared the particulars, but he was a grunt and was in combat and described some of that. Obviously, when your life is at stake you do what you have to do, but he was haunted the rest of his life.

Kerry is on a boat somewhere and shooting civilians for sport??? God in heaven.

[Chu Gary]

"Unless we can find other verification of Zumwalt saying the same thing to somebody else, we probably shouldn't go around spreading this quote as gospel."

A full Admiral has a lot of aides reporting to him - he doesn't get his info directly, it comes thru the chain of command. There are plenty of people still walking around who should be able to add flesh to this story. The Dims better get the mafia busy on this or more will come out.

[Ann Archy]

His SON is dead....agent Orange.

[Ann Archy]

Maybe that accounts for his nightmares that the goofy wife talked about in the Washington Post interview..."DOWN....DOWN"!!

[claudiustg]

This could be a plant to divert attention and credibility from real issues in Kerry's background. It could be from the DNC itself for all I know.

[TASMANIANRED]

"But no senator has won the keys to the White House since John F. Kennedy."

Little correction. LBJ was a senator. He wasn't elected as a senator though but from the vice presidency.

[Intolerant in NJ]

... young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass, by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets...hmmm, if I believed all that psychology stuff I've read about I'd have to say that Kerry's speeches about the atrocities supposedly committed by troops in Vietnam were really projections of his own misdeeds, and his extensive anti-war activities in fact pathetic attempts to assuage his guilt over those misdeeds - he sounds pretty unstable to me.........

[capitan_refugio]

I don't know what type of craft Kerry commanded, but the "brown water" navy used modern-day monitors on the Mekong, which carried 50 cal machine guns, 20 mm and 40 mm cannons, and 81 mm mortars.

Zumwalt was at one time ( c. 1964) Commander, Naval Forces, Vietnam.

[pawdoggie]

I agree with those who urge caution in accepting the apocryphal Zumwalt story. However, if you read the Globe account it's not hard to come to the conclusion that Kerry was a shoot first and identify later kind of trigger-happy guy. Just because an area was declared a "free-fire zone" didn't mean you were obligated to hose down anyone in sight, or that the law of land warfare no longer applied. It was tough to apply any humanity in that war, but the "good guys" tried like hell to do that.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

From Joe Klein's interview of John Kerry,in The New Yorker,2002.

" Admiral Elmo Zumwalt later joked that he wasn't sure if he should give Kerry the Silver Star or court-martial him for his actions on February 28, 1969. Kerry had ignored standard operating procedure as his squadron ferried troops up the river that day."

[onyx]

Where are the heroics? I like Ambrose's comments:

In truth, he is a traitor. I am no more impressed by his being a veteran than I am by Lee Harvey Oswald, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Timothy McVeigh's veteran status...

14 posted on 02/11/2004 3:19:26 AM PST by ambrose ("John Kerry has blood of American soldiers on his hands" - Lt. Col. Oliver North)

[Mike Darancette]

Kerry had ignored standard operating procedure as his squadron ferried troops up the river that day."

If Kerry was ferrying troops at the time he beached his craft to kill that VC he definately was off mission. While beached his craft was a sitting duck for mortar and rocket fire.

[faithincowboys]

Yep, because why else would Vietnam haunt him on the national stage? Bob Kerrey was not on any of the top Brasses radar screens back then. It was Kerry that was the thorn in their side, with all his political ambitions.

[line drive to right]

Kerry better have enough delegates for the nomination by the time of the DemRat/Marxist convention, or else he won't get the nomination.......because, despite his media cheerleaders, by then his personal history will make him unelectable. Then, it will depend on how vulnerable President Bush seems. If he seems beatable, will the Rodham jerk, the traitor's "wife," step into the fray?

[rebel_yell2]

Kerry and the media have asked Bush to "prove" he served in Alabama. Shouldn't Kerry have to "prove" that he didn't "off" a bunch of civilians? In politics, it appears that you are guilty until proven innocent.

[MEG33]

Well,well,.I have been trying to figure out why the dems unleashed the AWOL accusations now,in February ,instead of October.

They hope "all this Viet Nam era" stuff(Kerry's ) will be put behind him and we all move on.Kerry has much to put behind him,it would seem.

I still fault him most for his Hanoi Jane harm to his comrades in arms.