Posted on 02/18/2004 4:21:18 PM PST by perfect stranger
He and his character are an exact match in intelligence.
Yep, Ann doing what Ann does best. What's important about her second column is it is now part of the record and left a number of faces egg-stained.
There's little question she taunted them into a fight, and then beat them up. I just want to make sure WE don't walk away with any memes or canards on the other end of the spectrum and find ourselves later the ones looking for a towel.
TO CLELAND: If the heat of the kitchen is melting the tires on your wheel chair.. abandon the wheel chair and crawl your fat ass out of there you still have one arm.. or expect to get stepped on.. its you're decision.. we're busy over here..
TRAGEDY TRANSFORMED WHEN A GRENADE SHATTERED HIS LIMBS IN VIETNAM, MAX CLELAND COULD HAVE GIVEN UP. INSTEAD, HE CAME BACK FIGHTING -- ALL THE WAY TO THE US SENATE.
Jill Zuckman, Globe Staff August 3, 1997 Page: 12 Section: Sunday Magazine
Dawn came to Khe Sanh in a blush of orange and pink. After five days and nights, the sounds of war had given way to quiet, save for the grunts and coughs of soldiers as they stood, stretched, and took in the morning. Captain Joseph Maxwell Cleland emerged from the bombed-out crater where he had faced his first real battle of the Vietnam War. He felt the way some people do after they have jumped out of an airplane -- the fear had finally subsided, and now a joyous rush of adrenaline was coursing through his body. After nine months of duty nowhere near the fighting, battling insects rather than the enemy, he could call himself a soldier.
Cleland, a platoon leader with the 1st Air Cavalry's Signal Corps, had volunteered for the action after North Vietnamese troops threatened to overrun a tiny American post during the Tet offensive of 1968. Those involved in the rescue of the post faced a barrage of 100,000 tons of bombs and 158,000 large-caliber shells, which rained down amid the screams and cries of the wounded. More than 500 American men lost their lives, and 1,600 were wounded. Among the North Vietnamese, about 15,000 died. As Cleland and his communications team worked in the sulfurous-smelling crater to maintain radio contact with the troops, men were dying all around Finally, the battle at Khe Sanh was over. Cleland, 25 years old, and two members of his team were now ordered to set up a radio relay station at the division assembly area, 15 miles away. The three gathered antennas, radios, and a generator and made the 15-minute helicopter trip east. After unloading the equipment, Cleland climbed back into the helicopter for the ride back. But at the last minute, he decided to stay and have a beer with some friends. As the helicopter was lifting off, he shouted to the pilot that he was staying behind and jumped several feet to the ground.
Cleland hunched over to avoid the whirring blades and ran. Turning to face the helicopter, he caught sight of a grenade on the ground where the chopper had perched. It must be mine, he thought, moving toward it. He reached for it with his right arm just as it exploded, slamming him back and irreparably altering his plans for a bright, shining future.
****snip*****
The tragic events there brought him some glory, marred though it was. After the explosion, the Army gave Cleland the Soldier's Medal, for shielding his men from the grenade blast (no one was nearby, he says), and the Silver Star, for coming to the aid of wounded troops the night of the Khe Sanh rocket attack (something he says his men did, but he did not do).
*****snip******
And yet, Cleland is not a classic hero. He didn't save anyone's life, as Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, who lost a leg, did. And he didn't suffer beatings and torture as a prisoner of war, as Senator John McCain, of Arizona, did. What happened to him was an accident -- something Cleland freely acknowledges.
During one conversation, he casually refers to himself as a hero, albeit an accidental one. "President Kennedy was once asked, `How did you become a hero?' " Cleland recalls. " `They sank my boat,' Kennedy said. How did I become a war hero? Simple. The grenade went off."
The True Story of Max Cleland's Vietnam Injuries
Thank you Chris. I did not have the links to this, but Max called me about it in case I needed to tell the real truth should someone want to know. This Ann Coulter has written real slime. Only in America. Our service men and women fight and die to defend your right to a free press. The press needs to be aware of their responsibility to use this democratic tool in a responsibility way.
------------------------------
The 2nd of the 12th Cavalry was engaged in a combat operation at the time of this incident. Max Cleland was with the Battalion Forward Command Post in heavy combat involving the attack of the 1st Cavalry Division up the valley to relieve the Marines who were besieged and surrounded at the Khe Shan Firebase. The whole surrounding area was an active combat zone (some might call the entire country of Vietnam a combat zone). (Is Iraq a combat zone?) Max, the Battalion Signal Officer, was engaged in a combat mission I personally ordered to increase the effectiveness of communications between the battalion combat forward and rear support elements: e.g. Erect a radio relay antenna on a mountain top. By the way, at one point the battalion rear elements came under enemy artillery fire so everyone was in harms way.
As they were getting off the helicopter, Max saw the grenade on the ground and he instinctively went for it. Soldiers in combat don't leave grenades lying around on the ground. Later, in the hospital, he said he thought it was his own but I doubt the concept of "ownership" went through his mind in the split seconds involved in reaching for the grenade. Nearly two decades later another soldier came forward and admitted it was actually his grenade. Does ownership of the grenade really matter? It does not.
Maury Cralle'
Battalion Executive Officer
2d/12th Cavalry Battalion
1st Air Cavalry Division
During the assault on Khe Shan
-----------------------------
Love Dad
What is this reporterette talking about -- our guys got hit with 100,000 tons of bombs? Delivered how? That would be about three times the explosive power of BOTH the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs put together. Max Cleland was pretty lucky to fly out to have a beer with his buddies.
>> "He told the pilot he was going to stay awhile. Maybe have a few beers with friends. ..."
Then we have this statement from Maury Cralle, Cleland's commanding officer:
>> "Max, the Battalion Signal Officer, was engaged in a combat mission I personally ordered..."
So, his commander "ordered" Cleland to do this "combat mission," but Max, on his own, decides to stick around in a rear area and have a few beers with friends. Sounds to me as if he went AWOL.
What do you make of it?
I'll vote for "idiot." How many times do you read an account of heavy combat that starts with the colors of dawn and talks about men grunting and coughing?
Then there's the problem that the North Vietnamese lost 15,000 to the 500 we lost. Some might consider that a good showing, especially since our guys were getting bombed into the stone age by the Confederate Air Force and shelled by thousands of heavy artillery pieces supporting a massive infantry attack. Anyway, after five days of it we look at the orange and pink dawn, grunt and decide to go have a beer with buddies.
War is heck.
Ann Coulter is right on. My buddy, a retired Marine Gunny who served three tours in Nam, got a real wound from enemy fire (shot in the leg in a rice paddy) not only confirms that Clelland blew himself up, but he thinks it was with his own grenade inspite of articles blaming another Marine for dropping his grenade. In any case, it was not hostile fire that disabled Clelland.
bump
I'm waiting to read the column where she takes down Murtha like this.
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