FREEREPUBLIC NET LAUNCHES WEB SITE ON “WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION”

Great Job! Thanks!

I ertainly disagree with your trashing the American military effort in Vietnam by suggesting that atrocities were US Military policy. If that makes me "ingnorant," I guess so but at least I am patriotically so.

I do not see despising the American military and its leadership and its polcies as conservative. That must make me eccentric in your book. I don't care for Tom Paine either (see your homepage). Patrick Henry is my idea of a founding ideologue.

I also do not think you really want to prolong your dispute with me but that is up to you. If the best you can do is to call supporters of American military policy and efforts in Vietnam and elsewhere "ingnorant" or post links to insults, I can take that for what it is worth. Just don't sully the name of conservatism by giving aid and comfort to enemies of America by trashing our military. Go work for Fondaboy if you love him and agree with him so much.

I can't immediately find the source for Fonda's little-known early trips to Hanoi, so we've pulled the reference until we can nail it down tonight. Thanks.

We do have the Stacewicz and Nicosia books, among others, and will be including material from those sources in the fullness of time...

A ping for Veterans.

Semper Fi,

TS

bump

I think you and I take different approaches. I am not terribly worried about getting tied up in knots worrying about our opponents when we should be far more concerned with crushing them as we crushed Kerry's predecessor McGovern, another "war hero." Let's wade into the SOB's and have THEM backing, filling and sidestepping the fury of our advance. Let us not allow them the peace and quiet and planning time that results from our trying to make perfect when plenty of good will do.

Take this political war to Kerry and blow his sorry backside off the face of the planet, along with his craven comrades. We conservatives are entirely too polite. As Mr. Dooley used to say: Politics ain't beanbag. Dubya can take the high road. Some of us will take the high road with him and some of us will take the other one and all of us will be right.

I have not posted to that new website.

Bumpity-Bumpity-Bookmarked!

Bookmarked! Thanks, Howlin.

"I can't immediately find the source for Fonda's little-known early trips to Hanoi, so we've pulled the reference until we can nail it down tonight. Thanks."

Maybe you are confusing her with Tom Hayden, her future husband (who she met at the WSI), who had gone to North Vietnam before that time.

I realize that it is a work in progress, but you should put in more specifics, such as Mark Lane's involvement, since his book, "Conversations With Americans" was found to be bogus and suspected to be the source for much of the atrocity stories.

You might also mention VVAW leader, Al Hubbard, who (along with Fonda herself) was one of those in charge of vetting the veterans and their testimony. Hubbard of course turned out to be a complete fraud who had lied about his job (he wasn't a pilot), his rank (he wasn't a captain), his combat wounds (he had none), and his service in Vietnam (he had never been there).

Also, you might try to make it more clear that the April 1971 demonstration was not really a part of the WSI but a separate operation called Dewey Canyon III (in mockery of the purported US incursion into Laos).

Maybe it would be a good idea to put up a thread and solicit information for the site, so that you can get the benefit of the research that has gone before around here.

Jane Fonda Smokes With Mark Lane on Airplane — 1970 in Cleveland, Ohio

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For...

..'We Were Soldiers Once an Young'.. 4-FREEDOM.

Visit our .."WE WERE SOLDIERS".. Forum:

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

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Perhaps. Then again, your own suggestions might be more helpful if you actually read the whole site.

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Among the persons assisting the VVAW in organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a book attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy Assassination and more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a book of interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22 December 1970 Lane's book had received a highly critical review in the "New York Times Book Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to show that some of the alleged "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had never even served in Vietnam while others had not been in the combat situations they described in horrid detail.

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Lawyer and activist Mark Lane was one of the organizers of Winter Soldier. In 1970, Lane had published a book called Conversations With Americans, in which Vietnam veterans told their stories of committing atrocities and witnessing endless war crimes committed by their fellow soldiers. Many of these tales were obviously absurd. As James Reston Jr. pointed out in a review of the book, Lane quoted one man's contention that a female Communist sympathizer was interrogated, tortured, and then raped by every soldier in his battalion. "Lane does not explain that in Vietnam an American battalion runs anywhere from one thousand to twelve hundred men," Reston said.

Lane's book was blasted by writer and war correspondent Neil Sheehan in The New York Times Book Review as a hack job. Sheehan repeatedly showed that many of Lane's so-called "eye witnesses" to war crimes had never served in Vietnam or had not served in the capacity they claimed.

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How many of the other participants in Dewey Canyon threw away "props"? How many were really Vietnam veterans? Well, let's take one example: Al Hubbard, the VVAW's executive secretary and one of the organizers of Winter Soldier. He wrote a poem that appeared at the beginning of The Winter Soldier Investigation, a book of testimonies from the hearings:

"This book is dedicated to you,

America
Now,
Before the napalm-scorched earth
consumes the blood of would-be-fathers
and
have-been-sons
of
daughters spread-eagled
and
mothers on the run.
Reflect.
See what you've become,
Amerika."

A scathing commentary by one of those who could no longer stomach the fight, right? Wrong. Hubbard first claimed he was a decorated Air Force captain who had caught shrapnel in his spine flying a transport plane into Da Nang in 1966. But after NBC received a tip that Hubbard was lying about his rank, a reporter confronted him. He confessed on the evening news and the Today Show that he actually served as a sergeant, not a pilot or captain, in Vietnam.

John Kerry defended Hubbard, citing the confession as proof of Hubbard's integrity. "Al owned up to the rank question," Kerry said. "He thought it was time to tell the truth, and he did it because he thought it would be best for the organization."

William Overend, a CBS reporter sympathetic to the antiwar movement, later pointed out that Hubbard only confessed when he was confronted. Then the Defense Department issued a news release. "Alfred H. Hubbard entered the Air Force in October 1952, reenlisted twice and was honorably discharged in October 1966, when his enlistment expired," the statement said. "At the time of his discharge he was an instructor flight engineer on C-123 aircraft with the 7th Air Transport Squadron, McChord Air Force Base, Tacoma, Washington. There is *no record of any service in Vietnam* [emphasis in the original], but since he was an air crew member he could have been in Vietnam for brief periods during cargo loading, unloading operations, or for crew rest purposes. His highest grade held was staff sergeant E-5."

The announcement that Hubbard had no record of service in Vietnam jolted Overend, who had been impressed by Hubbard's leadership qualities. He began looking into Hubbard's background independently. Hubbard claimed he had been severely wounded. Overend called the VA, which confirmed that Hubbard had a sizable medical record and had a service-connected disability rating of 60 percent. At the time, he was receiving disability compensation of $163 a month. But the VA refused to say how, where. or when Hubbard was injured. Overend checked Hubbard's medals and decorations: Hubbard had no Purple Heart or Vietnam Service Ribbon, which can rightfully be claimed by any member of an air crew serving in Vietnam, no matter how briefly.

Hubbard refused to discuss his record. Overend finally discovered that Hubbard had suffered a rib injury during a basketball game in 1956, and a back injury in 1961 during a soccer game. Hubbard had not been wounded, nor had he ever served, in Vietnam. But the story was too long for television, and when Overend tried to sell the piece to a liberal publication, no one would touch it. The truth might hurt the antiwar effort. Overend finally published the story in July 1971 in the National Review.

Damning stuff. Can't believe we missed it.

If the FRN "investigation" is nothing more than a re-hashing of the old Senate findings on the matter and veteran interviews to refute Kerry saying it was "Military policy" I have no problem with it.

Excellent. Now that we have your blessing, we'll proceed.

This is always good to see when I get on my computer. :)

And my letter on Kerry's trade and tax votes got printed in the local paper too.

"Excellent. Now that we have your blessing, we'll proceed."

I'll send you the notorized approval forms in triplicate.

Here is something I posted a couple of weeks ago that might help. It is a compilation of accounts about the Fonda/Lane/Kerry "Winter Soldiers" investigation from Patriot Paradox:

http://www.patriot-paradox.com/archives/000458.html

Winter Soldier Speech a Lie

Evangelical Outpost has a very nice take on the Winter Soldier speech given by Kerry in 1971. In it Kerry brought forth allegations that were very disturbing:

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.

From what I have read though these were at best lies. Take this article from the National Review:

In fact, the entire Winter Soldiers Investigation was a lie. It was inspired by Mark Lane's 1970 book entitled Conversations with Americans, which claimed to recount atrocity stories by Vietnam veterans. This book was panned by James Reston Jr. and Neil Sheehan, not exactly known as supporters of the Vietnam War. Sheehan in particular demonstrated that many of Lane's "eye witnesses" either had never served in Vietnam or had not done so in the capacity they claimed.

Nonetheless, Sen. Mark Hatfield inserted the transcript of the Winter Soldier testimonies into the Congressional Record and asked the Commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the war crimes allegedly committed by Marines. When the Naval Investigative Service attempted to interview the so-called witnesses, most refused to cooperate, even after assurances that they would not be questioned about atrocities they may have committed personally. Those that did cooperate never provided details of actual crimes to investigators. The NIS also discovered that some of the most grisly testimony was given by fake witnesses who had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans. Guenter Lewy tells the entire study in his book, America in Vietnam.

Another piece of info on Lane, and the Winter Soldier Investigation, this from Organizing Veterans Through War Crimes Documentation:

During the summer of 1970 we were approached by Al Hubbard who had become a full-time organizer with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Al proposed that CCI join forces with Jane Fonda, Mark Lane, Rev. Dick Fernandez of CALC, and Donald Duncan (the Green Beret who had testified at the Russell Tribunal in Denmark). The VVAW steadily gained membership and visibility as the citizens commissions took place. One boost was a free ad in Playboy that brought in over 12,000 responses and many new members.

In retrospect, we entered into a close collaboration with Fonda, Lane and the others without any real discussion of roles and responsibilities. Since we all agreed that our goal was a national hearing lasting several days, we assumed that other problems would take care of themselves.

It was a mistake to think that celebrities like Jane Fonda and Mark Lane who were used to operating as free agents would submit to the discipline of a steering committee. We should have placed them, instead, on an advisory panel where their visibility and political and money contacts would have been used without having to tangle with them on broader strategic and tactical questions.

At any rate, less than three months into planning for the Winter Soldier Investigation, most of the Vietnam veteran coordinators and Jeremy Rifkin had become adamant that WSI disassociate itself from Mark Lane. He had published a book, Conversations with Americans, which was denounced by a Vietnam expert in the Sunday Times Book Review as a shoddy piece of research.

Even in 1970, Mark Lane displayed the same penchant for sleazy dealings and associations that led him, years later, to the jungles of Guyana. There, he climbed a tree to escape the brainwashed minions of his friend and client, Rev. Jim Jones, who had just ordered hundreds of his followers to commit ritual suicide.

Al Hubbard, the VVAW's representative on Winter Soldier, had originally been one of the veterans most critical of Lane. However, once he learned that Fonda wasn't willing to jettison her pal Mark, he promptly reversed himself. Al was to have some additional credibility problems later on when it was disclosed that, despite his war stories, he'd never served in Vietnam.

But let's go through what Neil Sheehan found. He starts off like this:

This book is so irresponsible that it may help to provoke a responsible inquiry into the question of war crimes and atrocities in Vietnam. "Conversations with Americans" is a lesson in what happens when a society shuns the examination of a pressing, emotional issue and leaves the answers to a Mark Lane.

Mr. Lane is a New York lawyer who charged admission six years ago to his lectures in an East Side theater about a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy (a conspiracy Mr. Lane did not prove in his book attacking the Warren Commission report). He now purports to have assembled a collection of interviews with American soldiers and Marines who witnessed or participated in atrocities in Vietnam. The publisher, Simon & Schuster, advertised the book in the Nov. 22 issue of this review as "one of the most shocking, eye-opening books ever encountered in the annals of wartime reporting." The headline on the advertisement read: "A generation is being brutalized / Thirty-two Vietnam veterans give first-hand accounts of what is happening to our under 30's as they are trained in savagery, sadism, torture, terrorism, and murder."

So Lane seems to have a few wild ideas under his belt right off the bat. Then on to the first interview with Chuck Onan, who deserted the Marines in 1968 and fled to Sweden. Here is what Sheehan wrote:

Onan says he was in an elite Marine long-range patrol unit, that he went to parachute, frogman and jungle survival schools and received a special course in torture techniques. "How were you trained to torture women prisoners?" Mr. Lane asks.

"To strip them, spread them open and drive pointed sticks or bayonets into their vagina," Onan replies. "We were also told we could rape the girls all we wanted."

Onan says he deserted after he got orders to go to Vietnam and put his knowledge into practice. "I was pretty gung-ho until the last phase of the training. Then it all began to seem so sick. They just went too far."

Now here is some information that Mr. Lane did not include in his book. Marine Corps record say the only combat training Onan received was the normal boot camp given every Marine. He then, according to the records, attended Aviation Mechanical Fundamentals School at Memphis, Tenn., and next worked as a stock room clerk at the Marine air base at Beaufort, S.C., handing out spare parts for airplanes. He left Beaufort on Feb. 5, 1968, with orders to report to Camp Pendleton, Calif., for shipment to Vietnam after 30 days leave. He deserted. There is no indication in his records that he ever belonged to a long-range patrol unit and received parachute, frogman and jungle survival training. The Marine Corps contends it does not give courses in torture.

Even further is a shocking allegation that Sheehan refutes:

Later on in Mr. Lane's book you will meet Michael Schneider. He says that he spent a year and a half in Vietnam as an infantry squad leader and then platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division and the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. He tells how he shot three unarmed peasants, tortured a prisoner by hooking a hand crank field telephone up to the man's testicles on orders from a lieutenant, and watched other men torture prisoners in similar fashion on several occasions. His battalion commander, he says, ordered the men to kill prisoners. Schneider says he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart with oak-leaf cluster and the Silver Star, the Army's third highest combat decoration, for his Vietnam service. He subsequently deserted in Europe.

Schneider says that he was born in Germany as Dieter von Kronenberger, but his father changed the family name to Schneider when they immigrated to the United States in 1948.

"How has your family reacted to the fact that you deserted?" Mr. Lane asks.

"My father says I'm a traitor. He says you have an obligation to be loyal to any army you are in. He's a colonel in Vietnam. He recently replaced Col. George Patton as the commander of the Eleventh Armored Calvalry Regiment. He was a captain in World War II. In the Nazi Army," Schneider replies.

"Your father is a colonel in Vietnam?" Mr. Lane asks.

"Right. Full colonel. Commanding officer in Eleventh Cavalry Regiment now." Schneider goes on to tell you that his father once worked for the notorious Nazi armor commander, Gen. Heinz Guderian. The implication is fairly obvious: The United States army has Nazis in command of important units.

There is no Colonel Schneider or von Kronenberger, according to the army records. No such man ever commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. There is no trace in the records of any officer who resembles the description that Michael Schneider gives of his father.

Here is some more information from Army records that Mr. Lane also does not mention in his book. Michael Raymond Schneider left Europe last January, flew to New York and surrendered to the army at Kennedy Airport. He soon went A.W.O.L. and was arrested by police in Denver in July in a murder warrant from Oklahoma. The records last placed him in the maximum security ward of Eastern State Mental Hospital in Vinita, Okla., in October.

Mr. Lane did not bother to cross-check any of the stories his interviewers told him with Army or Marine Corps records. I asked him why in a telephone conversation.

"Because I believe the most unreliable source regarding the verification of atrocities is the Defense Department," he said.

But what about simple and obvious facts like those in the cases of Onan and Schneider which might throw light on the credibility of his witnesses? I asked.

"It's not relevant," he said.

and neither is Mark Lane's Conversations with Americans.

As you can see from this info Kerry's whole speech was supported by unreliable witnesses from an unreliable author. Therefore Kerry's speech is not relevant.

John Kerry Gained Fame On The Shoulders Of Frauds (Bogus Vietnam Veterans)

Great job on the website and congrats on the domain name snag. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. We need to have information readily with a truthful look at the Winter Soldier investigation. The WS investigation is applauded on many websites as the ultimate truth unvieled when in truth the ultimate smear campaign by large collection of wannabes.

That's good stuff. A lot of it is already on the site, though, and we're not really looking to go into Nicosia-like detail on the Lane / Fonda / VVAW wars.

As you can see from this info Kerry's whole speech was supported by unreliable witnesses from an unreliable author. Therefore Kerry's speech is not relevant.

Uh, Kerry accused the U.S. military of something approximating genocide based on a sham investigation, and now he wants to be President.

I think we have different definitions of "relevant."