Vietnam replays

The Washington Times ^ | 03/13/2003 | Tom Bray

[Interesting Times]

John Forbes Kerry seldom misses an opportunity to bring up the subject of his Vietnam War experiences.

"It is hard still to explain the clashing feelings," Mr. Kerry wrote in the New York Times the other day. "There was [sic] the deep and enduring bonds forged among crewmates, brothers in arms from all walks of life fighting each day to keep faith with one another on a tiny boat on the rivers of the Mekong Delta. And there was the anger I felt toward body-counting, face-saving leaders sitting safely in Washington sending to the killing fields troops who were often poor, black or brown."

[Interesting Times]

A good article, albeit with some minor errors. Kerry isn't in the "upside-down flag" photo on the cover of "The New Soldier." Kerry's testimony before Congress was 2 1/2 months after Winter Soldier, not "several days." Bray also cites "University of Virginia scholar William F. Crandell" on the origins of the Winter Soldier Investigation, but fails to mention that Crandell gave the opening statement at WSI.

Particularly interesting are the quotes from the unnamed wife of a POW who crashed the meeting to Kerry.

For much more on how Kerry, Fonda, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War slandered a generation of American troops, see the Free Republic Network's WinterSoldier.com

[Interesting Times]

Ping.

[csmusaret]

President Bush is fighting a war on terror while Kerry is still fighting Vietnam.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Gee.

And all of this "personal experience" testimony in front of Congress from a junior officer with only 90 days experience "in-country."

[billorites]

Oooh!
I love a military man!

[Lady Jag]

And all of this "personal experience" testimony in front of Congress from a junior officer with only 90 days experience "in-country."

He was in a hurry.

[Interesting Times]

President Bush is fighting a war on terror while Kerry is still fighting Vietnam.

The two have some key points in common -- not as military ventures, but on the home front. Kerry and his buds managed to sell their "war crimes" lies to enough Americans to help North Vietnam win the war. Today's leftists are steadily beating the drums to the same effect.

Exposing their lies of 30 years ago can help innoculate us against succumbing to the same sort of agitprop virus again...

[Wally_Kalbacken]

brothers in arms

One thing's for sure - the Kerry Campaign has focus group tested the terms "brothers in arms" and "band of brothers" and they are beating them to death by repetition.

[Interesting Times]

And all of this "personal experience" testimony in front of Congress from a junior officer with only 90 days experience "in-country."

The antiwar Senators who invited Kerry to speak were so happy to have him that they even helped finance the VVAW's Washington demonstration -- see my article The Rest of the Kerry Transcript...

[Interesting Times]

One thing's for sure - the Kerry Campaign has focus group tested the terms "brothers in arms" and "band of brothers" and they are beating them to death by repetition.

Perhaps the phrase "Marxist cadre" didn't go over well...

[GailA]

troops who were often poor, black or brown."

We need the demographics of troop make up in Vietnam.

[Interesting Times]

We need the demographics of troop make up in Vietnam.

"During the ten-year perios of the war, 7,257 African-Americans died in Vietnam, or 12.5 percent of the KIAs, slightly under their proportion in the population of draft-aged males. (Eight-six percent of those killed were Caucasian; 1.5 percent were of other races.) An examination of the casualty record indicates that the highest rate for black servicemen was 16 percent in 1965, and almost all of those killed were volunteers in elite units, not reluctant draftees involuntarily assigned to combat units. Black casualty rates dipped under their proportion in the population in most other years. In 1969, the war's peak, black deaths accounted for 11.4 percent of the total."

-- Stolen Valor, B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, pp. 454

[SAMWolf]

Statistics about the Vietnam War

Kerry if so full of it his eyes are brown.

Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers.

Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better. [McCaffrey]

[SAMWolf]

• Sixty-one (61) percent of the men who were killed in the Vietnam War were twenty-one (21) years of age or younger.

• The Vietnam War lasted sixteen (16) years (1959 to 1975).

• The state of West Virginia had the highest death rate, based on a per capita population, with eighty-one (81) percent. The national average was fifty-eight point nine (58.9) percent for every 100,000 males.

• Only twenty-five (25) percent of the total United States forces serving in Vietnam were draftees as compared to sixty-six (66) percent during World War II.

• Approximately 2,031 people were missing in action during the Vietnam War. Seven hundred sixty-six (766) were POWs and one hundred fourteen (114) died in captivity.

• The educational level of the draftees during the Vietnam War brakes down as seventy-nine (79) percent had high school or higher educations. Seventy-six (76) percent of these were from lower middle/working class families.

• The average age of the soldiers serving during the Vietnam War was nineteen (19). The average age of the soldiers serving during World War II was twenty-six (26).

• Approximately ninety-seven (97) percent of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.

• Approximately sixty-six (66) percent of Vietnam Veterans have said that they were proud of the time in service and what they did during the Vietnam War.

• Approximately eight-seven (87) percent of the general public now hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.

• Vietnam Veterans make up nine point seven (9.7) percent of their generation.

• 9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (5 August 1964 through 7 May 1975.

• 8,744,000 personnel were on active duty during the war (5 August 1964 through 28 March 1973).

• 3,403,100 (including and additional 514,000 offshore) served in the Southeast Asia Theater which include Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China Sea waters.

• 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (1 January 1965 to 28 March 1973).

• Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.

• Of the 2.6 million personnel who served within the borders of South Vietnam, 40% to 60% either fought in combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.

• 7,484 women served in Vietnam. 6,250 (approximately 83.5% were nurses).

• Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,482 (30 April 1969).

• There were 47,359 hostile deaths.

• There were 10,797 non-hostile deaths.

• Total of 58,156 (which includes men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez casualties). Twenty-seven (27) additional men have died of wounds sustained in the Vietnam War which brings the death total to 58,183.

• 8 nurses died in Vietnam - one was Killed In Action.

• 17,539 of the men killed in Vietnam were married.

• 303,704 personnel were wounded - 153,329 were hospitalized and 150,375 required no hospital care.

• 88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian.

• 10.6% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Black.

• 1% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were of other races.

• 86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics).

• 12.5% of the men who died in Vietnam were Black.

• 1.2% of the men who died in Vietnam were of other races.

• 170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam. Of that total, 3,070 (5.2% of the total) died there.

• 34% of the Blacks who enlisted, volunteered for combat duty.

Source of the above information, Vietnam Veterans of America, Speakers Bureau Handbook provided by the PublicAffairsCommittee. Internet source for the above statistics: http://www.njscvva.org/vietnam_war_stats.htm

[Spotsy]

Kerry's focus group test of "Mr. Nixon's War" didn't turn out the way he hoped.

Apparently the NEA hasn't dumbed down Americans sufficiently to not know better.

[GailA]

Thanks Sam, kinda thought hanoi john was telling another of his whoppers.

[SAMWolf]

You're welcome GailA. It'd be a shorter list if you tried to tell what he says that isn't a lie or distortion.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

NEVER FORGET


BUSH has announced that he wants to see the "PASSION of the Christ"

KERRY has announced that he doesn't...

...so that we won't



JOHH KERRY called American Soldiers fighting against Terrorists on behalf of Freedom for Vietnam...

...TERRORISTS

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1320



MEL GIBSON was inspired to finally make his "PASSION of the Christ" while filming the real story of love and scrafice of American Soldiers fighting against Terrorists on behalf of Freedom for Vietnam titled...

.."WE WERE SOLDIERS"

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39081


I wonder WHO got it right..?



Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer / Vet-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.lzxray.com

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
(IA DRANG-1965 Photos)


NEVER FORG

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army
08 Jun 56 - 1st American advisor was killed
5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina"



From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,
and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.