Kerry is French toast !
Posted on 08/08/2004 12:04:09 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The last time the Vietnam War loomed so large in a presidential election, it was 1972 and U.S. soldiers were still fighting in Southeast Asia.
But the war has taken center stage again as both parties seek the support of Vietnam veterans - turning to them as the emerging elder statesmen among U.S. war veterans.
At a conference this past week, on the 40th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Vietnam Veterans of America urged its members to make their voices heard.
"This election is probably more important than any election for president since the Vietnam era," Navy veteran Ed Vick, recently retired chairman of advertising giant Young and Rubicam, told the roughly 550 veterans at the convention Wednesday. "We must vote."
For Vietnam veterans - many of whom once felt disconnected from mainstream politics and ostracized by other veteran groups - it’s surprising to be an important part of the 2004 presidential election.
"I had no idea I would be in the position I am now," said David Chung, a VVA member who said he returned from the war homeless. "A lot of people thought or hoped Vietnam would go away, but 30 years later it is at the center of things."
Many veterans see parallels between the current war in Iraq and the one they fought in. The enemy uses guerrilla tactics, casualties are mounting and public opinion is wavering.
Bill Chapman, a VVA member from Cocoa, Fla., remembers joining the Veterans of Foreign Wars when he returned from Vietnam and being told he didn’t fight in a real war.
"Back then, VFW, the American Legion really didn’t want anything to do with us," said Tom Meinhardt of Michigan. "Now they are begging us to join their outfits."
Democratic candidate John Kerry, a founding member of the VVA, is making his Vietnam experience a key part of his campaign, partly to highlight that President George W. Bush avoided serving in Vietnam. In response, conservative groups are bringing out veterans to question Kerry’s service.
That conflict sometimes evokes memories of the divisiveness that gripped the country during and after the Vietnam War, veterans said.
Many VVA members at the convention were hesitant to talk about the current political scene for fear of seeming to publicly endorse one candidate over another. Along with the group’s connection to Kerry, its members include officials of the Bush administration such as Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who also addressed delegates Wednesday.
Others, like Chung, hold a strong opinion that Kerry abandoned his comrades by returning home and opposing the war. The VVA said it never endorses a candidate.
Putting their war in the middle of an election battle threatens to fracture the group.
"It has caused some inner strife in the chapters," Chapman said. "You have die-hard Republicans, and you have Democrats, too, and it’s tearing some chapters apart like never before. After the election, we need to remember we will still be brothers."
The VVA is pressing the issue of Veterans Administration health care, hoping the political focus on their war and their members will translate into more money for what they say is an underfunded hospital system that denies benefits to 200,000 veterans because it runs out of money annually. It also wants to make sure the current crop of soldiers gets better government support.
My a$$ it is, J efin' Kerry is diverting attention away from present concerns, for he KNOWS that Dubya is taking care of present day issues, and to generate a political fight against Dubya would be political suicide. Thus, we have Vietnam and the '60's all over again.
Is it working? Has anyone turned their mindset away from the WOT?
I think not.
Hey makes a lot of sense to me!! I had friends who returned from VietNam who tried to go to the VFW. I was along, and I remember. No way, no admittance. This was in west-central Wisonsin at the time. Old time vets said they were not Veterans of a Foreign War. I'll never, ever forget it. They were fresh home and in uniform. No admittance.
Old timers didn't cater to them until years and years later. My parter still won't frequent a VFW to this day because of it. [His general homecoming was the worst of what say say about it. Won't get into it here on a public site, but it was pretty nasty.] That's why it's so important that current veterans receive a nice welcome home. So, so many guys never got that. It hurts them a lifetime.
The old guys NOW try in ernest to get them to become members, because they are dying off daily. Won't work with all VN vets though, i.e. those that got po'd enough back then.
JOHN KERRY'S MILITARY RECORDS ARE POSTED ON HIS KERRYEDWARDS WEBSITE, I REVIEWED A FEW OF THEM....I JOINED TO GET DEEPER INFO
I wrote that in large letter so everyone who had been screaming about his records will go review them....I did not take time to view each one but there is list. The ones opened looked official Navy, as I used to be a Yeoman, USNR.
I'll go back when I have more time.
Our Vietnam veterans are going to save this country again. At home they will tell us how to support a war until it has been won, and overseas they will train our troops to fight a similar enemy. Thank you all.
.
Even now...
American Soldiers...
Fighting for the...
Freedom of Others,
Those that train them...
In their Freedom Mission and...
Those Loved Ones who...
Wait for them to come home...
Or not...
Are...
........H-O-L-Y...!!!!
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer / Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
'MODERN DAY HEROES' -
Contributing Author
http://www.ModernDayHeroes.com/aloha
.
PS - to you Alamo-Girl.
Chief, they can kiss your ass.
Andy
There are NO MEDICAL records.
Our Vietnam veterans are going to save this country again. At home they will tell us how to support a war until it has been won, and overseas they will train our troops to fight a similar enemy. Thank you all.
----
I rather agree 'risk" that Veterans will save the day; save our county.
-----
Some sure will go over and fight again. I can't believe a very good friend of ous recently returned from Iraq. He was 53 when deployed.
He spent almost a year in Iraq. He is a Guardsman. And he's going back. Amost 55 years old now.
He sure can physically top most guys in their 20's. He's been in the Guards for 30+ years. He's held my life in his hands, no joking, aside. I'd trust him no end.
Now, think about it. That's me, and one friend I mentioned. Multiply that a thousand-fold!! Or a million! Or whatever!!!
Not worried.
Our good old USA is in quite capable hands!! VETERANS' hands!!!
WEll there are records on the events, and I don't have Navy medical records myself in my record. So he will have to sign for the Navy Medical Record people to release them, but I don't think they are sent to Navy Personnel Office of Record. You never specified you wanted Medical Records..but all the others are there. The write ups, the dates, event info....besides you couldn't read medical ones anyway, they are written by DRS with terrible handwriting, so good luck getting them.
WEll there are records on the events, and I don't have Navy medical records myself in my record. So he will have to sign for the Navy Medical Record people to release them, but I don't think they are sent to Navy Personnel Office of Record. You never specified you wanted Medical Records..but all the others are there. The write ups, the dates, event info....besides you couldn't read medical ones anyway, they are written by DRS with terrible handwriting, so good luck getting them.
Kerry betrayed and used the Vietnam Vets for his personal purposes in the 1970's, he's doing the same thing again.
All the Dims/Leftists who are now wrapping their arms around VN Vets and showering them with sloppy kisses (at least, those like Kerry), where were they when these vets first came home?
I'LL TELL YOU WHERE...THEY WERE SPITTING ON THEM, AFTER DOING EVERYTHING HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO ENSURE THAT THEY COULDN'T WIN THE WAR!!!!!!
And as for Mr. Heinz-Kerry, who now salutes, "reports for duty", and otherwise lauds his service?
YEP, AFTER HE RETURNED HOME TO HOBNOB WITH THE LIKES OF JANEY FON-DUE AND THE REST OF HER VILE COWARDLY ILK IN SLANDERING OTHERS WHO SERVED!!!
The Left treated VN Vets like egg-sucking dogs back then, and only AFTER those vets were finally treated like the heroes they were in the 80's, and America finally realized what a grave injustice was done to them and took them to their hearts at last, did the Left decide to go all kissy-kissy with those they had trashed before. It is patently phony now...their so-called "respect" for VN Vets is nothing more than a mask, a facade they have ginned up to cover their previous behavior. Mark my words, they do NOT regret the past...they would do it again in a heartbeat to current Terror War vets. The things they did to them then, they still believe in. They just know that, like everything else about their true motives and beliefs, that they must be kept concealed from the general population.
"You never specified you wanted Medical Records"
????
RELEASE ALL YOUR MILITARY RECORDS
INCLUDING YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS
THAT INCLUDE THE TREATMENT
FOR THE 3 PURPLE HEARTS.
Thanks for "getting it"
Thank You for serving our country now.
An excellent point. Some think Bush should let this go because Kerry trumps Bush with actual service in Vietnam vs. flightime in the Air Guard. They fail with the follow-through that Kerry *hit-canned his service and those he served with and never recanted his anti-war antics in his transformation to flag-waving wonder warrior. He can't have it both ways. The Swifties are the real heroes of this story beacuse the truth will out without the lame-stream media's help.
"....besides you couldn't read medical ones anyway, they are written by DRS with terrible handwriting, so good luck getting them."
Kerry said he had ALL his military records.
ALL would include his medical records.
If he had enough fore thought to film his exploits
He would have ALL his records also.
During the Vietnam war, a small group of paid (by the KGB) agitators and toadies on college campuses and in the media pushed the idea that protesting the war and slandering the Warriors who fought it was "fashionable". The Hollywood Left slavishly followed along in further making it "cool" to be a protestor or to avoid service. Obviously, even some vets, like Heinz-Kerry, got caught up in it. They damn near tore the country apart in the process, demolished a lot of what formerly made this country great, and seized control of an entire political party.
Twenty years later, it became "fashionable" to give the vets the respect and admiration that they always deserved. This came about because the AMERICAN PEOPLE made it so, not the "elites", who were first confused, and then marginalized by it. Reagan's two landslides were partial testimony to this.
The wolves learned, though. Now, they parrot the right words of praise, but they don't believe them any more now than they did then.
The hypocrisy would gag a maggot. The VFW's reaction to returning vets was only one symptom of the cancerous disease the Left tried to spread...they promoted the idea that VN Vets were somehow "less honorable" than their WWII counterparts, and (gasp!) might be ticking time bombs of PTSD waiting to go off.
Watch...mark my words, they'll try the same thing again with Terror War vets.
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