Posted on 08/20/2004 8:59:58 PM PDT by RWR8189
The one exception that I have met was my high-school driver's ed teacher in 1977. He was infantry at Metz and the Seigfried Line- had to go into German tunnel complexes and burn them alive them with flamethrowers- up close and personal. He was old and sick, and he was trying to deal with all of this before his life was over. His 'lose it' point was in a class that I was in- he started crying.
Damn. I was a ferocious reader, and a huge student of history- with WW2 as a specialty. I wanted to go take him out in the hall and try to talk him down- as best a sixteen year old kid could. Poor guy.
Hope he got it to where he could deal with it. I had to move away shortly after that- and I didn't see him again before he passed away.
Correct. The Freepers, talk show hosts, bloggers, etc. can focus on his military record and Viet Nam. The time will come shortly when the GOP people will jump into the fray focusing on Kerry's voting record while in the Senate. Kerry will be playing defense from now until November.
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JOHN KERRY = Enemy of Vietnam Vets
http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1320
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The Swift Boat Vets are not a part of the GOP. There may be some who happen to be Republicans, but they are not affiliated with the party itelf.
Actually, this has taken quite a bit of time for a response to all of F'n's Vietnam this and Vietnam that. He has hardly spoken of anything else since he starting taking the lead in the Primaries. Go back and look at some of those early threads from, say, the Dim debates, or F'n's own political ads. His very being is infused with his Vietnam war hero fantasies.
I am GLAD that Vietnam veterans are finally getting their say! They were spit upon and considered "lesser veterans" for all these years. One of my cousins fought in Vietnam and he believed he was worthless when he returned to the States and was treated so horribly. Talk about having a memory "seared" into you. His life spiraled downward until he died several years ago and much of that descent was due to getting imprinted with ignobility as a young soldier by the likes of F'n Kerry and his pals.
One of my co-workers died last month. I worked with him for at least ten years. I didn't know he was a Vietnam veteran until his funeral when his daughter was presented with his flag.
Real heros don't have to talk about it, I guess.
Want to hear something weird? In 1969 or so, as a small boy, I asked my father if there'd be some kind of a parade or something for the returning Vietnam people. (Small boys really look forward to military-victory themed parades, especially when they read nothing but history books.)
He said, "No, I don't think that it is that kind of a war."
I am here in Iraq so I may not get the latest news. I watched Fox news shown on AFN yesterday and they said the latest Bush-Cheney commercial focused on Kerry missing 76% of the intelligence committee hearings since he has been on the committee. The piece featured the Intelligence committee chairman Sen. Roberts saying he would release the attendance records of Kerry and Edwards if they called him and asked him to. That does not sound like the Republicans are focusing on Viet Nam to me.
This is an excellent point. When people first started questioning Kerry's service, I initially thought "well, we know he went to war and got hurt 3 times while he was there. That might not be much, but it's more than I did."
And all of that is true as far as it goes. But the "it's more than I did" is not true for the Swift Boat veterans. And that's why they have, as you put it, standing.
What is significant is who it was who was doing the expecting. His Vietnam experience became relevant to the current presidential campaign only as it served to signify that he was a veteran who became vocally antiwar, and that this was supposed to do two things for him: first, to insulate him against the charge that he is insufficiently experienced to manage national defense, and second, and more important, that his conversion to the antiwar side was the same morally correct direction that the anti-Iraq-war wing of the Democratic party wanted to swing the nation. He was, in essence, a living symbol of their disdain for Bush's policies in Iraq, and in the absence of the latter, Kerry's Vietnam experience was as irrelevant as Harry Truman's artillery experience.
This activist wing of the Democratic party must have Vietnam, because they must repudiate Bush on Iraq. That's their entire approach to this presidential campaign, and it turns out that the vessel they had available to them was seriously flawed even in this regard. Kerry's antiwar activities alienated him from the crowd his service was supposed to inoculate him against, and the left just didn't get that. Now they're stuck with a fellow who has a pitiful voting record, a pathetic legislative record, no particularly strong anti-war stance, and a one-note refrain "I served in Vietnam." That is the stuff of only one kind of political campaign: a losing one.
Thank you for your service in defending this great country.
The way I would put it is this: Kerry's presenting himself to the voters with his band of brothers who served in Vietnam, Kerry's real band of brothers were the antiwar... was the antiwar movement. That's where Kerry is ideologically and politically, and fine. He's a liberal, he's anti-war, he's been dovish on most issues in the last 30 years; he should present himself that way.
sKerry spent 4 months in Viet Nam. Does anyone know how long he spent with the veterans against Viet Nam?
The last few paragraphs are a bit off.. JFK is a flim-flam man.. a fraud.. a liar.. a traitor.. a schemer - nominated by his party because he could defeat GWB.
The left hates what conservatives stand for and they have demonized GWB - took opposite positions to every single issue. It's fascinating to me that to nominate a winning candidate, they selected the most dishonorable character in the history of this nation.
What the hell does that mean?
"One man volunteered to serve his country."
He "volunteered" to join the Navy after his draft board turned down a request for a deferment.
"He volunteered to go to Vietnam."
How do we know this?
He volunteered a third time to command a Swift boat in one of the most dangerous activities in the war.
Per Boston Globe regarding Kerry's request for swift boats
"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."
I should have found some way to differentiate "conservatives" or "individual Republicans" from the RNC.
Thanks for the kind words. The truth is I am glad that I am here witnessing historic events first hand. Things here are going better than I had hoped before I came here, as far as I can tell from talking to the local nationals on base.
bttt
"The one exception that I have met was my high-school driver's ed teacher in 1977. He was infantry at Metz and the Seigfried Line- had to go into German tunnel complexes and burn them alive them with flamethrowers- up close and personal. He was old and sick, and he was trying to deal with all of this before his life was over. His 'lose it' point was in a class that I was in- he started crying"
I'm about to cry just thinking about what he went through. At 16 you couldn't have done him much good. Hell, I don't think anyone but God could soothe the pain.
The really sad part is the guys he burned were just kids like him, doing their duty for their country which had gone mad at the time. I'll bet their scream of agony never left his memory. How can anyone who has not gone through that relate?
War really sucks, but its a fact of this life.
"Never has a presidential nominee run on the basis of his role in a war he opposed."
General George McClellan ran on an anti-war platform against Lincoln during the Civil War if my memory serves me. As I recall, the veteran soldiers of the Union Army detested McClellan and largely voted for Lincoln, enabling old Abe to win the election. If McClellan had been elected, the union would have been disolved. Oh yes, McClellan was also a democrat.
This was an instance in our history where veteran American soldiers were decisive in a presidential election during a time of war. Not by arms, but at the ballot box. They were true Americans exercising their inalienable rights and we should remember their example.
Once again it appears that American veterans may be decisive in a presidential election in a time of war.
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