KERRY DREW A BLANK

SteynOnline ^ | 8/21/04 | Name Withheld

[zarf]

I met John Kerry when I became a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971.  If I were running for office, I might be tempted to say that I joined the WAW because I was opposed to the war.  The truth was less noble.  I was broke, their offices were a convenient crash pad and you could meet a hell of lot of loose women by going to demonstrations as a “Vet”.

I didn’t last long.  Half the guys were outright liars, and the few who were sincere were either physically damaged (Ron Kovic, Jan Scruggs) or hopelessly addicted to Marxism.  The most committed “radicals” were the FBI agents.  They were right out of Conrad – trying desperately to incite to real violence a bunch of mostly lost kids who enjoyed having cameras pointed at them and getting stoned.

John was clearly on the make, but he was also a classic preppy mook.  He wanted so much to be one of the people like Scott Camille who had been “stone killers” but after a few minutes of talking to him it was clear that he was one of the guys who never knew where the fire was coming from even when the enemy were using tracers.

The only lengthy conversation I ever had with him was about the Mekong Delta.  I had been there from summer 1967 to late spring 1968, and I was genuinely curious to know how if the Mekong had changed as much after Tet as other guys had told me.  I also wanted to know what he thought about our armament.  Being even then a fervent admirer of Ulysses Grant, I had read a fair amount about his use of armored gunships in the Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg campaigns; and it had pissed me off that we had all been cruising up and down the Mekong with less armor plate than Grant had used. When I mentioned this to John, I got one of those blank stares you get from people who have no idea what you are talking about but are not quite confident that it is safe to be ignorant.  His reply was something about “yeah, it was hell”. 

I may have been a little touchy on the subject since I missed what would have been my one and only purple heart by deciding to get a cup of coffee about 30 seconds before an RPG cut through the outer bulkhead on the O-1 level of my LST and turned the mattress I been lying on into confetti.  (Mr. Roberts in reverse; ever since then, I have never turned down an opportunity for caffeine).

John’s only replay was something along the lines of “Man, it was hell.”  I doubt it.  There were few safer places to be in Viet-Nam than the Mekong after Tet.  The VC had been pretty much wiped out, and the NVA never made any serious attempts to use the rivers.

What I do not doubt is that John successfully gamed the system to get his 3 purples and his quick ticket home.  I suppose I should be bitter about it, but life is too short; and you have to look at it from the point of view of his fellow sailors.  The ones who knew what they were doing also knew that a guy that arrogantly dumb was a menace.  He could get you killed.  Better to ship him home.

John’s current stature as a “war hero” is a measure of how few Americans - even those of the “Greatest Generation” – have ever seen the sharp end of war. 

Name Withheld

[igoramus987]

I am glad that the Swift Vets have given others the courage to come forward with their stories.

[norraad]

Kerry is a blank!

Thanks, you're a great writer. Right to the point & good imagery.

I agree, dumb is dangerous.

[Cagey]

I am glad that the Swift Vets have given others the courage to come forward with their stories.

Most Vietnam veterans have always had the courage to speak out, but now people are listening. Too bad this piece is signed "Name Withheld".

[xm177e2]

There were few safer places to be in Viet-Nam than the Mekong after Tet.

The swift boats were not safe places to be. A lot of those swift vets were injured or killed. Even if the Mekong was safer in general, swift boat duty was hazardous.

[goldstategop]

Why the anonymity? One would think he'd proud to help expose John F*ckin' for the fraud he's been all his life.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

John’s only replay was something along the lines of “Man, it was hell.” I doubt it. There were few safer places to be in Viet-Nam than the Mekong after Tet. The VC had been pretty much wiped out, and the NVA never made any serious attempts to use the rivers.

Nobody is safe when "I'm just a gigolo" has a grenade launcher around...

[The Raven]

>>>The ones who knew what they were doing also knew that a guy that arrogantly dumb was a menace. He could get you killed. Better to ship him home.


The puzzle pieces all seem to fit, don't they?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***Although the ad makes it appear as if Kerry is recounting atrocities he witnessed, he in fact was reciting claims made by soldiers that year during an anti-war gathering in Detroit. "They had personally raped, cut off heads, cut off ears," he told senators.

Reflecting on those comments this year, Kerry said they were too harsh. "I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. ... The words were honest, but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in April. *** Source

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Unfit for Command [Excerpt] Kerry's testimony to the Fulbright Committee was a carefully orchestrated piece of political theater. Fulbright wanted a presentable, young Kennedy-esque face to put on the antiwar effort, and Kerry wanted a national forum from which to launch his climb to political celebrity. Ted Kennedy helped arrange Kerry's testimony with Senator Fulbright at a private fundraising event held at the home of Democratic senator Philip A. Hart of Michigan.

………Once Kerry learned that he would have the chance to give testimony before the committee, he recruited the assistance of Adam Walinsky, a speechwriter noted for his work with Robert Kennedy. Walinsky drafted the speech and coached Kerry on its delivery. The only image Kerry wanted us to see was a myth: a young man with a burning passion for the truth, the leader forced to sleep on the ground, the man answering his country's call to be where he was urgently needed, before a committee of the United States Senate where the senators and America were urgently waiting for his firsthand criticism of the war. He porceeded to level his charges: [End Excerpt]

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I'm beginning to wonder how long this political theater was in the making.

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Kerry's World: Father Knows Best****……….As early as prep school, John Kerry showed signs that he shared his father's suspicions about America's cold war foreign policy. In a debate at St. Paul's in the late '50s, he argued that the United States should establish relations with Red China. During his junior year at Yale, he won a speech prize for an oration warning, "It is the specter of Western Imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating." And, when he was tapped to deliver a graduation speech in 1966, he used the occasion to condemn U.S. involvement in Vietnam, intoning, "What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism."……….***

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John Kerry testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by William Fulbright, in April 1971. Photo UPI

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New Swift Boat Ad

A frame grab shows Vietnam war-era Swift boat veteran Ken Cordier speaking during a television commercial over Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry 's war record. Kerry asked the Federal Election Commission August 20, 2004 to force Republican critics to withdraw the ads challenging his military service, and accused the Bush campaign of illegally helping coordinate the attacks. Photo by Swiftvets.Com/Reuters

[DugwayDuke]

I've never heard of any other person who got to leave early because of three purple hearts. When I first heard of this, it was referred to as a little known rule. One wonders if the chain of command 'encouraged' Kerry to take advantage of this 'little known', meaning some one made it up, rule, just to get him out of town before he got someone killed.

[Semper Paratus]

Kerry's "Reporting for Duty" and using his 4 months in-country as the focal point of his presidential qulifications was a strategic mistake of the first order.

He knew what he did in 'Nam and more importantly so did a lot of other vets who he terminaly pissed off when he threw them all under the bus in his Senate testimony.

He assumed that the press would be able to inoculate him from the criticism. That was beyond risky. He should have low-keyed as 'nam service and made the fact that he wasn't George W. Bush the center of his campaign and put him on the defensive defending his Presidency.

Now Kerry has dug himself into a WWI trench and will ger shot at every time he sticks his head up.

[Jason Kauppinen]

What's up with that beardo to the left and behind Kerry?

And why do the rest of the people in the background of that picture look out of it?

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

The fact that he never gave up his Senate seat shows me he was never that serious about wanting to be President. I think the real reason he wants to be President is because its the only way he will ever feel more powerful than his wife.

[leadpenny]

I also know of no one who had even heard of the "Three Purple Hearts and Your Out" policy BK (Before Kerry). Surely, no one has ever produced a written policy. If there had been such a policy, the average GI would have known about it even without ever seeing it in print.

All commanders work at making problems go away either by fixing them or smoothing them over. I suspect the chain of command found it easier to find a way to get f'n out of Nam rather than charging him with something. To the average Swiftie, Kerry was there one day and gone the next.

[Dustoff45]

it was clear that he was one of the guys who never knew where the fire was coming from even when the enemy were using tracers.

I love that quote, referring to Mr. Kerry.

For the non-vets out there, a little color commentary is needed.

An option with automatic weapons, especially during night fire is to use a tracer every 5th round. The bullet leave a glow as it passes through the air allowing the shooter to see there their rounds are going and thus to direct fire upon their targets.

Americans used red-orange tracers. The VC/NVA used green tracers.

As a 'Nam Vet who came home at the end of '69, I have no memory of Mr. Kerry's immediate post-Nam activities, thus I have no agenda against him. I do think he became truly scared unto death for the first time in his life in 'Nam, and did some things he will always regret; coming home projecting his guilt and shame as a protester.

I hold a special place in my heart for all other 'Nam Vets. We truly are brothers with a shared and common experience. However, we may always be confused by others that weren't there as much as we as a nation look back 140 years at the struggle between Northern and Southern troops and don't fully understand. We just don't know what was in their heads and hearts, and the efforts to recover after the war was over. As an American, whenever I see the Battle Flag of the South, I honor those men who answered the call to serve. I feel the same way about 'Nam vets. Most served a miserable year of their lives with great honor, even those that never wanted to be there.

Mr. Kerry choose to put his 'Nam record out there as proof of his qualifications to be our national leader. Now he becomes upset when others take considerable effort to examine that record.

A Personnel officer reviews a job application and resume to effect a decision. They look for valid indicators of future performance.

What challenges has the person faced?

How did they respond?

What were their accomplishments?

How were others affected?

As a nation, we will spend the next 10 weeks examining two job applications, One is for the present job holder, the other a challenger. Both records need to be examined.

[Caipirabob]

I'm glad he missed out on that purple heart...Thank God...

[G.Mason]

"I've never heard of any other person who got to leave early because of three purple hearts. When I first heard of this, it was referred to as a little known rule. One wonders if the chain of command 'encouraged' Kerry to take advantage of this 'little known', meaning some one made it up, rule, just to get him out of town before he got someone killed."

EXCERPT:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3539

... "It got to a point where Wright told his divisional commander he no longer wanted Kerry in his boat group, so he was re-assigned to another one. “I had an idea of his actions but didn’t have to be responsible for him.” Then Wright and like-minded boat officers took matters into their own hands. “When he got his third Purple Heart, three of us told him to leave. We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11. Kerry didn’t manipulate the system, we did ...”

[G.Mason]

Post #17 ... FYI

[rabidralph]

Maybe it's McCain *giggle*

[YaYa123]

"What I do not doubt is that John successfully gamed the system to get his 3 purples and his quick ticket home. "

Thank God somebody finally said it!

Max Cleland, Chris Mathews, and other talkingtwat Kerry supporters have denied such gaming of the system occured in Viet Nam. Mathews poked fun at the notion any sane person would shoot himself. Mathews made it sound as if that's what Kerry was being falsely accused of doing by the Swifties, when nothing could be further from the truth.

This is an old tactic of the left. They twist words to confuse the issue. In this instance they made it sound as if the Swifties accused Kerry of intentionally wounding himself. The Swifties did nothing of the kind, and neither did Michelle Malkin. First off, "shooting" was never mentioned in the book, the ads, or interviews!

And secondly, the Swifties never said Kerry intentionally injured himself. They said Kerry took advantage of accidentally self-inflicted injuries, turning them into combat wounds, then wrote himself up for purple hearts and medals they considered unearned.