My brother, Jim (retired Army) weighed in on this subject - in an email he sent to me this afternoon:
"HERE IS JUST ONE WAY THE VIETNAM PROTESTERS KILLED AMERICAN SOLDIERS:
When my unit overran an enemy headquarters in 1968 during the tet-offensive time frame, we captured enemy documents that were telling.
These documents were written orders from Hanoi to all communist units in the south. The orders directed all units to focus on attacking u.s. units exclusive to all other allied units, for the purpose of creating as many casualties as possible in u.s. units.
They even directed to by-pass other units if necessary to get to u.s. units. These documents cited how effective the anti-war movement was to their cause.
They pointed out that the higher the casualties, the louder the outcry would be to end the war! Of course they were right, and that was an effective way to win politically what they could not achieve on the battlefield.
THIS WAS AMERICAS CENTER OF GRAVITY!
Kerry's group, and people like him provided aid and comfort to the enemy and in fact caused american soldiers to be killed.
THE LAST TIME I LOOKED, THIS WAS CALLED TREASON!
ONE OTHER POINT; This controversy about Bush not serving in combat etc. etc. seems pretty ridiculas at this point. Before his first term you might have found that to be a relevant issue but not now.
The reason most of us look at a candidate's past military service is to evaluate how his past service reflects on how well he will lead in the white house as Commander-in-Chief etc.
Lets now fast forward to 2004. TIME TO EVALUATE BOTH CANDIDATES MILITARY SERVICE:
KERRY: 4 MONTHS FRAUDULENT SERVICE, VIETNAM.
BUSH: FIGHTER PILOT, NATIONAL GUARD,VIETNAM ERA. ALMOST 4 YEARS AS WAR PRESIDENT WITH TITLE OF COMMANDER- IN- CHIEF OF ALL ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES.
FREED OVER 50 MILLION PEOPLE THRU ARMED FORCE. CONTINUES TO DECISIVELY USE MILITARY TO ACHIEVE AMERICAS INTERESTS AND PROTECT AMERICA FROM ATTACKS.ETC. ETC.
THATS JUST MY OPINION ... WHAT DO YOU THINK? JIM
Tell your brother that he is a patriot and a gentleman. I appreciate the fact that he feels so strongly about this election and wants to express his anger.
I would say that Kerry as a citizen and as a disgruntled officer in our military had a personal right to work outside the system of government, oppose our congressional and executive decisions with respect to the war in Vietnam, and he even had a right to lead the VVAW in the direction he did, cooperating with Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda, and so forth.
Eeach of these things may have earned him a position of special emnity with troops who were fighting to win in Vietnam. The American people may or may not share that anger.
What they are increasingly sharing is the sense that this man has forfeited his desirability as our next commander in chief. If he couldn't abide by the directives of a duly elected president, Nixon, who had decided to end American involvement in the war honorably and with continous and vigorous support from our military industrial establishment, then Kerry was engaged in direct civil disobedience.
Americans can decide today if those acts were worthy. When Henry David Thoreau sat at Walden Pond and sat out paying his taxes during the Mexican war because of a fit of conscience, Americans failed to agree with him. They might have respected his mode of operation, and they might have appreciated his thoughts on remaining free from government intrusion into the realm of conscience, but they continued to support their troops.
This situation is very different because Kerry is no HDT. He's no great thinker who can inspire us to see beyond the temporal and corporeal world of our petty politics. Kerry undermined a selfless act of America and its allies. He opposed our opposition to Maoism and Stalinism, saying that we were fighting for "nothing."
Around a hundred million people had already been brutally murdered by communists when Kerry uttered those ugly words.
In November, Americans will speak their minds. Did they support the Vietnam war? Maybe not. Did they support President Nixon's promise to get us out of it without betraying our friends? Yes, and he won two elections on those promises. If he hadn't been impeached, Saigon might have never fallen. But the Kerrys, the Fondas, and the Ramsey Clarks were no where to be found when the Cambodian killing field agrarian maoist machinery fired up its evil mills of Satan.
Kerry was just another opportunistic, opinionated American in 1971. He also happened to be on the wrong side of history. Americans will think about that and decide for themselves.
I heard Donna Brazille say on CNN today that GWB was giving "aid and comfort to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
If only I could get my hands around her huge bloated neck...