Posted on 08/25/2004 11:42:18 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
........Long ago we had given up almost every hope that the nation would--in our lifetimes--resolve upon anything close to a shared understanding of its Vietnam experience. All the arguments one way or the other had been said and heard so many times that only the most boorish could be foolish enough to think that more talk would change anyone's opinion. Age and experience might change some minds (mine, for instance; I was an antiwar teenager in the early 1970s), but further discussion was futile.
In the decade following our ignominious withdrawal, communists would fertilize Cambodia's rice fields with the bones of millions of human skeletons. Of the millions desperately fleeing the daily terrors of communist rule, countless thousands would perish in the Gulf of Thailand or the South China Sea when their pathetically rickety boats capsized under their own weight. If those millions of deaths weren't enough to convince you that fighting communism in Southeast Asia was a truly righteous cause, then mere words could never persuade you.
Whenever the question of Vietnam percolated to the surface of the nation's collective political consciousness, as it did briefly during Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, the protagonists on either side only became yet more distrustful and disdainful of the other. And so years ago, wearied by their own arguments as much as by the arguments of their antagonists, sensible majorities of both the supporters and the opponents of the Vietnam War yielded to an unwritten domestic truce, composed of two principles:
Those who participated in the war, with the exception of anyone at or above the rank of general officer, are entitled to public honor for their service.....
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Bump!
Very long, but a very good read.
Totally unrelated to the Swift Boat Vets, Vietnam is going to ruin Kerry. A lot of Americans know men who served in Vietnam, and they know that those men don't like talking about what happened there. It's almost universal.
And it should be particluarly the case for a man who claims to have seen what Kerry saw.
Americans also know that the men they know that served did not all come home with decorations, even though they served for months or years longer than Kerry. They know there's something fishy about the volume of awards Kerry garnered in what was effectively three months time.
At some point you have to just let Kerry talk about Vietnam; the more he does the more unseemly it becomes. Americans don't need anyone to tell them this either.
I hear Kerry was seeking time on 60 mins to issue an apology. Let's hope he does. It's long overdue and, coming at this stage of the campaign, Kerry will get no credit (no matter how hard the MSM tries) for that apology. It'll be seen as rank opportunism, an admission that he slandered the vets and/or insincere.
Worth the read!
>>I hear Kerry was seeking time on 60 mins to issue an apology. <<
Any 60 minutes program will be a hit piece on the Swiftboat Vets and W. It will carefully orchestrated and totally dishonest. Now if he goes on Meet the Press, it could go either way, depending on how desperate Russell is to defeat W.
A long article but very, very good.
Long, but definitely worth the read.
Kerry can moan and complain about a "Bush attack machine" but the truth is that the people who are after his scalp now are veterans first and Republicans second -- if at all.
A must read
bttt
Kerry bragging about Vietnam will be his "Howard Dean goes locoweed in Corn Country" moment.
bttt
Bump! Great read!
Bump!
No one found it even a taahaad pretentious--not even the first 1000 words? Just loved the "Those who actively opposed the war, with the exception of the most extreme Jane Fonda-types, are not to be branded as cowards or traitors to their country." Even by the writer's over-liberal "rules" Kerry qualifies as one who can be branded a traitor. But the writer never followed that thread.
Most apologists for the "protests" of the era - attempt to paint the protestors as possessing some "high order conviction against war"...
NONE of them explained WHY the protests fell silent almost immediately after the draft was discontinued....
To my mind -- that made it clear they protested ONLY because they were afraid of being forced to serve... Believing them to be cowards or traitors, may be harsh - but not totally unreasonable...
Semper Fi
This is an excellent article and I would encourage everyone to go to Opinion Journal and read the whole article because it is full of hot links, some you have to register to read, but many are readily available. This article is a clear rational explanation of the Veterans' complaints about John Kerry.
as usual, the WSJ has the best, the very best, article on this subject I have read. This is the keeper, expresses what all else try to but do not do as well.
Bump!
I agree that there will be no apology from Kerry, maybe a carefully worded nolo contendere, but no apology. The apology is just hype to excuse giving Kerry face time on tv on the eve of the Republican convention, when the focus should be on the Republicans, and draw in viewers at the same time.
The notion that the vet doing the talking is a phony while the quiet vet in the corner is the 'real' one is an urban myth in my experience...
Bragging and self promotion are one thing...talking about events that really happend and about the character and bravery of heros you personaly knew.. is quite another...
imo
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