Posted on 08/28/2004 1:51:15 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Decorated Marine's TV documentary portrays 'betrayal' of vets
A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and highly decorated Vietnam veteran is behind a new television documentary that features devastating testimony by former POWs of the demoralizing impact of John Kerry's war-crimes accusations more than 30 years ago.
As WorldNetDaily first reported, the film will be released in September on the heels of a television ad by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, which charges Kerry with betrayal for accusing them of war atrocities during his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
But producer Carlton Sherwood says his Red, White and Blue Productions was planning the documentary even before the first ad by the swiftboat vets.
Sherwood also has won a Peabody Award, and The Carlton Sherwood Media Award is named in his honor.
The documentary, titled "Stolen Honor," now has its own website, which includes sample interviews.
Currently in the final stages of production, it will be available for broadcast and on DVD and VHS video, according to Red, White and Blue Productions.
The film, according to the website, "investigates how John Kerry's actions during the Vietnam era impacted the treatment of American soldiers and POWs. Using John Kerry's own words, the documentary juxtaposes John Kerry's actions with the words of veterans who were still in Vietnam when John Kerry was leading the anti-war movement."
In a March 12 story by Fox News, Sherwood was noted as being among the veterans who consider Kerry's 1971 testimony slanderous and concocted to push a political agenda.
"He knew as an officer that those were lies. It never happened," said Sherwood. "He was principally responsible for cementing the image of Vietnam veterans as drugged-out psychopaths who were totally unrestrained and who were a murderous hoard."
Among the POWs whose voices are heard in the film are two who spent seven years in prison, Ralph Gaither, a two-time Navy Silver Star winner, and Gen. Robinson Risner.
The film's narration includes:
"In other wars, captured Americans subjected to the hell of an enemy prison were considered heroes. In other wars, they were not abandoned. In Vietnam , they were betrayed.""Little did the American prisoners of war imagine that half a world away events were conspiring to make their precarious situation even more desperate. That an American Naval lieutenant after a four-month tour of duty in Vietnam was meeting secretly in an undisclosed location in Paris with a top enemy diplomat. That this same lieutenant would later join forces with Jane Fonda to form an antiwar group of so-called Vietnam veterans, some of whom would be later discovered as frauds who never set foot on a battlefield. All this culminating in John Kerry's Senate testimony that would be blared over loud speakers to convince our prisoners that back home they were being accused and abandoned. Enemy propagandists had found a new and willing accomplice."
Red, White & Blue Productions is a for-profit corporation based in Harrisburg, Pa.
Veterans provided the initial funding of the film's production costs, the company says, adding it welcomes financial support for its distribution and dissemination.
Sherwood won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting of a Catholic scandal involving the Pauline Fathers of Doylestown, Pa. He also is known for his inside investigation of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Sherwood said he entered the probe hoping to uncover dirt about the leader but ended up concluding Moon and his followers "were and continued to be the victims of the worst kind of religious prejudice and racial bigotry this country has witnessed in over a century."
Please ping or FReepmail me on the details of that.
Not to be overly picky about this, but if that description is intended to refer to Carlton Sherwood, it should be noted that his name is apparently not listed in the Pulitzer Prize database archive as a named recipient of the prize. I may be mistaken, but I suspect that the aforementioned prize was awarded in 1980 under the "Public Service" category to the "Gannett News Service for its series on financial contributions to the Pauline Fathers", to which Sherwood contributed (along with John Hanchette and William Schmick).
So, even though Sherwood was evidently one of the authors, the prize was apparently awarded to the newspaper, but not to Sherwood himself personally. A minor technical point, perhaps, but one which may be brought up when Sherwood's work comes under intese scrutiny (which it will), especially given the WorldNetDaily headline of "Pulitzer winner behind Kerry POW film".
It wouldn't surprise me if the American authorities knew about this visit. Surely they were keeping an eye both on the North Vietnamese diplomats and on the major antiwar leaders, especially the more radical ones.
So, a more precise description may be that Sherwood was co-author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles.
LOL. I'm not sure John F(athead) Kerry's big head would fit through that noose.
Kerry fled, good men bled.
I too will piss on Jane Fonda's grave. Please leave room. I have asked my wife and children, to take a container of my piss, if I am dead, and pour it on her grave. Absent my own urine, take a dog with them to do the job.
Kerry didn't enlist Arkansas billy jeff and hillary back in the early 1970's to attempt to neutralize these giants. Although they were anti-war allies, whether the x42's would have gone all out to help in this nefarious endeavor is unclear. They might have been too afraid he'd run for the presidency when they did.
The last three democrat candidates for the presidency have had serious mental and/or personality disorders manifesting in actions that, at the least, go against our national interests (being charitable here). I can't account for Carter's StuQu (stupidity quotient).
So we know that what we see today is not an anomaly. The dem party is crippled, cancer-ridden, and caving in. I wonder what will replace it.
Now a documentary produced by Vietnam vets about POWs (Kerry's peers again), $200,000
Watching the dnc and Kerry campaign in damage control, PRICELESS.
5.56mm
I hope that tradition (post 21) continues as long as America does.
I had a difficult time choosing between
- He put political ambitions above the safety of soldiers and POWs who remained in Vietnam
- His betrayal of Vietnam Veterans shows that he is untrustworthy
and finally settled on the "political amibitons above safety of soldiers."
The poll results between those two were one percent difference.
It just struck me that kerry was omniscient and anticipated some static from his vietnam days and dishonest preachings but in his devious mind he was able to see that an association with McCain as vice president this obnoxious behavior would be mitigated o overlooked because the war hero NcCain would never allow himself to associate wtih such a coward. It makes sense.
Your post 43 left me in tears and speechless. God bless you, all the Viet Nam vets and all of our military. I have more feelings to express, especially about Kerry and Fonda, but at the moment I'm at a loss for words.
You cant get up and tell a boldfaced lie, saying we were rapist[s], we were murderers, we were pillagers, you cannot apologize for that. You cant say what I really meant was this. Theres, theres nothing you can do. It's irreparable. (Excerpt from Stolen Honor) - Jack Van Loan Former Vietnam POW"
Advance warning of Incoming so one has time to get the HAZMAT suit on. A good laugh.
bmp
This is the first time I've been mad (and I mean MAD) at Bush. I totally agree with you. He could have condemned unregulated use of money in political ads without going the extra steps he's taken to denigrate the Swiftees. His whole agenda here is not clear to me but when a course of action stinks this bad this early, the prospects aren't good.
I'm praying Bush swerves off this bad course. As one of the former POW's at the StolenHonor said, when he became a Commander, his superior told him, If you march your men up to a cliff, YOU ADMIT YOU MADE A MISTAKE, AND TURN YOUR MEN AROUND.
It's too bad Stephen Ambrose died before he could write a book about the REAL Vietnam.
I'm hoping some reputable men sink their teeth into this and makes a war movie or two based on the facts of Vietnam.
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