Remarks by Past Commanders of the American Legion, John Brieden,& the Vets of Foreign Wars, Ed Banas

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, Past Commanders of the American Legion, John Brieden, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ed Banas made the following remarks during a Bush-Cheney '04 conference call:

Commander John Brieden
"Good afternoon. This is John Brieden. Today it’s my honor to announce that I’m officially endorsing President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for reelection. As a past commander of the American Legion, I believe that George W. Bush is the best person to serve our country during these times. Being from Texas I have a special situation in the fact that he was my governor for six years prior to him running and serving as President. I had a chance to see him in that environment and I had a chance to see someone who is a very principled person, who works on the issues, who works across party lines very effectively, and I remember very distinctly when he went to Washington that that was going to be an objective of his Administration. But one of the things he found is you can’t work across party lines if the other party will not work with you. That’s one of the reasons why I feel what has been portrayed as Mr. Bush in Washington has been quite unfair.

"I also have had the opportunity to personally hear Senator Kerry speak twice, as well as couple of other times I watched his speeches on TV. I know when he spoke to my convention his speech was exactly what the group wanted to hear. In fact, his speech was right down our point papers, line-by-line. I have to laugh because as I have heard people talk about his flip-flop on positions I feel all he’s trying to do is tell every group what they want to hear. That means a different position for every group.

"I know what was emphasized in the introduction was that this is military voting week. I believe very distinctly and strongly that the people who are serving this nation deserve the right to vote. In fact, they’re earning that right more so than any other citizen, and their vote should count. In the 2000 election almost one-third of military votes were not counted because they either didn’t get ballots in time, they weren’t returned in time, and I can tell you that that’s being addressed. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Postal System has been trying to work to make sure that ballots are received by the military people wherever they’re at in the world in a timely manner and returned in a timely manner to be counted. I think that’s something that’s very important in this election, because once again those soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines and Coast Guardsmen have earned the right to have their vote counted and have say in who it is that’s deploying them. That’s something I feel very strongly about.

"At this point I’ll stop and turn it over to the immediate past commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ed Banas. Ed…"

Commander Ed Banas
"Well thank you very much John. My name is Ed Banas, and I’m calling from another state that reflects on the Bush family and that is the State of Connecticut. As the immediate past national Commander in Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States of America I can tell you that it’s a real honor to stand by your side and endorse President Bush and Dick Cheney for the office of President and Vice President.

"President Bush has proven to be a steady leader over the past four years as well as a principled Commander in Chief to those of us who have a reflection? in the military. And I have a basic statement and that is that he has functioned with courage and conviction and he has never chaffed at the burdens of his obligations or at times – more than likely – the agony of his choices. Our standing on freedom that is an American conviction is basically our only commitment to mankind around the world. I believe the President personifies that message and that image. I do have a strong feeling from speaking to people wherever I’ve traveled around the world that we want a principled leader.

"Unfortunately John Kerry does not offer that. Today I believe John Kerry gave his twelfth or thirteenth speech on Iraq and took his eighth position on Iraq. He has yet to take a stance on the war. During the Democratic primaries this man declared himself an anti-war candidate. The fact remains no matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safe by removing Saddam Hussein from his power and continuing to work on the Taliban issue. America is on the right side. We cannot wait or procrastinate. I support intelligence reform regarding the 9/11 report

"The thing that was probably most annoying to me and many, many people who served our country is that Mr. Kerry renounced every one of his comrades who served in Vietnam. I cannot find that to be a forgivable instance. There’s a saying that the leopard never changes his spots. So I make my stance very, very clear. I support the Bush Administration. And with that I’d like to turn it back, I believe to you Steve."