Posted on 03/21/2005 1:24:27 PM PST by Interesting Times
LUBBOCK - • Provocative debate on the Vietnam War's effect on the 2004 election wraps up a three-day conference at Texas Tech.
"The Tactical Nuclear Weapons Option in Vietnam" was informative. "Re-education and Its Aftermath" was moving.
Then there was "The Vietnam War and the Election Year," as seen and told by former members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and members of the Swift boat Veterans for Truth.
This was some academic conference.
"Welcome to the steel-cage death match" portion of the 5th Triennial Vietnam Symposium, remarked one panelist.
The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University saved its most controversial panels for last at its three-day conference in Lubbock, with much of the discord centered on Sen. John Kerry, the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate.
"John Kerry is the only swift boater who butchered women and children in a boat," said B.G. Burkett, a Dallas stockbroker and Army veteran involved in the Swift boats group. "When he says he's a war criminal, he's absolutely right. He is a war criminal."
Then consider this comment made about the Swift boat group: "They have played fast and loose with the truth, acting as an Orwellian ministry of misinformation, taking half-truths and statements out of context, spreading libelous lies," said Terry DuBose, an Army veteran and former leader of the VVAW.
Among the Kerry and VVAW bashers were Jerome Corsi, co-author of Unfit for Command; Larry Bailey, president of the Vietnam Veterans for Truth and a retired Navy captain; Burkett, author of Stolen Valor and a national expert on outing phony veterans; and Scott Swett, Webmaster of swiftvets.com.
On the other side of the issue gathered former VVAW leaders DuBose, Alex Primm, Bill Hager and Nancy Miller Saunders, as well as Gerald Nicosia, who authored Home to War, about the veterans' anti-war movement.
In front of the largest crowd at any panels during the conference, the two groups proved that the Vietnam War generates every bit of emotion that it did 35 years ago and that Kerry, at least for many veterans, remains a lightning rod on the order of Jane Fonda for his anti-war activities and statements in the early 1970s.
The Swift Boat supporters said Kerry's statements about atrocities alleged to have been committed in Vietnam and his involvement in the VVAW -- a group full of "radicals, leftists and communists," Corsi said -- made him unsuitable for the White House.
"John Kerry was trying to convince the American people we were committing war crimes on a daily basis, up and down the chain of command," Corsi said.
Burkett called the VVAW "ragtags" who helped cement the image of Vietnam veterans as disaffected, unemployed, longhaired radicals. He said Vietnam veterans "were the most successful veterans in the history of the country" and blamed Kerry and the VVAW for bringing an end to a war that could have been won.
"They didn't elect [George] McGovern, but they did change the course of the war," he said, a view that many historians would disagree with strongly. The VVAW's activities and marches took place in the early 1970s, when the United States had already begun its troop pullout and public opinion had largely turned against the war.
The VVAW backers asserted that Kerry and other anti-war veterans never criticized U.S. troops or called them war criminals. Several said the Swift Boat veterans "cherry-picked" comments and took them out of context and that it consistently disavowed violence and communism.
"Our arguments focused on U.S. government policies," Primm said, which he said is very different than blaming individual troops.
Hager defended his right to be against the war and said he strongly resented his service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam being "smeared" by the Swift boat veterans.
"We see ourselves as patriots, standing up for what America is about," he said. "We see ourselves as honorable." He then accused them of the same heavy-handed tactics of the Nixon administration, which spied on thousands of American citizens and was brought down by the Watergate scandal.
"They're a throwback to the Nixon era," he said of the Swift boat veterans.
About the only issue on which both sides found common ground was that Kerry brought the attention on himself.
Burkett even dropped this bombshell: "I personally think George Bush is a draft dodger. But George Bush never lied about Vietnam. John Kerry did."
The Vietnam Center has always been unconventional in its approaches to symposiums, unafraid of presentations by nonacademics. That doesn't mean that the center director, James Reckner, wasn't apprehensive about Saturday's panels.
Despite repeated admonitions about maintaining civility, Reckner -- a two-tour Vietnam veteran and self-described "hard-core conservative" -- said he was disappointed by the behavior of the Swift boat veterans. Bailey, for example, irritably interrupted the daughter of a soldier killed in Vietnam and told DuBose to "sit down" and refused to hear his question.
Reckner said he found Bailey's actions "totally unacceptable. There can't be a dialogue without questions and answers. You can't answer questions just from your friends."
Camil: "Uh, yeah..."
Gas Station Attendant: [in New England accent] Sure, I remember Stutts. He was a loner, but a real hard worker. I mean, he pumped the gas, he checked the oil, he washed the windows. Nice kid.
Ted Koppel: Do you believe he killed Buckwheat?
Man: Oh, yes, definitely. That’s all he talked about. I remember one day I says, uh, “Stutts, why are you working so hard?” He says, “’Cause I’m saving up to buy a gun, so I can kill Buckwheat.” [shrugs]
[CUT to a tailor hemming the cuffs on a pair of slacks.]
Tailor: John was a quiet boy, a kind of a loner. But real polite. He always stood still when I hemmed his cuffs. Nice kid.
Ted Koppel: Do you believe he killed Buckwheat?
Tailor: Oh, yes, definitely. That’s all he ever talked about. . .
---
So who was the VVAW member claiming the information about him in the FBI files had been quoted selectively?
I like his gotcha on Camil, though.
........
smoothsailing, 540th GS, Qui Nhon 68.69
I wonder if anyone noticed that, whether it was on your site or KerryTreason.com, selective quotes from the FBI files couldn't make him look bad if the material quoted wasn't in the FBI files.
Wasn't this guy the inspiration for one of the Doonesberry characters?
I heard him and saw him tell his story and apologize, at a rally in DC. He was genuine. Without a doubt.
So the truth was clear and obvious to those in attendance? That's good. Sometimes things don't get said, or they're not stated very well, and the truth suffers.
I can't remember his name, and he isn't listed on the schedule. I'm pretty sure he was the Texas Chapter leader of the VVAW back in the early '70s, however.
These guys aren't exactly tactical geniuses. "Home to War" author Gerald Nicosia spent about 10 minutes explaining why it really wasn't that bad that Kerry had attended the November 1971 VVAW meeting in Kansas City where the assassination of Senators was discussed. I couldn't believe he brought the topic up at all...
The complete Steve Pitkin story is here, including video of Steve at the Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, and at the Kerry Lied rally on September 12 of last year.
And it's a must-see for everyone.
Thank You for telling the REAL story!
Terry DuBose, maybe? He's mentioned in, for instance, file 8, p. 135, which is in the middle of a long file from the San Antonio FBI that runs from 114-173.
DuBose was there. I'm not completely sure if he was griping about the FBI files, or if it was another guy...
Yep.
Okay; thanks. Please let me know if somebody remembers who it was. I want to know what they claim was misrepresented.
Wish I had more time right now.
Bump!
Scott, you are everwhere!
Excellent! :-)
Adding the Wall to your research bumps is a nice touch.
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