Joe Bangert's Testimony Before The Winter Soldiers Investigation [Bangert Is Kerry's Vet Organizer]

Usenet ^ | Unknown | Joe Bangert

[Hon]

[For clarification let me state that Joe Bangert is a long time pal of John Kerry's and he has worked with him on many of his campaigns getting out the veteran vote. He is doing that again this year.

For more information on him and his behavior--which seems to have bordered on treason at times--please see this thread:

Kerry's Veteran Organizer Joe Bangert Sang For The Enemy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092856/posts

The following is a post from usenet which purports to be a reprint of Joe Bangert's "testimony" before the Vietnam Veterans Against The War's "Winter Soldier Investigation". This was a project funded by Jane Fonda and Mark Lane and organized in party by John Kerry. It was meant to demonstrate that US soldiers were war criminals who commonly committed atrocities like My Lai everyday in Vietnam:]

Soldier/WS_05_1Marine.html Joe Bangert, 22, Sgt. (E-5), VMO-6, PMAG-39, 1st Marine Air Wing, 1st Marine Division (October 1968 to October 1969)

BANGERT. My name is Joe Bangert. I'm a Philadelphia resident. I enlisted in the Marine Corps for four years in 1967. I went to Vietnam in 1968. My unit in Vietnam was Marine Observation Squadron Six with the First Marine Air Wing and my testimony will cover the slaughter of civilians, the skinning of a Vietnamese woman, the type of observing our squadron did in Vietnam and the crucifixion of Vietnamese either suspects or civilians in Vietnam.

MODERATOR. Mr. Bangert, there's an incident here where you found crucified bodies hanging on barbed wire fences and in the same incident you witnessed South Vietnamese civilians shot without provocation on Highway 1. Could you go into this and kind of see how they are related? BANGERT. I can cover a couple of these at the same time. The first day I got to Vietnam I landed in Da Nang Air Base. From Da Nang Air Base I took a plane to Dong Ha. I got off the plane and hitchhiked on Highway 1 to my unit. I was picked up by a truckload of grunt Marines with two company grade officers, 1st Lts.; we were about 5 miles down the road, where there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the village and they gave the old finger gesture at us. It was understandable that they picked this up from the GIs there. They stopped the trucks--they didn't stop the truck, they slowed down a little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about five or six kids blown away and then the truck just continued down the hill. That was my first day in Vietnam. As far as the crucified bodies, they weren't actually crucified with nails, but they would find VCs or something (I never got the story on them) but, anyway, they were human beings, obviously dead, and they would take them and string them out on fences, on barbed wire fences, stripped, and sometimes they would take flesh wounds, take a knife and cut the body all over the place to make it bleed, and look gory as a reminder to the people in the village.

Also in Quang Tri City I had a friend who was working with USAID and he was also with CIA. We used to get drunk together and he used to tell me about his different trips into Laos on Air America Airlines and things. One time he asked me would I like to accompany him to watch. He was an adviser with an ARVN group and Kit Carson's. He asked me if I would like to accompany him into a village that I was familiar with to see how they act. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVNs had control of the situation. They didn't find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about twenty times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for twenty years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID, Aid International Development. He went over there, ripped her clothes off and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other and that was those instances.

MODERATOR. Okay, there were American officers present when this happened or...

BANGERT. There were two super-secret. I know they were field grade officers, who were with MACV in Quang Tri Province in the area. They knew about it.

MODERATOR. There are many different types of ways that we have heard of people being mutilated, of villagers being killed, but there is one way that affects the people afterwards. They don't physically shoot them or hurt them at the moment and this is the use of chemicals. And Mr. Bangert, I think, has a good example here where he shows twenty deformed babies resulting from Agent Orange Defoliant Spray. Could you tell us what Agent Orange is and the type of deformity that was the result?

BANGERT. I used to work with the pacification program in Vietnam and I traveled extensively through Quang Tri Province. Specifically in the area of Quang Tri City and west, Trieu Phong District, I saw approximately, during my tour, twenty deformed infants under the age of one. It never made sense to me, I thought it was congenital, or something, from venereal disease, because they had flippers and things. I didn't understand what I saw until approximately six months ago I read a report that was put out by Stamford which talked about the thalidomide content within Agent Orange and it was common knowledge that Agent Orange was sprayed in the area and we used to see it about every three to four days where I was in Quang Tri Province. If I could get back to the Vietnamese woman I saw that was mutilated so horribly by that person, it didn't really shock me because I think I talked about my first day in Vietnam.

You can check with the Marines who have been to Vietnam--your last day in the States at staging battalion at Camp Pendleton you have a little lesson and it's called the rabbit lesson, where the staff NCO comes out and he has a rabbit and he's talking to you about escape and evasion and survival in the jungle. He has this rabbit and then in a couple of seconds after just about everyone falls in love with it, not falls in love with it, but, you know, they're humane there, he cracks it in the neck, skins it, disembowels it, just like I testified that this happened to a woman--he does this to the rabbit--and then they throw the guts out into the audience. You can get anything out of that you want, but that's your last lesson you catch in the United States before you leave for Vietnam where they take that rabbit and they kill it, and they skin it, and they play with its organs as if it's trash and they throw the organs all over the place and then these guys are put on the plane the next day and sent to Vietnam.

[End excerpt. BTW, this last part about the rabbit is definitely from Bangert, as it is reproduced in John Kerry's secret book The New Soldier."]

[Hon]

This is just the start. I will post more as I come across them.

[Hon]

QUESTION. A couple of people on the panel mentioned brutalities to
women. Is rape and other sexual brutalities to women--brutality
involving the vagina in particular--is that a usual feature of people
on tour in Vietnam?

BANGERT. Yeah, I think that in regards to women in Vietnam, first of
all, you get this feeling sometimes when you're over there that you
don't even think of their sex. This is really disgusting. You don't
even think of them as human beings, they're "gooks." And they're
objects; they're not human, they're objects. The general rule was a
Vietnamese who is dead is confirmed Viet Cong and one who is living is
a Viet Cong suspect. And that's the way it was. Back to this specific
instance where I talk about the disembowelment of the women--I think
the person involved was a freaked out sexist, if that's what you're
trying to get at. I think maybe he had problems. He had to be--he was
in the Army for 20 years.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22joe+bangert%22+group:alt.war.vietnam&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.war.vietnam&safe=off&selm=9enugu08hb%40enews3.newsguy.com&rnum=11

[Hon]

MODERATOR. Any of you gentlemen here on the panel, could you release
any incidents of fragging that you ever heard of or saw?

MODERATOR. Mr. Bangert, you said you had an incident of this.

BANGERT. I guess the majority of us had been in country for about nine
or ten months and this new guy came. The new guy was a lifer. A lifer
was in charge of the mail. He stopped the mail for about three days
because he wanted his troops to shine their shoes or something or
clean up or shave or get a haircut and he stopped the mail. So someone
told him if we don't get mail by noon on a specific day before
midnight, that night you're going to be offered. But since he was hard
and he was in the Korean War, he thought that what happened in the old
Marine Corps is happening in Vietnam, he persisted and the mail wasn't
gotten out and before midnight he was fragged. And the mail did come
through the next day.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22joe+bangert%22+group:alt.war.vietnam&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.war.vietnam&safe=off&selm=9enugu08hb%40enews3.newsguy.com&rnum=11

[Hon]

Joe Bangert has not let these posts to usenet go unchallenged. He has posted replies on some of the threads.

First, however, as a way to establish his bona fides, here is a post from the same email address, which shows we are dealing with the real Joe Bangert:

Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War
W. D. Ehrhart

Guest Reviews

Write an online review and share your thoughts with other guests.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Hippy VV mbr VVAW E-6 from PA dumps cold H2O on YKW! July 10, 1998

Reviewer: bai@capecod.net from Hanoi, Viet Nam, Quang Tri and Brewster, MA.(USA) CC

Passing Time's time pasting took only one night! In that time W. D. Ehrhart flashed me back to '70, 68, 69, 71, and the nitexmasarclights of '72, Ho ho ho chi minhnity returns with both laughter and extreme anger! Ah! The ying and yang of it to me who calls Bill and old old dear friend whom I had never availed myself to his insight and wit like I did last night with Passing Time! Five stars *****, but never too soon to be a new motion picture. Of an old e-6 hippy from Perkasie, Pa, who graduated from Swarthmore College and worked at sea like all "Old Salt" gyrenes who went a few places, saw a few things and still live to tell about it in all speldid details from the heart. Perspicatious (if that can be now a new adjective!) jvb

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/602-5232136-9243865?asin=0899504167

[Hon]

As you can imagine, Joe Bangert's claims before the WSI caught a lot of flak from the veterans who post on the alt.vietnam newsgroup. For the record, I didn't see one person who believed him--or even one who didn't think his claims were laughable, even insane. (Remember, his nickname is "Crazy Joe." And this is the same man who wanted to demolish the Betsy Ross House and pull William Penn off of the Philadelphia city hall.)

Anyway, this is one of Joe Bangert's responses to some of this criticism:

I am the real Joe Bangert...

For the record, I am not haunted by my actions in Viet Nam. Having chucked
my medals over the fence during Operation Dewey Canyon III- my masculinity
does not hinge on dusty old pieces of metal nor colorful ribbons garnered
via tribal headbashing. The Winter Soldier Investigations were timely and
followed the My Lai incident- what happened at My Lai (they the DOD lied)
was not an isolated incident of aberrant behavior. Real veterans were
assembled from many units and time frames to explain to the American people
that what happened at Pinkville was- in a sense- SOP- you can deny it- but
then you would be lying- and this was just as Nixon and his lying sack of
shit administration who was elected to end the war but did NOT have a
secret plan to end the war, but rather expanded the war into the whole
Indochina theatre- 'Dewey Canyon I' operated in Laos in 1969- I was there
in the sky on the ground briefly. Thank God. Then in 1970 Nixon's
'limited incursion' into Cambodia ended in bitter defeat in seeking 'COSVN'
and ended up with South Vietnamese troops (Hackman Vo's people) beheading
Cambodians and eating their livers and hearts! Having been a helicopter
crew member I helped saved countless lives of wounded and transported the
dead and dying to their temporary resting places in the red clay of Quang
Tri and Thua Thien, Laos and Quang Nam.
This was followed by the assassination of American kids at Orangeburg and
Kent State who opposed the fucking war!
Being antiwar was a continuation of saving lives and preventing more killing
and wounding.

I am very proud that I worked tirelessly to undermine the Thieu regime and
help the American people cut off all aid to the Nguyen Van Thieu clique
They were/ and are fucking thieves and fascists. Wasn't it Nguyen Cao Ky
(sun glasses and purple ascot) and a former French Air Force lackey who once
said he greatly admired Adolph Hitler? You may recall that George Herbert
Walker Bush as well as Babs flew into Hanoi to give a speech on behalf of
Citibank (and was rewarded with a million Moonie bucks- was rumored to also
be in the market to buy 1,000,000 M-16's left behind to be used as some sort
of trophy for Viet Nam War buffs- the joke going on then in Thang Long town
was "Who wants to but a million ARVN M-16's- never fired- dropped once!"

I worked tirelessly after the war for reconciliation between our two
peoples and nations. I have no regrets. And yes, unlike you traumatized
hate-filled basket cases and right wing troglodytes I did go back and work
in Viet Nam in my own pursuit of happiness.
What I did is none of your concern. I'm okay with Viet Nam- there the
war is way over, it is here that closure has not occurred. I have many
friends over there as well as here. My friends over there include many
former PAVN soldiers who once fought against me- their friendship is a gift
which I cherish- I don't pretend you are my enemies today- but you sure act
it. Think about this. I'll take them anyDAY over most of you. And that is
a fact.

It is 2001 boys- grow up and get a life- THE WAR IS OVER! IT's ALL OVER!

WAR WHAT WAS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! '
Biet roi, kho lam, noi mai nhinh thi biet' as they might say to me ovewr a
few cold Halidas or Con Ho's and that is the whole truth.

Now back to your fragging- and self aggrandizing- you all deserve each
other- I will drop in from time to time as is my perogative- and if you
don't like it- well -tough shit then.

I will not respond to your red baiting McCarthyite tactics and ad hominem
arguments.

Look at yourself in the mirror- what do you see? Pathetic nitwits.

There is one lesson I did learn in the 'Nam - some of the best people I
ever met served with me and some of the worst scurrilous scumbags were there
as well, as you so much remind me from time to time-
Well it is time for me to noi tieng Viet Nam so

Tam Biet ya'll- and get a new target tomorrow- and that's the way it is.

G.I. Joe < ;-)

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=S_gU6.229%24OT3.154935%40nntp3.onemain.com&rnum=1

[Hon]

Here is another post from Bangert--he seems to hang out a lot in usenet and elsewhere on the internet:

Your understanding from whom? You are ill informed. Joe Bangert.
Wasn't lying then ain't lying now-so now
Biet roi, kho lam, noi mai, nhinh ti biet!

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=s5XJ6.249%24X4.58072%40nntp2.onemain.com

Bangert never avails himself of the opportunity to actually prove his claims or to refute the claims made against him. He just posts stuff like this.

It's pretty clear he was caught lying quite shamelessly. No wonder he is so important to the Kerry campaign.

[elbucko]

Which raises a question about the Winter Soldier Follies: Why didn't anyone ask the question, "What did you do about it? As a matter of fact, that question is conspicuously absent throughout the testimony. Bangert apparently did nothing, and that's just okay by the WS Follies. What do you think?

I think that Bangert is a load of Bravo Sierra.

[Hon]

Needless to say, Bangert is a pot head (which is probably the real reason he likes living in Vietnam so much):

Well Teo, I do not feel safe with my dong in your hands. So go back to
Cambodia- and this time find the real Hanoi Gold, straight from Uncle Ho's
Victory Garden, accept no substitutions. Then on to Ca Mau. mau len,
xich lo man.

+++++++

You mean to tell me it was against the law to smoke con xa in Viet Nam!
Well there were no signs to that effect in Da Nang/Quang Nam Airport when I
arrived.
I liked the Hanoi Gold- it grew well in Quang Tri- what's wrong
with Marijuana, huh?
It brings me to Buddha (for Christ's sake) ! Then I imagine I am Ming
Mang, chasing Francophonies out of Hue in 1800's. Who is carrying my
palaquin- why Teo and Ba Bach Mai and Hytran and Hackman the Xich Lo man.
Try it you'll like it.
Most Viet Kieu youth may well want to attend the great Smoke-In in New
York on May Day. Sponsored by the FLAME FOUNDATION please visit this
site and skip the Memorial Day cry babies in Washington. Bring matches too.
Go to "http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.com/mmm1_1.htm"
Thanks for the PSA spot- Democracy in Action!

YIPPIE-
The Ghost of Jerry Rubin-

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=oilW2.12%24YZ4.2660%40news2.randori.com&rnum=4&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dbai%2540capecod.net%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3DoilW2.12%2524YZ4.2660%2540news2.randori.com%26rnum%3D4

[Hon]

Bangert's wife:

Victoria Goldsmith (bai@capecod.net) is mom to three children, the oldest a college junior. She is the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod and enjoys playing the flute in the local town band.

http://cornell-magazine.cornell.edu/Archive/Nov2000/Notes70-79.html

[nopardons]

BTT

[Hon]

Bangert posted this song, which is the Viet Cong anthem on usenet at alt.vietnam. He seems to spend a LOT of time trolling and harassing the Vietnamese in this country who post there:

DDoa`n qua^n Vie^.t Nam ddi .
Chung lo`ng cu+'u quo^'c .
Bu+o+'c cha^n do^`n vang tre^n ddu+o+`ng ga^.p ghe^`nh xa .
Co+` in ma'u chie^'n tha('ng mang ho^`n nu+o+'c .
Su'ng ngoa`i xa chen khu'c qua^n ha`nh ca .
DDu+o+`ng vinh quang xa^y xa'c qua^n thu` .
Tha('ng gian lao cu`ng nhau la^.p chie^'n khu .
Vi` nha^n da^n chie^'n dda^'u kho^ng ngu+`ng .
Tie^'n mau ra sa tru+o+`ng .
Tie^'n le^n ! Cu`ng tie^'n le^n !
Nu+o+'c non Vie^t Nam ta vu+~ng be^`n .

DDoa`n qua^n Vie^.t Nam ddi ,
Sao va`ng pha^'p pho+'i .
Da('t gio^'ng no`i que^ hu+o+ng qua no+i la^`m than .
Cu`ng chung su+'c pha^'n dda^'u xa^y ddo+`i mo+'i .
DDu+'ng dde^`u le^n go^ng xi'ch ta dda^.p tan .
Tu+` bao la^u ta nuo^'t ca(m ho+`n .
Quye^'t hy sinh ddo+`i ta tu+o+i tha('m ho+n .
Vi` nha^n da^n chie^'n dda^'u kho^ng ngu+`ng .
Tie^'n mau ra sa tru+o+`ng .
Tie^'n le^n ! Cu`ng tie^'n le^n !
Nu+o+'c non Vie^t Nam ta vu+~ng be^`n .

English Translation

Soldiers of Vietnam, we go forward,
With the one will to save our Fatherland.
Our hurried steps are sounding on the long and arduous road.
Our flag, red with the blood of victory, bears the spirit of our country.
The distant rumbling of the guns mingles with our marching song.
The path to glory passes over the bodies of our foes.
Overcoming all hardships, together we build our resistance bases.
Ceaselessly for the people's cause we struggle,
Hastening to the battle-field!
Forward! All together advancing!
Our Vietnam is strong, eternal.

Soldiers of Vietnam, we go forward!
The gold star of our flag in the wind,
Leading our people, our native land, out of misery and suffering.
Let us join our efforts in the fight for the building of a new life.
Let us stand up and break our chains.
For too long have we swallowed our hatred.
Let us keep ready for all sacrifices and our life will be radiant.
Ceaselessly for the people's cause we struggle,
Hastening to the battle-field!
Forward! All together advancing!
Our Vietnam is strong, eternal.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=Buz13.409%249V2.31962%40news2.randori.com

[Travis McGee]

I'm ashamed to say I'm distantly related to this sack of feces.

[Hon]

Well, we can't pick our relatives.

[secretagent]

Good work tracking down Bangert's stuff.

[Hon]

Thanks!

[Hon]

Since Bangert is so busy getting out the Vietnam Veteran vote for Kerry, I thought I'd whip up a bumper sticker for him:

(My first foray into graphics. Using pathetic MS Paint.)

[ma_conservative]

You guys really Hate this Joe Bangert Fellow. To bad we Dont know where he lives. >:)

[douglas1]

I hate the fact that he was admitted into the MARINE CORP, somebody overlooked this guy ,he in no way acts like any MARINE I know, our MARINES were warriors then and they are warriors now, GOD BLESS THEM ALL.

[Tommie Paine]

This guy Bangert seems like a tiger. Be careful, especially if you are a city dweller.