Posted on 08/14/2004 12:14:15 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
When presidential candidate John Kerry virtually ignores 20 years in the U.S. Senate to make four months in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign, the men who served with him have a right to a fair hearing.
The Kerry campaign and much of the mainstream media have been dismissive of the swift-boat veterans who oppose his candidacy. Even before exploring the substance of their charges, the group is dismissed as right-wing financed Bush puppets.
The truth is, however, that while swift-boat veterans opposing Kerry undoubtedly have a political agenda -- they think him "Unfit for Command" of the armed forces, the title of a book published last week -- their opposition would have coalesced regardless.
In most respects, the 250 men who are part of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (www.swiftvets.com), and the dozen former crew members of Kerry's boat who support him, are the only Americans positioned to comment authoritatively on his actions during those four months.
Houston lawyer John O'Neill, one of the authors of the book, followed Kerry as commander of the swift boat PCF 94. Others were in Kerry's chain of command, in administrative positions or on other swift boats.
The boats usually operated in groups of two to six. As such, other commanders would have been in a position to judge Kerry's performance. Only one of 21 living commanders in his swift-boat division supports his candidacy.
The period is fair game, not only because he and his running mate invited it but also because there are legitimate reasons to examine it. "I ask you to judge me by my record," said Kerry in his acceptance speech. "If you have any questions about what John Kerry is made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him," urged John Edwards.
Kerry claimed in a March 27, 1986, speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate that he vividly remembered Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. "I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."
It was a story he had told earlier, as well, blaming President Nixon for lying to the country. Kerry's swift-boat superiors deny that he was ever in Cambodia -- the border region was not in his division's area of operation -- and, according to another book about Kerry, "Tour of Duty," he spent Christmas 1968 in Sa Dec, more than 50 miles from the border. And, of course, on Christmas of 1968, Lyndon Johnson was still president.
Does it matter? It does to those he accused of committing atrocities.
The nation may be done with Vietnam, content to treat the era as a campaign backdrop, with no further interest in whether the atrocities Kerry alleges were commonplace.
But the two groups -- the swift-boat veterans and other Vietnam veterans who feel wronged by his characterizations -- have earned the right not to be dismissed as cranks and partisans, at least until they are fully heard.
Much of my adult life has been spent in the media and in the military, first in Vietnam and then for more than two decades in the National Guard. I have deep affection for the media and the military. Both are enormously powerful instruments for good. And yet I have never been completely comfortable with either.
With both, the capacity to inflict harm can damage lives beyond repair. With guns, pens and cameras, abuse of power is an ever-present danger. They are, therefore, instruments to be used with great care and with adequate training, discipline and a rigid adherence to standards of moral and ethical conduct.
Disagree with the veterans if you like. Think them partisans. Accuse them of bitterness. But in the proper arena for public debate, hear them out.
Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
Wooten is gonna get fired one of these days. Liberals must hate the guy.
Thank you Mr. Wooten for trying to find the truth.
Great new cover.
Why not write Wooten and ask him to use his influence to try and get O'Neill booked on the top shows in Atlanta? Don't see that there's any harm in asking. He's already stuck his neck out for O'Neill and the Swifties, so what's he got to loose?
AWESOME job Phil!
Not a bad idea, I think O'Neill has been on Boortz...
It would seem so obvious, wouldn't it? Even when they're on, they don't get to talk much over the "interviewer" (though local radio station WRKO Boston had John O'Neil on yesterday, and the host actually asked questions and let him answer -- unfortunately, I had to leave for work after the first few minutes, but he was good).
I can see why those few swift boat officers who didn't want to get involved chose to stay out of it. It is appalling the treatment these guys are getting -- on the relatively few occasions they get on the MSM (I'll bet Biden has more appearances on a good Sunday than they've had altogether!).
call me skeptical ... Wooten is really not to be trusted, and he doesn't even mention the Kerry campaign has admitted the whole Cambodia story was a farce, but I'll take it.
.....Repya, a veteran of both the Vietnam and Gulf wars, launched the Minnesota Veterans for Bush effort at a State Capitol campus news conference Friday
morning.
"We are firing a shot over the bow of the SS Kerry and telling him Minnesota is Bush country," said Repya, a leader of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota.
Scott O'Grady, who became a celebrity in 1995 after his F-16 fighter jet was shot down over Bosnia, criticized Kerry's anti-war activities and Senate votes on
military matters, going so far as to accuse Kerry of "treason" for meeting with representatives of North Vietnam when the two countries were still officially at war.
Kerry said in 1971 that he had talked with both the South Vietnam and North Vietnam delegations at the Paris peace talks, which he attended as a private citizen.
"I don't want a commander in chief who's going to turn his back on this country's men and women in uniform," O'Grady said......
.....But at least one of the book's allegations has tied the campaign in linguistic knots.
"Unfit for Command" accuses Kerry of inventing stories of being sent, illegally, across the Vietnamese border into Cambodia at a time when President Richard
Nixon said U.S. forces were not in that nation.
Jennifer Porter Gore, a spokeswoman for Kerry's Minnesota campaign, said, "We know John Kerry served on a swift boat that patrolled a river that was the border
between Vietnam and Cambodia, so it's a bit of a stretch to say he wasn't in Cambodia."
Kerry spokeswoman Tara McGuinness earlier told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that Kerry had later amended his speech to say that on the Christmas Eve in question
he had been near Cambodia but not in Cambodia. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1191381/posts
Not so. Jim Wooten is a conservative columnist and has to put up with the LIBERAL AJC, just as Jeff Jacoby has to suffer at the Boston Globe.
I'm reading this
and
I think
I'm going
to go
THUD
from the shock
I'm still amazed that the party most notorious for anti-war freakishness is still touting this guy's military record as a reason to vote for him. My sister-in-law thinks I ought to vote for him 'because he was in the Navy in Vietnam, and you're in the Navy too.' As if that should be reason enough.
The rest of his bio is worse.
Kerry's service and the Swift Boat Vets are getting a lot of play in Letters to the Editor columns.
But Jennifer, according to the evidence O'Neill and Corsi have presented in their book, Kerry was nowhere near that part of the river. Say, Jennifer, why won't Kerry authorize release of his full service record to the media?
Bump!
bookmark
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