Victor Davis Hanson: The Fog of Battle – What comes around, goes…

National Review ^ | August 27, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

Even in daytime fighters do not perceive anything; indeed, nobody knows anything more than what is going on right around himself.

So the fifth-century B.C. military historian Thucydides commented on the confusion of battle on the heights above Syracuse (413 B.C.), and, indirectly, on the inability of historians such as himself to sort out the conflicting accounts provided by veterans of all battles.

Fear, panic, noise, dust, motion, all the rare stimuli that so overwhelm the everyday senses, combine with the vagaries of memory both to inflate and to diminish what happens in those rare brief seconds when men's lives are won or lost. Such are the usual burdens of military history, both ancient and modern. When investigating the death of my namesake on Okinawa, or reconstructing some of my father's 39 B-29 missions, I was struck by the difficulty in reconciling all the oral remembrances of the combatants, both with one another and with supposedly "official" histories of the theater.

The commendable tact of Steven Ambrose's popular oral histories of the American soldier lay in his diplomatic treatment of first-hand accounts that simply could not be reconciled with one another — or with other criteria, such as official histories and the unyielding facts of weather, machines, or topography.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

FYI

[wideawake]

Hanson is too soft on Kerry in this article.

If Kerry "probably regrets" the horrible things he said about his fellow veterans, then he should be a man and apologize.

[wideawake]

Oh, and your tag should read "Omnia Gallia delenda est."

[ClearCase_guy]

I caught the same thing:

It is time to drop the mess and leave it at this: A veteran John Kerry, who easily could have been blown up on numerous occasions, came home mixed up and said and did things he probably now regrets, which over the last three decades have provided both rich political capital for him and ammunition for his enemies — depending on the ever-changing perception of Vietnam in the popular memory of a given decade.

Perhaps Kerry is willing to step forward and TELL us exactly what he regrets saying? No? He still claims it was all true?

Then hammer him for a few more months. Hammer him mercilessly.

[Publius6961]

If Kerry "probably regrets" the horrible things he said about his fellow veterans, then he should be a man and apologize withdraw from the presidential race.

[quidnunc]

wideawake wrote: Oh, and your tag should read "Omnia Gallia delenda est."

I know, but if I did that nobody would know what it meant.

Besides, Ed Koch says it that way and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

[tubebender]

You got that right!!!

[Bob]

A veteran John Kerry, who easily could have been blown up on numerous occasions, came home mixed up and said and did things he probably now regrets,...

I disagree. He was anti-war before he went, did what was necessary to get his future political resume beefed up, and then returned to his previous anti-war ways. This was not the result of any confusion on his part; it was pure calculated opportunism for personal political gain.

[FreedomPoster]

Agreed.

>>Still, in a spirit of magnanimity and appreciation for his months on a boat in a very inhospitable landscape, Americans perhaps should remember the words of Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: "For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual."

One of the main issues with Kerry's service is his lack of steadfastness when called. Both in possibly creating a "3 scratches and out" plan to leave in less than 1/3 of a tour, and in turning on his "band of brothers" and labelling them as war criminals upon his return.

[NavySEAL F-16]

I concur.

[68skylark]

Third, Vietnam service in the 1970s and 1980s quite unfairly was an albatross around veterans' collective necks, in part because of the previous statements of John Kerry and others in the anti-war movement who offered a sort of moral equivalence between the United States and the North Vietnamese.

I never heard much moral equivalence from John Kerry or the other prominent anti-war people. I heard them say that U.S. troops were morally worse than the enemy -- not equivalent. Did I miss something?

[jalisco555]

Hanson is too soft on Kerry in this article

Hanson's "more in sorrow than in anger" tone is exactly right, and matches the official Bush campaign approach. This gives Kerry much less to attack while maintaining the focus on his failings.

[xzins]

I agree.

This is a gentle brushoff of Kerry.

It's a "he should have known better" instead of a "he baldly misrepresented thousands of vets and that precious value known as 'truth.'"

[P H Lewis]

"Still, in a spirit of magnanimity and appreciation for his months on a boat in a very inhospitable landscape, Americans perhaps should remember the words of Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: "For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual."

OK, for the sake of argument let's say I buy this line of reasoning (I don't really), and JK deserves a pass because of his time on the ground (water) in Viet Nam. OK, fine. But what if this person goes on to take a position in government - the Senate, in this case - and over the course of his career, constantly votes against defense spending that may make the lives of those still in the field safer and/or easier. What then? Does he still deserve this "cloak"? I think not.

John Kerry: Your slip is showing, you shameless whore.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

TRANSCRIPT: 8/26/04
Steve Gardner, Foregunner, PCF44:
http://swift2.he.net/~swift2/gardner2.mpg

"I spent more time on John Kerry's boat than any other crewmember.

John Kerry hasn't been honest - he has been deceitful.

John Kerry claims that he spent Christmas, in 1968, in Cambodia.

And that is catagorically a lie. Not in December. Not in January.

We were never in Cambodia on a secret mission. Ever."

Ramsey Clark to Join Panel for Saddam’s Defense

arabnews press release 25 August 2004

NOTE :
Ramsey Clark is pictured below with Kerry and
Vietnam phony vet Al Hubbard
Who was head of the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement.


Al Hubbard Sgt., 22 Troop Carrier Squadron Aug. ’65-June ’66
- Al Hubbard, proven fraud who never set foot in Viet Nam.
The only Vietnamese he ever met was
when he was collaborating with the North Vietnamese in Paris
on the American Communist Party's nickel.

John Kerry's explanation:
"He (Hubbard) simply exaggarated his particular position.
But nobody knew it at the time. And those things happen."

NEW:
FReeper smith288 has an online version of
Kerry's "The New Soldier"
You can read it without downloading pdf files!
CLICK HERE

The New Soldier, (46 pages)
By John Kerry
and Vietnam Veterans
Against the War
PART I (pdf file)
PART II (pdf file)
PART III (pdf file)

Kerry hopes everyone
in the USA gets this book!

NEW:
“Without question,
we were held captive longer
because of the anti-war people,
the Kerrys, the Fondas and Haydens,
the names we knew over there -
they encouraged the enemy to hang on.”
Excerpt from “Stolen Honor” website
- Leo Thorsness
Former Vietnam POW
CLICK HERE

Jane Fonda tells the student audience at the Michigan State University in 1969;
"I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope,
you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communist."

Joe Moore, Can Tho Airfield 550th Signal Company

Copy and paste the links to everyone you know.

Send this url for the Steve Gardner video

http://swift2.he.net/~swift2/gardner2.mpg

Send this url for the online version

http://ejsmithweb.com/fr/newsoldier/

Send this url for the Stolen Honor website

http://www.stolenhonor.com/

Print this out (46 pages) and disribute it,
especially to the liberals you know.

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier%20Inro.pdf

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier.pdf

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier%20Epilogue.pdf

[hopespringseternal]

VDH is missing something here. The men may all remember things differently, but that isn't what this is about. Kerry didn't fabricate the purple hearts, or the Cambodia story, or the vicious lies about his fellow service members in the heat of battle. Each of these was a calculated lie for political gain.

In addition, while he may not remember the details when he was being shot at, he certainly remembers whether he was shot at.

[hopespringseternal]

Still, in a spirit of magnanimity and appreciation for his months on a boat in a very inhospitable landscape, Americans perhaps should remember the words of Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: "For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual."

If you are going to ask for mercy, you better be prepared to give it. For Kerry it wasn't enough simply to point out the faults of other veterans as VDH is accusing others of doing to him. Kerry viciously slandered every Vietnam Vet in order to inaugurate his political career.

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

[hershey]

V.D. is being too kind.