Please, when you try to claim facts about McCain, do a little research on who you are quoting:
Earl Hopper? Jeezus! All of us on active or active reserve duty in the 70s, 80s and 90s knew about him. A real nut. It was a sad case, but he went round the bend and ended up making POW fundraising his own pork the girl piggybank.
He was also the media monthpiece for a Dem front group in ‘08 called Vietnam Veterans against McCain.
In reality, Hopper’s son son was the backseater on an F-4 shot down over NVN. The pilot punched out. Hopper Jr. did not (proof of this in dog tages, DNA, etc at wreck site were found in the 90s.)
Hopper’s big problem, and I can understand the twisted thinking that created it, is that Earl Hopper could never let go. He told everyone from DOD to Dogpatch that his son had been captured, was being held after the return of other prisoners, although all the other prisoners said that the kid never made it out of the a/c.
The loss of his son broke the old man’s heart.
But it get’s worse. For many years Hopper, Sr. openly carried on an affair with a woman named Patty Skelly. Hopper and Skelly are the ONLY members of an organization they invented called Task Force Omega — TFO consists of Skelly, Hopper, and an Internet connection, though they would have you believe that they are legion.
Hopper and Skelly met in the mid-1980s and soon were an item among MIA families — basically, old Earl was using MIA family activities as an excuse to bonk Patty — all the while his wife, Earl, Jr.’s mother, Betty — was fully aware of this but was powerless to do anything about it.
He used this Task Force Omega to raise money he spend on “research trips” to Thailand, etc. for Skelly and himself
Hopper claims to have extensive experience in Army intelligence. This is typical of his lies and misrepresentations. In his last job in the Army, Hopper was assigned as Director of Intelligence and Security at a small Army base — this is a typical retirement assignment because it requires no real activity, leaving the incumbent free to concentrate on retiring. Such positions have no real intelligence duties — but Hopper would have you believe that he was a colleague of Agent 007.
In his dreams.
One DIA admiral, a man with long experience in the intelligence field, and a man who had considerable dealings with Hopper, gave this assessment of Earl Hopper, Sr: “He couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the sole.”
Next, Hopper’s crazy claims themselves: These are the actual quote from Hopper, with my capitalized notes:
“They took him (McCain) to the hospital, questioned him, and he gave highly classified information. WHAT INDEPENDANTLY SOURCED DOCUMENT SAYS HE DID?
The most important of which was he gave the “package route”, which was the route to bomb North Vietnam. He told in detail the altitude they were flying, the direction, if they made a turn, and how to get (into N. Vietnam ?)
THE PAVNAF KNEW ALL THE ROUTE PACKAGES. ANY AF WITH RADAR WOULD HAVE. IN HIS BOOK, GEN OLDS TALKS ABOUT HOW HARD HE HAD TO WORK TO GET USAF PLANNERS TO STOP USING THE SAME INGESS AND ENGRESS (PACKAGE) ROUTES EVERY MISSION, EVERY DAY.
He also gave them where the targets were; of their primary entry. Whether it was a railroad; whether is was a bridge; whether it was an ammunition or fuel dump; or whatever it was, he gave them the primary targets the United States was interested in.
SO MCCAIN TOLD THE NORTH VIETNAMESE WHERE THEIR OWN RAILROADS, BRIDGES, ETC WERE! AMAZING! I’LL BET THE NVA AF NEVER KNEW WHERE THEIR OWN RAILROADS AND BRIDGES WERE!
After he gave them that information, the Vietnamese naturally moved their anti- aircraft defenses into those areas and built them up and strengthened them. They also moved the rockets, aircraft weapons, into the “package route” of where the airplanes were flying in or egressing. The result of this, according to the information that came out later on, in intelligence, was that the Vietnamese started knocking down our aircraft in greater amounts than they had before. In fact, there was an estimate that we started losing 60% more aircraft and more men than we had previously. This went on for about a month, and it got so bad, that they finally called off the bombing of North Vietnam because of the information that McCain had given to them.
TOTAL HORSES**T. DID NOT HAPPEN.
When he returned, there were several of the American prisoners, to include five colonels, Colonel Ted Guy, was the one that wanted to prefer charges against McCain and two or three other returned POWs because during the time they were in prison, they were not acting in accordance with the military code. And as a result of these other colonels wanting to prefer charges against them, the Secretaries of the services got together and they decided that, No, they did not want these ‘renegade’ (my word, renegade) prisoners of war coming home to be charged and court marshaled.
WHO SAYS SO? EXCEPT SOME GUY WHO HAD NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE, AND WAS THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE DEMS.
So the Secretaries of the armed services decided and told the other POWs that they would not allow these particular POWs to be charged and be court marshaled over their activities while in the POW camps. Consequently, none of the POWs ever went into the court; [and] never had any legal action taken against them for being traitors while they were in captivity.
WHO SAYS SO?
I’m sorry, but it’s gotten to the point where you will post anything negative about McCain, regardless of the source.
What’s next? Oscar The Grouch and Miss Piggy don’t like him?
There’s enough wrong with McCain’s current politics that these lies just dilute the emphasis on the real problems.
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to reply to any more of of this. All the adults know better than to listen to “war stories’ and phony barracks BS.
There’s no need to reply to anyone who doesn’t
Earl Hopper is a retired US Army Intelligence Colonel, whose son Earl Hopper Jr, has been MIA for 47 years in Vietnam. Just another missing American serviceman that the treasonous McCain threw under the bus. Earl Hopper the despised the “hero” John Kerry as much as he despised “hero” John McCain. To hell with both those anti-American asses. Both should have been changed with treason. Both are responsible for abandoning American MIAs. And that sir, is documented fact.
“I have no respect McCain. McCain has betrayed every American, especially every military man, and especially every pilot who flew in Vietnam after his capture. Everything about McCain is wrong and to elect him President would be a huge mistake.
~ Colonel Earl Hopper
“Kerry and McCain are two of a kind.... Kerry lied about his purple heart and McCain lied about his conduct while a POW in North Vietnam. Neither Kerry or McCain have any effective combat command experience and both Kerry and McCain have never helped with the POW issue” ~ Colonel Earl Hopper
Army Colonel Earl P. Hopper passed away July 11th 2008. He was 86. Earl Sr. and his wife Patty are the founders of Task Force Omega, Inc. established in 1983. The research-driven organization has concentrated its effort on the return of POWs abandoned in Vietnam and Laos after the Vietnam War. Earl Sr’s son Earl Jr. disappeared in North Vietnam in 1968. Earl Sr. enlisted in the Arizona National Guard in 1940. He served with distinction in WWII with the 101st Airborne Division. During the Korean War, he worked with Military Intelligence.