John Kerry's "The New Soldier"

Here is a site that has the book (The New Soldier) John Kerry has refused to have reprinted and is now selling for $600.00 on ebay. And there is, I think, a lot of very good information here as to why veterans have a little problem with Hanoi John Kerry.

"There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones."(According to Kerry: zones where all men, women and children, who were in that specific zone had to be shot) "I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages." John Kerry, in a statement to a TV journalist.

John Kerry isn't hated, because he was against the war. Vietnam Veterans hate John Kerry, because he defamed them, insulted them, called them war criminals, rapists and baby killers. They hate him, because he successfully managed to make Americans believe his lies and managed to make America ashamed of the servicemen, who fought in Vietnam.

johnkerrythenewsoldier.blogspot.com...


[edit on 04/9/11 by GradyPhilpott]

John Kerry isn't hated, because he was against the war. Vietnam Veterans hate John Kerry, because he defamed them, insulted them, called them war criminals, rapists and baby killers

It would not suprise me if they did these things at all, kerry even admitted doing illegal things....i dont get why people are up in arms over him talking about it, they should be up in arms over the people doing these things. He really had no reason and nothing to gain by making these things up. They probably really did those things he said people were doing, and thats why he was against the war in general. (kinda makes sense).

If you call bringing this to public knowledge "defaming and insulting" so be it.

The thing is, HE WAS DOING THEM TOO! If these things were soooooo evil, then surely a man that can commit these acts is unqualified as leader of the most powerfull military force the world has ever known, able to single handedly deal death to hundreds of millions (if not billions).

Everyone goes around saying Bush is a war criminal - well Kerry is a SELF ADMITTED war criminal. From his own mouth.

People are looking at the wrong man as a war criminal - the real one is staring them right in the face.

Originally posted by electric squid carpet
.............i dont get why people are up in arms over him talking about it, they should be up in arms over the people doing these things.

As you have pointed out if what he said is true then by your own logic people should be up in arms over him.....you circled the wagon so I�m not quite sure what you wanted to say.

Originally posted by electric squid carpet
He really had no reason and nothing to gain by making these things up.

In reality he was trying to launch his political career. And jump local politics to the national level of politics.

Originally posted by electric squid carpet
They probably really did those things he said people were doing, and thats why he was against the war in general. (kinda makes sense).
....................

actually if it bugged him so much how come instead of taking it up the command as he should have and was required to do, he continued participating until he got home to launch his political career....ie it doesn't kinda make sense, it more kinda makes sense that he made a bunch of sh** up, would he be the first dishonest politician�.he has also already backed away from some of his most vivid testimony and as much as admitted he made it up.


[edit on 12-9-2004 by keholmes]

As you have pointed out if what he said is true then by your own logic people should be up in arms over him

exactly, this is a plausible argument

you circled the wagon so I�m not quite sure what you wanted to say.

Im trying not to take sides

In reality he was trying to launch his political career. And jump local politics to the national level of politics.

That may be so in some peoples opinions, but i really think he was shocked by what went on over there and decided to write a book about what he experienced and thought was morally wrong.

actually if it bugged him so much how come instead of taking it up the command as he should have and was required to do

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, maybe he wanted a wider audience (the public) to find out about some things others wouldn't tell them.

it more kinda makes sense that he made a bunch of sh** up

I'm having serious doubts about that one, i dont know...the whole "he wrote about what a few groups of US soldiers did in Vietnam, he is un-American, he made it up he made it up" mentality takes some serious adjusting to accept and get used to easily in my books.

Squid you know not where of you speak and your just arguing for argument's sake.

SEN. KERRY: There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals. hnn.us...

Kerry admitted to committing atrocities, but he lists no atrocities. This is the kind of clever manipulator that he is. He makes this statement because he wanted to blame the men"...who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals...."

This is how Kerry wants everything. He admits to commiting atrocities, but names no atrocities, but he wants the leaders who designed the tactics and policies, which are not atrocities to be held accountable for the tactics and policies.

The only people who fell for this load of horse apples was a gullible media and marxist fellow travellers who ate it all up. Kind of like you, Squid.

Kerry wallowed in the national exposure caring not one whit about who was harmed by his lies. He came home a war hero, but nobody was cheering war heroes, so he became an anti-war hero, at the expense of his fellow servicemen and his nation.

That is John Kerry in a nutshell.


[edit on 04/9/12 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by electric squid carpet

Im trying not to take sides

Seems to me you already have. Soldiers or sailors, can disobey an order given by a commanding officer, if it is a morally wrong command.

So, Kerry didn't have to obey orders to kill innocents. If he had a problem with anything going on in Vietnam that he felt was maorally wrong, then why didn't he report these things to High Command?

He obeyed these orders because he wanted to. Bottom line.


[edit on 12/9/04 by Intelearthling]

Originally posted by Intelearthling
He obeyed these orders because he wanted to. Bottom line.

I don't think he was ordered to commit war crimes. Of all the actions he listed none are war crimes. The only war crime he might have committed is the action for which he was awarded the Silver Star. There have been several accounts of that incident and there is a question of whether or not the individual he killed was even a combatant. We may never know.

[edit on 04/9/12 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by American Mad Man

The thing is, HE WAS DOING THEM TOO! If these things were soooooo evil, then surely a man that can commit these acts is unqualified as leader of the most powerfull military force the world has ever known, able to single handedly deal death to hundreds of millions (if not billions).

Everyone goes around saying Bush is a war criminal - well Kerry is a SELF ADMITTED war criminal. From his own mouth.

People are looking at the wrong man as a war criminal - the real one is staring them right in the face.

At least Kerry has been in War, even if he committed those atrocites should you jail the thousands of other soldiers who did it? Sh*t happens in war, you can't prevent that the best and worst sides of human nature surface in wartime. It's easy for people to criticise but when you haven't been there at that location at that specific time then you can't really say if you would've done any differently.

I'm not condoning what he did but maybe this has been playing on his mind ever since? Maybe he's punishing himself enough because fo what did. Remember what Martin Luther King said, i'm paraphrasing here but he said that history will not condemn the people who committed the atrocities but also the people who stayed silent and said nothing.

Maybe somehow by telling the journalist his experiences it was a carthatic experience for him?

To be honest i'd be more willing to follow a leader who's actually BEEN in war and tasted the full horrors of it, rather than someone who's only been in the National Guard, never seen combat, never suffered the horrors of it, never experienced loss in battle and who's practically made a living from handouts off his father.

At least he was honest about what he did, i'm not saying Kerry is perfect far from it but i think at this moment in time he is a lot better propspect than Bush.

America's political steering wheel has been turning right too much it needs to turn left more, otherwise the vehicle will crash and burn.

Originally posted by Flyboy211
At least he was honest about what he did, i'm not saying Kerry is perfect far from it but i think at this moment in time he is a lot better propspect than Bush.

Hey Flyboy. I'm telling you that Kerry is not honest about his time in Vietnam. You might fall for his load of elephant eclairs, but no Vietnam veteran does. The man is a pathological liar and a sociopath. He makes Scott Peterson look like Abe Lincoln. Trust me on this.

A Soldier is expected to kill and if needed be killed in the Service of His or Her Country. Im not sure what Mr Kerry was expecting from Vietnam but surly he expected to see and participate in Violence within the Orders of what ever mission he was asked to execute
The reports of atrocites that he details ( or dosent what ever the case may be ) are not unusual or even uncommon in War. You only have to look at the War in the Pacific and Europe for examples of that. But you dont hear those Veterans on TV or in a Book moaning about it.
As an ex Soldier myself i find it distasteful in the extreme that an ex serving Soldier spoke out like that in the midst of a War his Country was still fighting. To undermine the Soldiers that were still fighting in Vietnam, in my opinion, showed a lack of respect and a disregard for the Oath he swore to his Country. But that is just my opinion. As im not a US citizen i have no political ax to grind, these are just thoughts of a Soldier.

From Kerry's testimony:

...I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony....

So he's representing a 1,000 group comprised of 1,000 vietnam veterans.

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

So, now 150 vietnam veterans are lying?

...In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart....

True.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings," with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater, and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's and so many others.

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President's last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says and says clearly:

But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.

But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now....

This sounds like it could be spoken today of Iraq.

We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric, and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.

The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching begin them in the sun in this country....



Editorial Note: Concluding his formal statement, Kerry commented about administration attempts to disown veterans and looked forward thirty years (to 2001) when the nation could look back proudly to a time when it turned from this war and the hate and fears driving us in Vietnam.

More of his tesimony HERE.
Really a good read, you get to see the stuff others have conviently left out.

Not to belittle your service, because only a fool would not thank you for your sacrifice (and even though I disagree with you, be assured I thank you), but you spent four years in the Marine Corps, and one year in Vietnam. Kerry was apearing in front of congress, represented a combined tours of 1000 years (the organization he was speaking for) or at least 150 tours of the other vietnam veterans who participated in the investigation. How can you impune all of those veterans who had the courage to expose what was happening in Vietnam, at the great risk of being called 'traitors'?

And what if tommorrow, a veteran of Iraq, representing an organization composed of a thousand Iraqi veterans, based on the testimony of 150, said what Kerry said about Iraq? How would you feel about those Iraqi veterans? (Except of course, Michael Hoffman, An American Traitor)

Originally posted by curme
Not to belittle your service, because only a fool would not thank you for your sacrifice (and even though I disagree with you, be assured I thank you), but you spent four years in the Marine Corps, and one year in Vietnam. Kerry was apearing in front of congress, represented a combined tours of 1000 years (the organization he was speaking for) or at least 150 tours of the other vietnam veterans who participated in the investigation. How can you impune all of those veterans who had the courage to expose what was happening in Vietnam, at the great risk of being called 'traitors'?

Thank you, but I only spent six months in Vietnam, not long, but two months longer than Kerry and two Purple Hearts fewer.

I don't impugn the "veterans" of the 'winter soldiier investigations." They did that for themselves." Read this:

ice.he.net...

ice.he.net...

From 31 January to 2 February 1971, the VVAW, with financial backing from actress Jane Fonda, convened a hearing, known as the Winter Soldier Investigation, in the city of Detroit. More than 100 veterans and 16 civilians testified at this hearing about "war crimes which they either committed or witnessed"; some of them had given similar testimony at the CCI inquiry in Washington. The allegations included using prisoners for target practice and subjecting them to a variety of grisly tortures to extract information, cutting off the ears of dead VCs, throwing VC suspects out of helicopters, burning villages, gang rapes of women, packing the vagina of a North Vietnamese nurse full of grease with a grease gun, and the like. Among the persons assisting the VVAW in organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a book attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy Assassination and more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a book of interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22 December 1970 Lane's book had received a highly critical review in the "New York Times Book Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to show that some of the alleged "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had never even served in Vietnam while others had not been in the combat situations they described in horrid detail.
-----
The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service, are interesting and revealing.
Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name. Incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur. We know that hamlets were destroyed, prisoners tortured, and corpses mutilated. Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of existing regulations. In either case, they were not, as alleged, part of a "criminal policy." The VVAW's use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity. It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals.
-----
In April 1971 several members of Congress provided a platform on Capitol Hill for the airing of atrocity allegations. Rep. Ronald V. Dellums of California chaired an ad hoc hearing which lasted four days and took testimony from Vietnam veterans. Some of the witnesses were old-timers. One Peter Norman Martinson had testified before the Russel tribunal, been an interviewee in Mark Lane's book, and appeared before the CCI inquiry. Some new witnesses sounded as if they had memorized North Vietnamese propaganda. Capt. Randy Floyd, a former marine pilot, ended his testimony by telling the committee that he was ashamed to have been "an unwitting pawn of my government's inhuman imperialistic policy in Southeast Asia... And I am revolted by my government which commits genocide because it is good business." For his testimony Floyd drew the praise of Congressman Dellums: I would like to thank you very much for the courage of your testimony and the preparation and details. We are deeply appreciative of the fact that you came forward today."
-----
A certain amount of this guilt feeling was probably encouraged by the leaders of these groups, all staunch opponents of the war, and there is reason to think that at least some of the atrocities confessed at these rap sessions (and perhaps later repeated in public) were induced by group expectations and pressures. Some were the product of fantasy on the part of emotionally disturbed individuals. Robert Lifton, another psychiatrist involved in these sessions who believes in the frequent occurrence of atrocities, recalls the case of one veteran who after a year's attendance in the rap group could "confess that he had been much less violent in Vietnam than he had implied. He had previously given the impression that he had killed many people there, whereas in actuality, despite extensive combat experience, he could not be certain he had killed anyone. After overcoming a certain amount of death anxiety and death guilt, that is, he had much less need to call forth his inner beast to lash out at others or himself."
-----
One of the stories told and retold was that of prisoners pushed out of helicopters in order to scare others into talking. It is, of course, possible that some American interrogators engaged in this criminal practice, though not a single instance has been confirmed. We do know of at least one case where such an occurrence was staged through the use of a dead body. An investigation by the CID identified the soldier who had taken the photograph; it also identified a second soldier who acquired the picture, made up the story of the interrogation and mailed it and the photograph to his girlfriend. She in turn gave them to her brother, who informed the Chicago Sun-Times. On 29-30 November 1969 the picture and the story appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Post and generated wide media interest. A lengthy investigation by the CID, which began on 8 January 1970, established that a dead NVA soldier had been picked up on 15 February 1969 after an operation in Cia Dinh province (III CIZ) and adduced other details of how the picture had been posed. The commander of the helicopter in question was reprimanded; the two crew members who had pushed the body out of the aircraft had since been discharged and therefore were beyond the Army's disciplinary jurisdiction.
----------
-- "America in Vietnam" pg. 316-322

And what if tommorrow, a veteran of Iraq, representing an organization composed of a thousand Iraqi veterans, based on the testimony of 150, said what Kerry said about Iraq? How would you feel about those Iraqi veterans? (Except of course, Michael Hoffman, An American Traitor)

You cannot support the troops without supporting the troops. Michael Hoffman is betraying his nation and he is what the communists call a useful idiot. In that thread link regarding Michael Hoffman you posted, read the interview with him in the "Socialist Worker." Hoffman is a traitor.

Originally posted by electric squid carpet

In reality he was trying to launch his political career. And jump local politics to the national level of politics.

That may be so in some peoples opinions, but i really think he was shocked by what went on over there and decided to write a book about what he experienced and thought was morally wrong.

No actually he ran for congress

Originally posted by electric squid carpet

actually if it bugged him so much how come instead of taking it up the command as he should have and was required to do

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, maybe he wanted a wider audience (the public) to find out about some things others wouldn't tell them.

He says he didn�t�is he lying�personally I wouldn�t be surprised.

Originally posted by electric squid carpet
I'm having serious doubts about that one, i dont know...the whole "he wrote about what a few groups of US soldiers did in Vietnam, he is un-American, he made it up he made it up" mentality takes some serious adjusting to accept and get used to easily in my books.

Thats because most of your books quote his or an affiliated organization. Remember the victors write the history.

Ok, so we've established that Kerry is lying about Vietnam war crimes, as well as the 150 others. I'm beginning to think that no war crimes happened in Vietnam (see what movies do to you? You watch 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket and you get ideas in your head)! Oh, and Michael Hoffman was lying about war crimes in Iraq. But back to Vietnam, what about Lt. William Calley? Was he lying?

Originally posted by curme
Ok, so we've established that Kerry is lying about Vietnam war crimes, as well as the 150 others. I'm beginning to think that no war crimes happened in Vietnam (see what movies do to you? You watch 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket and you get ideas in your head)! Oh, and Michael Hoffman was lying about war crimes in Iraq. But back to Vietnam, what about Lt. William Calley? Was he lying?

I'm sad to say that as far as I know, Calley ordered his platoon to kill a large number of old men, women and children non-combants. It is a black day in history. Actually, I think "Platoon" was an excellent film as is "Full Metal Jacket."

I can tell a non-Marine that "Full Metal Jacket" is a good representation of Boot Camp in the late sixties, but the problem is that if that person takes the film too literally that person would come to think that a fat body like Leonard Lawrence would remain with his platoon instead of going straight to the fat farm. He might believe that the Marine Corps doesn't take every precaution to make sure that recruit cannot steal ammo and murder his Drill Instructor.

Persons, like Hoffman would be much better served to help to reduce whatever abuses he might have seen, instead of sabotaging the entire war effort.

Squid you know not where of you speak and your just arguing for argument's sake.

Thats a negative, i was trying not to take a pre meditated stance so you vultures wouldnt judge me by what person i seems to be automaticly in favour for. *does a robot dance*

Kerry admitted to committing atrocities, but he lists no atrocities. This is the kind of clever manipulator that he is.

Your a slow one arn't you.

"I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions."

No actually he ran for congress

So i guess this makes everything a bigger lie?

Thats because most of your books quote his or an affiliated organization. Remember the victors write the history

That didnt make much of an argument at all, no did it sway my political viewpoints and-or influence my understandings, to tell you the truth....i actually feel dumber after reading that than i did before (no joke).

This whole subject seems to be a HOT POTATO, and from now on, i really couldnt care about discussing it with common sense due to the immense ignorance and hate that comes part in parcal with it.

*robot dances slowly backwards out of the room*

EDIT: *robot dances back*

Conclusion:

I think; he went to Vietnam, witnessed and took part in some horrific events...and came back with a different perspective on what he wanted to do with his life. He then wrote a book (partly for his own sake of getting things off of his chest and party for the public to know what actualy went on in this highly sanatised war) about what he saw....he got a good response, he decided to dedicate his life to working for the US in congress (he just got back from war, he was probably unemployed, but he could write and he was an intelligent man and he had opinions and views, i applaude him for having the effort to get into politics after comming home from a horrible war), hopfully influencing what he thought was morally right while in there (which would be my goal if i was in congress). This seems like a normal senario to me, its what a normal person with the will and the right intelligence would do.

Now now, slow down for a minute, you guys are trying to tell me without any proof that he made it all up just to get into congress? What a low and unhuman thing to do. Do you guys just not want to believe what happened over there or what? Call me whatever you like, i would do the exact same thing if i was in the same position as Kerry, and i think alot of people got into politics and congress the same way (feeling disenfranchised, wrote their opinions in a book, got a good responce, decided to get their voice heard).

To say that this was one huge elaborate lie in order to get into congress is a bit vivid, i mean, he could have written the exact opposite and still had the same chances of getting into congress as he did with the book he released. Congress doesnt cater to people who did not agree with the Vietnam war you know.

This is nothing more than a weak character assasination, spread around by the opposite sports team. Their goals are to make the most honerable and gutsy things he ever did and forever link them with negative tones.

Thats enough, im out.

*robot dances back out the door*







[edit on 13-9-2004 by electric squid carpet]

At least Kerry had the nads to go to Vietnam and find out that it was a hell hole and that US tactics of free fire zones were idiotic. Bush stayed in Texas and asked not to be deployed. And now Bush has us in another Vietnam, probably because he's too idiotic to understand the first one.

Actually I don't care, they're both Bonesmen. This whole Presidential race is like a preppy frat boy slap fight.

curme - you asked if 150 veterans were telling
lies in Detroit. Grady answered beautifully,
but let me add my own 2 cents. - a whole
heaping of those 'veterans' were fakes and
weren't soldiers at all.

The Winter Soldier Investigation was a farse.
The 'soldiers' mostly weren't soldiers. Many of
the 'soldiers' were people who showed up with
fake names that couldn't be verified. Al Hubbard
was the worst. One of the major leaders of the
bunch, he claimed he was a captain and a pilot,
when in fact he was a sergeant. He didn't serve
in Vietnam and the Defense Department has no
records of him ever being in Da Nang, and it has
no records of his alleged 'shrapnel wound'.

Hubard met with Vietnamese Communists in Paris
and his trips to Paris were paid for by the
Communist Party of the USA.

Much of the Fulbright Committee testimony was
based on lies from people who claimed to be veterans
of Vietnam, but whom never exhisted (except under
fake guise in the Winter Soldier group), lies from
Al Hubbard who wasn't who he said he was and was
never in Vietnam, and from John Kerry who couldn't
back up a single event he claimed to have seen or
participated in.

[edit on 9/13/2004 by FlyersFan]

Originally posted by taibunsuu
At least Kerry had the nads to go to Vietnam and find out that it was a hell hole

He didn't have a choice. Well ... I suppose he could have run to
Canada, but he didn't have a choice if he wanted to stay in
America.

Kerry claims he volunteered for Vietnam
but that isn't entirely true. He petitioned the draft board for a
student deferment so he could study for a year in Paris. The
draft board refused Kerry's deferment request so Kerry decided to
enlist in the Navy because if he didn't, he'd be drafted into the Army
where the real heavy fighting took place. The Navy was considered
safer because the N. Vietnamese and Vietcong didn't have the high
tech war ships - battleships, submarines, aircraft carriers, etc.

Also - Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserves on Feb 18, 1966 in
'inactive' status, not fully in the U.S. Navy. Naval Reserves had
a shorter duty commitment and a larger part of the duty could
be served stateside on inactive duty.

Of course, he managed to cut the little bit of active duty down even
further by self inflicting scratches to get his 'three purple hearts and
your out'.