"Leadership Isn't a Speech or a Toll- Free Number..."
"Leadership isn't a speech or a toll-free number. Leadership is getting the job done. No American doubts that New Orleans will rise again, they doubt the competence and commitment of this Administration.
- Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA), in response to Mr. DVD Man's speech tonight.
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Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/16 @ 07:22 PM — (Reply)
He didn't just "make a speech."
He actually took a planeload of supplies to Louisian.
Kerry heads South with planeload of hurricane relief supplies
(Boston - AP) — Senator John Kerry is heading from Massachusetts to Louisiana with a planeload of supplies for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Kerry left Logan Airport today on a UPS cargo plane full of supplies donated by state businesses. They include five-thousand bottles of baby formula from Children's Hospital, five-thousand pairs of sneakers from New Balance and cleaning supplies from the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans.
Read the full article at: http://www.wrgb.com/news/regional/regional.asp?selection=article_40224
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/16 @ 08:26 PM — (Reply)
Kerry is an idiot..
Comment by — 2005/09/17 @ 12:12 AM — (Reply)
"Kerry is an idiot?"
I just love the rabid Right-Wingers who can't bring any substantive conversation to the table. When they don't know how to refute a fact, or debate an issue, they resort to name calling.
Senator Kerry is an idiot?
Well he's the same idiot who commandered his ship and his crew through the extremely dangerous, narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta.
He's the same idiot who earned the respect of his crew members by showing leadership and decisiveness in the most dangerous situations.
He's the same idiot who took a planeload of supplies to the people who needed them in Louisiana.
I'll take that kind of idiot, over the one we have occupying the White House, sitting on his behind not doing a think. You know, the one who went to bed right after receiving a call from the Louisiana governor, saying "We need all your resources. We need everything you've got."
I'll take John Kerry over the idiot in the White House whose staff had to make him a DVD to show him the reality of what was happening on the ground in Louisiana.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 07:50 AM — (Reply)
Well 250 of his crew members did not respect him. Or the one who claimed to be in Cambodia on Christmas day, ferrying a CIA agent...turns out to be a lie.
Comment by — 2005/09/17 @ 08:47 AM — (Reply)
Billionaire Democratic Sen. John Kerry has finally sent his own aid package to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans more than two weeks after the storm hit - and a week after most of the city had been successfully evacuated by the Bush administration.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 08:51 AM — (Reply)
250 of his crew members didn't respect him? Where did you get that from?
His crew members that were on the boat with him supported him. They were on the stage with him during the Democratic Convention. And spoke on his behalf.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Lies did not even serve on the same boat with John Kerry.
The people who served on the boat with Senator Kerry supported him wholeheartedly, and spoke to his leadership capabilities.
And "a week after most of the city had been successfully evacuated by the Bush administration." I don't know whether to laugh at this comment or not. People DIED in the Superdome and the Convention Center, while waiting to be evacuated. They DIED because of the Bushies' lack of response. They DIED because of Bush's cronyism, and having a man as the head of FEMA who couldn't even make it in the horse business.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 09:01 AM — (Reply)
They died because the local government would not let the Red Cross who had supplies for those people in. They would not allow the supplies to go in because they did not want to attract any more people in to the superdome.
FEMA managed other disasters quite well...the only variable in this equation is the state and local government.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 09:19 AM — (Reply)
There is blame to go all around: at the local, state and federal level. But you seem to want to absolve the federal government of any responsibility for the failed response to Katrina.
Once FEMA finally got off the ground and got to N.O., they denied people with relief supplies the access to the place where they could be the most help.
And you seem to be forgetting that the Bush administration enacted a National Threat Response Plan that said they could act PROACTIVELY (w/out local or state approval) to respond to a disaster (manmade or natural). Clearly they did not put that plan into effect.
When Governor Blanco called the White House and asked to speak to Bush, she couldn't get through and had to leave voice mail messages for people. When she finally got a hold of Bush and told him she needed all of his resources, he did not start making calls, and start putting people into action. He went to BED so he could prepare for a speech on Iraq the next day. The same speech where he compared himself to President Roosevelt.
People were literally drowning and dying, and he goes to bed to prepare for a speech the next day?
And let's not forget that his Communications Director, Dan Bartlett, had to make Bush a DVD of the various newcasts from New Orleans. They realized that Bush did not understand the reality of what was happening on the ground in New Orleans. He doesn't read. Doesn't watch the news. So they had to make him a DVD, for crying out loud.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 09:55 AM — (Reply)
I am not absolving the federal government of anything. The federeal government is not my saviour. More government is not the solution but the problem. If the government was the solution than Louisiana should be some kind of shining star to be held up, like some kind of utopia given that the state and local government has been held by Democrats for the last 40+ years. The problem is that more government makes people dependent not successful.
As far as Bush going to bed...the mayor did not ask for federal assistance till after the levy broke and he had buses he could have used to evacuate people out of the stadium. Bush could not have sent federal troops (posse comitatus, this is a constitutional thing in case you are wondering) until the state and local government requested. If he had you would be all over him for stepping on a Democratic governor and woman to boot. I think the FEMA director (read Michelle Malkins posts about this) should leave but you must remember that Bush bent to Democratic demands for FEMA to be put under the umbrella of Homeland Security, creating more bureaucratic spaghetti just as he did for the intellligence bureaucracy the Democrats wanted created after the 9/11 commission.
You are right in saying there is enough blame to go around. You accuse me of not wanting to blame the federal government but your own argument is that the federal government is the only one to blame.
By Bush sending in the military the evacuation was started and completed thanks to the brave folks serving in the Coast Guard, Navy etc. and people were helped. You can go on with this Blame Bush for everything but you are starting to sound cartoonish.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 01:17 PM — (Reply)
By the way the other 250 members of Kerry's unit were the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. So either they are all liars (neither you or I were there) but if you want to accuse them of lying that's your bit.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 01:19 PM — (Reply)
First, I didn't say the federal government was the only one to blame here. I specifically said there is enough blame to go around.
And your argument against big government, or government not being our savior, is totally not the issue here.
I didn't say I was for big government. However, I believe our government has certain obligations. That is what we pay our taxes for. When people pay taxes, they are owned a debt by their government, and they expect the government to be there for them in times of need. It's the right thing to do.
And you keep saying Bush could not have done this or that w/out the approval of local or state officials. I've said ad nauseum on here that the Bush administration wrote and implemented a National Threat Response Plan that calls for them to PROACTIVELY deal with a disaster w/out local or state approval to do certain things.
Moreover, Governor Blanco declared a State of Emergency on August 28, the day before the storm made landfall. She sent the letter declaring the State of Emergency to the White House. Whenever that is done, it is supposed to kick in certain actions by the federal goverment; actions which they failed to do on time.
Regarding Senator Kerry, not ONE PERSON from the Swift Boat group served on the same boat with Sen. Kerry. I am saying that the men who served on the SAME boat with him spoke to his leadership capabilities, and how he commandered that boat through the dangerous waterways of the Mekong Delta.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 06:22 PM — (Reply)
His biography, 'Tour of Duty,' by Douglas Brinkley, is replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact, contradictions and slanderous lies. His contempt for the military and authority is evident by even a most casual review of this biography. He arrived in-country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future. He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard for specific tactical assignments.
"While in Cam Rahn Bay, he trained on several 24-hour indoctrination missions, and one special skimmer operation with my most senior and trusted Lieutenant. The briefing from some members of that crew the morning after revealed that they had not received any enemy fire, and yet Lt.(jg) Kerry informed me of a wound -- he showed me a scratch on his arm and a piece of shrapnel in his hand that appeared to be from one of our own M-79s. It was later reported to me that Lt.(jg) Kerry had fired an M-79, and it had exploded off the adjacent shoreline. I do not recall being advised of any medical treatment, and probably said something like 'Forget it.' He later received a Purple Heart for that scratch, and I have no information as to how or whom.
Lt.(jg) Kerry was allowed to return to the good old USA after 4 months and a few days in-country, and then he proceeded to betray his former shipmates, calling them criminals who were committing atrocities. Today we are here to tell you that just the opposite is true. Our rules of engagement were quite strict, and the officers and men of Swift often did not even return fire when they were under fire if there was a possibility that innocent people -- fishermen, in a lot of cases -- might be hurt or injured. The rules and the good intentions of the men increased the possibility that we might take friendly casualties."
-- Commander Grant Hibbard, USN (retired)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 07:02 PM — (Reply)
-- Steven Gardner
http://horse.he.net/~swiftpow/index.php?topic=SwiftVetQuotes
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 07:05 PM — (Reply)
Elmers Brother-- Just about EVERYTHING the Swift Boat Vets for Lies has said has beend debunked. It's false. So why would I even trust someone from that group, when they have LIED to advance their political agenda. Again, that guy wasn't even on John Kerry's boat.
The people on John Kerry's boat know him best.
Well here is someone who was actually on John Kerry's boat. Someone who didn't lie to advance a political agenda:
Rev. David Alston
Good evening.
My name is David Alston, and I am a minister from Columbia, South Carolina. I join you here tonight in Boston-birthplace of the American Revolution-to celebrate the bedrock ideals on which our nation was founded-freedom, equality, and democracy.
I also come here tonight to honor a friend of mine, a man of courage and conviction who has fought for these ideals his entire life: John Kerry. Many of you in this hall already know John Kerry well. Others across this land are still learning about his long and distinguished record of public service.
I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we fought and bled together, serving our country. There were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from different walks of life, but all of us-including our skipper, John Kerry-volunteered for combat duty. And combat is what we got.
We usually patrolled the narrow waterways of the Mekong delta, flanked on both sides by thick jungle. As our crewmate Gene Thorson put it, we were a traveling bulls-eye. And we often came under sudden attack from the enemy, hidden in the shadows. Machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, it all came fast and furious, and Lieutenant Kerry had to make quick, life-or-death decisions for the entire boat.
You have to realize, a Swift Boat isn't armored. The hull is aluminum, about as thick as two nickels. And in the middle of a narrow river or canal, with no cover at all, even small-caliber bullets could punch right through it-and often did.
Manning the deck guns, most of us got wounded sooner or later, including Lieutenant Kerry. It would have been easiest, in an ambush, to simply rake the shore with return fire and roar on down the river to safety. But Lieutenant Kerry was known for taking the fight straight to the enemy. I can still see him now, standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, firing his M-16, shouting orders through the smoke and chaos.
Once, he even directed the helmsman to beach the boat, right into the teeth of an ambush, and pursued our attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty and courage. Even wounded, or confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool.
And when the shooting stopped, he was always there too, with a caring hand on my shoulder asking, "Gunner, are you OK?" I was only 21, running on fear and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give us hope, to show us what we truly had within ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I could trust with life itself.
I am a man of faith, and I did not come here tonight to glorify what we did. I came here to share my personal knowledge of a young naval officer who rose to the challenges and responsibilities of leadership, and who has always shown the courage to speak truth to power.
The 27th Psalm tells us, "Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident" I stand before you tonight alive, while many of our brothers never made it home. I am grateful to have lived to enjoy my children, to see them grow up. But I stand here before you only because almighty God saw our boat safely through those rivers of death and destruction, by giving us a brave, wise, and decisive leader named John Kerry.
Today, 30 years after Vietnam, American soldiers are once again fighting and dying on distant battlefields, at war with an elusive enemy. We pray for these brave men and women. They are our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones. Their loss brings all of us sadness beyond measure.
In a few short months, we will choose our next President. I believe we need to elect a man of faith, experience, and wisdom. A man who knows that defending America means defending our most fundamental rights. A man who knows that leadership is not just about telling others what to do, but inspiring them to do it. A man who knows the true meaning of freedom, equality, and democracy. And that man is my former skipper, my friend, and our next commander-in-chief, John Kerry.
Friends, here in this city more than two centuries ago, patriots launched a revolution that changed history. Generations since have marched, fought, and died to defend the sacred ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-and to make these ideals a reality for every American.
It is now our turn to defend these ideals. It is our time to speak out. It is our duty to exercise our most precious right as Americans: the right to vote.
So come November 2nd, join me in casting your ballot for a new, principled, and courageous leader-America's next president-John Kerry.
Thank you.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 07:47 PM — (Reply)
If you mean debunked by Lawrence what's his face who just shouted down John O'neill than okay.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/17 @ 09:08 PM — (Reply)
Yes, they are liars. Because if you do your research, you will find that their claims have been debunked. These idiots did not even serve with John Kerry. They were not on his boat.
And FYI: John O'Neill was a recruit from the Nixon White House.
When the Nixon WH first saw John Kerry testify before the Congress about what he saw in Vietnam, they immediately recognized him as articulate and forceful, and realized he could cause problems for them (read: support for the Vietnam war, or lack thereof).
So they recruited John O'Neill to be the anti-Kerry.
And the John O'Neill ends up lying about his association with the Nixon White House.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 09:25 PM — (Reply)
Moreover, I find it very curious that you just ignore Rev. David Alston, and his wonderful, emotional speech about serving beside John Kerry, and the leadership qualities he saw in him.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/17 @ 09:26 PM — (Reply)
He's one guy and if you give me a link where their positions have been debunked I will read them. The other thing is I spent 20 years in the military, it's very odd for so many people to come out against this guy unless there was some truth in it.
John Kerry said he spent Christmas of 69 in Cambodia, yet his shipmates say he was never there. When confronted with the lie during the campaign he finally coughed up to lying about it.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/18 @ 09:40 AM — (Reply)
Ok, here is some information to debunk the Swift Boat liars:
Who is Steve Gardner?
Swift Boat Vet "eyewitness" was not present for events leading to Kerry's medals or Purple Hearts
Stephen Gardner has been touted by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and by conservative hosts as a singularly authoritative critic with firsthand knowledge of Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) record in Vietnam because Gardner -- unlike all the other members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- actually served on a swift boat that Kerry commanded. Gardner has questioned Kerry's integrity; has claimed personal knowledge of the circumstances leading to Kerry's first Purple Heart; and has spoken with authority about the events leading to Kerry's Bronze Star. Fellow anti-Kerry Swift Boat Vets member Larry Thurlow has also cited Gardner as eyewitness support for his accusations against Kerry and against Kerry's first Purple Heart. Yet while Gardner did serve as a gunner under Kerry's command on PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) 44, he has admitted that he -- just like the rest of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claiming that Kerry is lying about his medals -- was not present for the incidents leading to Kerry's receipt of any medals or any of Kerry's three Purple Hearts.
Gardner admitted that "he was not on the boat with Kerry during the incidents for which Kerry got his medals," reported The Columbus Dispatch on August 6. And as a guest on Michael Savage's radio show, Savage Nation, on August 2, Gardner said that of Kerry's three Purple Hearts, he could only attest to the first; Gardner later admitted to Savage that he was "not on the boat with him [Kerry]" when that injury occurred.
Yet in repeated media appearances, conservative hosts have presented Gardner as an eyewitness to key Kerry events. And in at least two interviews, Gardner has falsely claimed that he was present for the incidents leading to Kerry's receipt of awards. On Savage Nation on August 2, Savage introduced Gardner as an "expert coming on this show eventually to talk about the phony John Kerry and his swift boat." On FOX News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor on August 9, host Bill O'Reilly identified Gardner as "the only one who served directly under him of the 3,500 ... an eyewitness." As a guest on the August 20 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host and former U.S. Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL) introduced Gardner as "a vet who actually served on John Kerry's swift boat" who would provide "a firsthand account of what really happened in Vietnam." On that same edition of Scarborough Country, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan touted Gardner as the "first member who actually served aboard John Kerry's boat to speak since this controversy erupted," before he asked Gardner, "[W]ho is telling the truth?"
In an apparent attempt to substantiate his status as an eyewitness to key Kerry events, Gardner claimed on Scarborough Country, "[T]hat boat never left the dock that I wasn't aboard it with John Kerry, never. I was with that boat everywhere we went." Gardner went on to make assertions regarding the events that occurred on March 13, 1969, involving Kerry's rescue of Jim Rassmann, for which Kerry received the Bronze Star. Gardner claimed to know that Kerry fled the scene on the river that day while the other three boats stayed and that Kerry then "turned around and came all the way back to pick up Mr. Rassmann that he had thrown off his boat when he took off, when he fled down the canal." But later in the show, Gardner admitted to not being present that day. When Scarborough attempted to revisit the "March 13, 1969 incident," Gardner said, "I'm not going to deal with that. Because I wasn't there."
On the August 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Thurlow cited Gardner to substantiate his claim that Kerry's first Purple Heart "was fabricated and wasn't based on any factuality at all." According to Thurlow, Gardner said "that he [Kerry] received an injury due to a mistake he made when he fired an M-79 close aboard and was hit by his own shrapnel" and that "Kerry applied for a Purple Heart that he did not merit."
On the August 2 broadcast of Savage Nation, Gardner himself claimed that all of the wounds for which Kerry received Purple Hearts "were superficial wounds, and I mean very superficial, scratches. The very first one is the only one that I can actually attest to because I was there when that wound happened." But Gardner was not there when Kerry sustained that wound; as noted above, Gardner went on to admit: "I was not on the boat with him but I -- in the next three days following that, I was with him on the boat going to take our new position up down there on the seaward operations."
In addition, on the August 16 edition of the nationally syndicated radio show The Glenn Beck Program, Gardner falsely claimed that three of Kerry's other crewmates -- James Wasser, Drew Whitlow, and Steven Hatch -- "felt the same way that I felt about John Kerry" before they joined the Kerry campaign. As Media Matters for America previously reported, comments from Wasser in a March 9 article in TIME magazine written by Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley directly contradict Gardner's claim.
— N.C.
Posted to the web on Tuesday August 24, 2004
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408240001
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/18 @ 12:33 PM — (Reply)
More info....
Conservatives echoed false accusation that Kerry lied about Cambodia
As accusations against Senator John Kerry (D-MA) by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have fallen under the weight of documentary evidence, eyewitness accounts, and the group members' own inconsistencies -- as Media Matters for America has extensively documented -- the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Vets and conservatives who have repeated their claims are now emphasizing one claim in particular against Kerry: that he lied when he said he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 or at any other point during the Vietnam war.
However, as Slate.com's Fred Kaplan detailed on August 22, this claim is as unfounded as those preceding it. And a 1971 statement by John O'Neill, co-founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, about his own incursions into Cambodia completely undermines his claim that he knows Kerry was never in Cambodia because no one was -- as Media Matters for America has documented.
Kerry senior adviser Michael Meehan stated in an August 18 Boston Globe article that Kerry was in fact headed for the Cambodian border: "On December 24, 1968, Lieutenant John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border." The Kerry campaign released another recent press statement that further explained, "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien."
In an August 23 article in Slate.com, Kaplan demonstrated that Kerry's assertions are entirely consistent with what we know about U.S. incursions into Cambodia at that time. According to Kaplan, by Christmas Eve 1968, "the United States had long been making secret incursions across the [Cambodian] border," and that Cambodian special forces' incursions were "escalating around that time." Kaplan also noted that the Cambodian incursions were conducted without the knowledge or approval of Congress, and as such "not much paperwork" would exist since "officially, U.S. forces weren't in Cambodia." Kaplan concluded:
The circumstances at least suggest that Kerry was indeed involved in a "black" mission, even if he had never explicitly made that claim. ... But one thing is for sure: Lieut. Kerry did not spend that Christmas Eve just lying around, dreaming of sugarplums and roasted chestnuts. He had plenty of time to cover the 40 miles from the Cambodian border to the safety of Sa Dec (he did command a swift boat, after all). More to the point, the evidence indicates he did cover those 40 miles: He was near (or in?) Cambodia in the morning, in Sa Dec that night.
The Regnery book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, co-authored by O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, states that "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War. In reality, during Christmas 1968, he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia." On the August 10 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, O'Neill stated that it "is a total and complete lie" that John Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1968 and sourced Douglas Brinkley's book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War as evidence that on Christmas Eve Kerry was "55 miles" from Cambodia in Sa Dec writing a letter "about how he had visions of sugar plums in his head, literally."
While O'Neill cited page 219 of Brinkley's book to substantiate his claim that Kerry was not near Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968, as Kaplan pointed out, O'Neill "chose to ignore the 10 preceding pages" in which Brinkley described Kerry's activities from earlier that day, which did in fact take place near the Cambodian border. From page 209 of Tour of Duty:
Christmas Eve, 1968, turned out to be memorable for the men of PCF-44. ... [A]fter [breakfast] the crew headed their Swift north up the Co Chien River to its junction with the My Tho only miles from the Cambodian border. ... Lieutenant Kerry ... patrolled the watery borderline between Cambodia and Vietnam.
Despite Swift Boat Vets' lack of credibility, conservatives have continued to echo their claim that Kerry was neither in nor near Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 and echoed O'Neill's selective sourcing of Kerry's journal writings in Brinkley's book.
Fred Barnes (executive editor of The Weekly Standard and FOX News Channel host): His [Kerry's] book, which he has sponsored ... [i]t's not his book [it's Brinkley's], but based on Kerry's only journals. He was 50 miles away. He was nowhere near Cambodia on Christmas Day, Christmas Eve. [Special Report with Brit Hume, FOX News Channel, 8/16]
Pat Buchanan (MSNBC analyst): And, quite frankly, that statement about him being in Cambodia seems to me, which he made as a senator ... seems to me fraudulent on its face. ... He has written later that he was [in Sa Dec] on Christmas writing home at the time. [Scarborough Country, MSNBC, 8/10]
Michael Barone (U.S. News & World Report senior writer and FOX News Channel political contributor): Historian Douglas Brinkley's bestselling Tour of Duty, based partly on Kerry's wartime journals, places Kerry on Christmas 1968 in Sa Dec, 50 miles from Cambodia. ... On the Christmas story ... [a] more unsettling possibility is that he consciously leapt the bounds of truth to make his experience seem more spectacular or to score political points. [U.S. News & World Report, "Winter in Cambodia?" 8/30]
Robert L. Pollock (senior editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal): In any case, Mr. Kerry's own journal, as cited in Douglas Brinkley's biography, records him being 50-some miles from the border at Sa Dec on that day contemplating visions of "sugar plums." [The Wall Street Journal, "Holiday in Cambodia: The most damning testimony on John Kerry in Vietnam has come from John Kerry," 8/16]
The Washington Times: Yet in "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War," author Douglas Brinkley provides a thoroughly different version [from Kerry's] of what happened in Christmas 1968. According to Mr. Brinkley, who received his information from Mr. Kerry directly, Mr. Kerry was on patrol in Sa Dec (50 miles from the Cambodian border) on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas day writing journal entries back at his base. [The Washington Times, editorial, "Kerry's 'Christmas in Cambodia'," 8/10]
Some conservative pundits went even further, asserting that Kerry was never in Cambodia:
William Kristol (Weekly Standard editor): The other thing I would add is the fact that his claim to have been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve has basically been retracted -- and it's very dubious that he was ever there at all -- I think has hurt Kerry. You know, it's like any series of assertions. Once one of them turns out to be false, others, which probably aren't as false or even may not be false at all, others get called into correction. [FOX News Sunday, FOX Broadcasting Co., 8/22]
Kate O'Beirne (National Review Washington editor): He has famously talked about his Christmas in Cambodia, his Christmas in Cambodia, "seared in my memory," and he's had to back off because he didn't spent Christmas in Cambodia. In fact, it appears he was never in Cambodia. [Capital Gang, CNN, 8/21]
Brit Hume (FOX News Channel managing editor and chief Washington correspondent): There's not a single official record that backs up that claim [that Kerry was ever in Cambodia], a quite striking claim. So when you start from there, you're already dealing with something that, for all intents and purposes, has been shown to be false. [FOX News Sunday, 8/22]
Pat Buchanan: It's about a road to Damascus moment, where he turned against the American government because his president lied to him while he's fighting in Cambodia. He said it again and again and again! He was never there! [Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, 8/23]
— N.C.
Posted to the web on Wednesday August 25, 2004 at 4:10 PM EST
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250005
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/18 @ 12:34 PM — (Reply)
And yet still more...
The lies of John O'Neill: An MMFA analysis
Swift Boat Vets' founder has told repeated untruths about himself, Swift Boat Vets, Unfit for Command
For the past several weeks, John E. O'Neill has lied repeatedly about himself, his organization, and his book. He's lied about being a Republican from Texas, lied about his political involvement, lied about his ties to the Nixon White House, lied about his campaign contributions, lied about his co-author, and lied about the makeup of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), the anti-Kerry group he founded.
O'Neill lied when he said Swift Boat Vets "have no partisan ties"; member in new ad was Bush-Cheney campaign official
O'Neill said on CNN on August 11, "[T]he people in our organization have no partisan ties, we didn't campaign in the last four elections for Democrats, by and large we didn't campaign for anybody."
That's a lie. The new Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement, unveiled August 20, features Ken Cordier criticizing Kerry. Cordier is identified in the ad as "P.O.W., Dec. 1966 - Mar. 1973."
But Cordier isn't just a former prisoner of war. He was also a member of the Bush-Cheney '04 National Veterans Steering Committee until controversy over his dual role with the campaign and the SBVT led to his resignation. The Bush-Cheney '04 campaign website suddenly -- mysteriously -- omits Cordier's name from the list of Steering Committee members, presumably in an effort to hide ties between the campaign and this 527 advertising. But images from a cached copy of the page, as well as a list of committee members, prove his membership.
Cordier was also named to a Bush administration POW Advisory Committee.
Cordier's involvement with the Bush campaign is not a new development. In September 2000, Dick Cheney personally announced Cordier's selection as Vice-Chair of the Veterans for Bush-Cheney '00.
O'Neill lied about being a "Republican from Texas"
During an August 12 appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, O'Neill claimed, "I'm not a Republican from Texas. That's just not true."
O'Neill is, in fact, from Texas. And he has given more than $14,000 in federal contributions to Republican candidates and causes since 1990, including $1,000 to George H. W. Bush in 1992. And he hasn't made any federal contributions to Democratic candidates or causes during that time. And he voted in the 1998 Republican state primary.
O'Neill lied about his political involvement
On the August 12 edition of CNN's Crossfire, O'Neill claimed he has had "no serious involvement in politics of any kind in over 32 years."
In fact, O'Neill has made more than $14,000 in federal contributions to Republican candidates and causes since 1990; most people would consider giving $14,000 a "serious" involvement.
O'Neill denied making thousands of dollars in contributions to GOP; FEC records contradict him
When FOX News Channel managing editor and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume asked O'Neill to respond to "allegations" that he has made more than $14,000 in federal contributions to Republican candidates and causes since 1990, O'Neill responded by saying "that is not true. ... Actually, about half of them were mine." When Hume asked about "the other $7,000," O'Neill claimed: "Those are actually funds, as nearly as I can tell, that were given my -- by some -- my law partner who has almost the same name, Edward J. O'Neill. I simply didn't give them. I would have been happy to give them. I just didn't."
O'Neill's claim that "Edward J. O'Neill," not he, made the contributions, is contradicted by Federal Election Commission records, which clearly list the contributor as John O'Neill, not Edward O'Neill. Edward O'Neill made his own contributions, which are listed under his name.
It's worth remembering that if Edward O'Neill actually made the contributions in his law partner's name, it would be a violation of federal election law.
O'Neill lied about ties to Nixon White House
After Chris Matthews said to O'Neill, "You go back to the Nixon era, when [former President Richard] Nixon was looking for someone. [Chuck] Colson and those guys were looking for somebody to debunk the Kerry record, because all the records show they were scared to death of this guy. And you played that role," O'Neill replied, "That's just not true."
O'Neill was lying.
Former Nixon special counsel Chuck Colson has said that Kerry was an "articulate" and "credible leader" of those veterans calling for an end to the Vietnam War and therefore "an immediate target of the Nixon administration." As such, the Nixon administration found it necessary to "create a counterfoil" to Kerry. Colson recounted, "We found a vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group." Articles from the April 21 edition of the Houston Chronicle and the June 17, 2003, edition of The Boston Globe confirm close ties between O'Neill and the Nixon administration.
Details: http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040004 and http://mediamatters.org/items/200408130010
Photo, from left to right: John O'Neill, Richard Nixon, and Charles Colson:
O'Neill lied about how many vets who served "with" Kerry contributed to Unfit for Command
On Crossfire, O'Neill claimed that there "are more than 60 people that served with John Kerry that contributed to this book."
In fact, only one man who served on John Kerry's boat, Stephen Gardner, is involved with Swift Boat Vets or Unfit for Command. While the group's members are veterans of the Vietnam War and may have served at the same time as Kerry or even on boats near Kerry's, only one man who served on John Kerry's boat, Stephen Gardner, is involved with Swift Boat Vets or Unfit for Command. And Gardner was not present for the events that led to any of Kerry's medals or any of Kerry's three Purple Hearts.
Details: http://mediamatters.org/items/200408130007
O'Neill lied about Jerome Corsi's role in Unfit for Command
O'Neill claimed on MSNBC's Scarborough Country that Jerome Corsi was "simply an editor and not really any sort of co-author."
But Corsi is listed on the book jacket as an author. His photo and profile appear in the book. A dedication from Corsi appears in the book, and the book's acknowledgments section is written in the plural form, making clear that the book was very much a joint O'Neill-Corsi effort. The book's preface notes that Corsi and O'Neill's friendship dates back 30 years and says, "After reconnecting, they decided to work together to write this book." Promotional materials for the book note that "John O'Neill and his coauthor Dr. Jerome Corsi (an expert on the anti-Vietnam War movement) have interviewed dozens of veterans who served with Kerry and have meticulously documented a shameful record of betrayal and deception on the part of John Kerry."
Perhaps O'Neill was simply embarrassed that his co-author and friend of 30 years is a raving bigot who has written that "ragheads" are "boy buggers"; called Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) a "Fat Hog"; referred to "Chubby Chelsie [sic]" Clinton; called Katie Couric "Little Katie Communist"; suggested Kerry was "practicing Judaism"; and suggested that the "senile" Pope John Paul II thinks "boy buggering" is "okay."
Details: http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040004 and http://mediamatters.org/items/200408130010
— J.F.
Posted to the web on Tuesday August 24, 2004 at 9:30 PM EST
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250002
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/18 @ 12:37 PM — (Reply)
Disgruntled Kerry shipmate claimed others thought Kerry was "despicable"; they disagree
Steven Gardner, the only one of Senator John Kerry's swift boat crewmates from the Vietnam War who has come out in opposition to Kerry's presidential campaign, claimed on the August 16 edition of the nationally syndicated radio show The Glenn Beck Program that three of Kerry's other crewmates -- James Wasser, Drew Whitlow, and Steven Hatch -- "felt the same way that I felt about John Kerry" before they joined the Kerry campaign. Comments from Wasser directly contradict Gardner's claim, however.
In a conversation with Wade Sanders, a former crewmate who supports Kerry, and radio host Denny Schaffer (who was filling in for Beck), Gardner alleged that he had a telephone conversation with Wasser in which "Wasser told me ... that he thought John Kerry was just as despicable as I thought he was for 35 years" before purportedly changing his position after a private meeting with Whitlow, Hatch and Kerry. According to Gardner, Wasser told him that "all three [Wasser, Whitlow, and Hatch] felt the same way that I felt about John Kerry for the 35 years prior to them meeting him in his [Kerry's] office."
But according to a March 9 article in TIME magazine written by Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley, James Wasser remembers the conversation that Gardner was apparently referring to differently.
From the article "The Tenth Brother" by Douglas Brinkley:
Jim Wasser telephoned me last week with the news that Gardner had "rung him up out-of-the-blue" to discuss their shared days together in Vietnam. "It was great," Wasser told me. "You know he fought bravely in Vietnam. He is still a brother. I miss him. I would like to see him." He then hesitated and went on. "But he has developed a strange, negative assessment of Lieutenant Kerry. It shocked me. His memory is dead wrong. He remembers things so differently. ... He has some kind of weird grudge against Lieutenant Kerry."
Steven Hatch and Drew Whitlow have also disputed Gardner's recollections of Kerry's service. When Gardner -- who described himself to Brinkley as someone who "had no trouble shooting gooks" in Vietnam -- asserted that Kerry "always tried to park it [the PCF-44 swift boat] away from the action and hide," Whitlow said Gardner's claim was "false"; Hatch called it "a falsehood." Hatch recently told a reporter that he joined the Kerry campaign "because people were saying things about him that we knew weren't true." Wasser, Hatch, and Whitlow all appeared onstage with Kerry when he accepted the Democratic nomination in Boston on July 29.
From the August 16 edition of The Glenn Beck Program:
GARDNER: Jim Wasser called me, or actually I called Jim Wasser, to talk to him just when Mr. Kerry was putting his campaign together, and Jim Wasser told me right there that he, Drew Kerry [sic], and Steven Hatch, all three felt the same way that I felt about John Kerry for the 35 years prior to them meeting him in his office, wherever that happened to be; I don't actually know where his campaign headquarters are.
SANDERS: Were you there at that meeting, Steve?
GARDNER: Uh, no, but I have direct contact with Jim Wasser. Is that not enough for you?
SANDERS: Well, let's get Jim Wasser here because I'm not comfortable with -- I'm not comfortable with hearsay.
GARDNER: That's fine, Jim Wasser would be happy to tell you that, because he doesn't have a lot of choice in the matter.
SANDERS: I'm not comfortable with hearsay.
GARDNER: The very essence of what Jim Wasser told me was that he thought John Kerry was just as despicable as I thought he was for 35 years.
SANDERS: Well, see, Jim Wasser has told me that he didn't say that at all.
GARDNER: But once -- let me finish, you didn't -- I didn't interrupt you, don't interrupt me. So, in the process of all this conversation, Jim said he, John Kerry, Drew Whitlow and Steven Hatch sat somewhere, and John Kerry talked them into his way of thinking. Now, what they did at that point in time I don't have any idea about, but that is a direct quote from Jim Wasser.
— J.C.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408160005
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/18 @ 12:39 PM — (Reply)
http://cshink.com/swiftvets_win.htm
It seems that many pundits are now offering their theories on how George W. Bush won the presidential election. In my view, the biggest salvo of the election came from the Swift Vets for Truth.
The mainstream media did their best to ignore them. It didn't work.
When the mainstream media finally did cover the Swift Vets, they used terms like "unsubstantiated charges" and "discredited." While many offered their opinions of the Swift Vet's assertions, they were never discredited. Using the Navy reports to determine what "really" happened is questionable, since it was Kerry who wrote the reports, or relayed the information to commanding officers who did. When you came right down to it, the incidents in Vietnam were one man's recollection of what happened over thirty years ago against another.
The Swift Boat Vets never retracted any assertion they made, but many of Kerry's assertions about his Vietnam experiences have had to be retracted and revised under the Swift Vet's scrutiny. Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia was a prime example. It has been Kerry that has been discredited, but you never heard much about that from any mainstream media source. Other instances of Kerry's inconsistencies have been documented on this website.
In many mainstream media television interviews with John O'Neill of the Swift Vets, he was paired with a Democratic operative to rebut Mr. O'Neill. The consistent tactic of the Democratic operative was not to talk about the specific incidents in Vietnam, but to be belligerent, talk over Mr. O'Neill, constantly interrupting him, never allowing him to make his points. In some cases, he was shouted down. In other cases, it was the news program host that prevented O'Neill from completing his statements, turning the brief interview segments into a morass of unfinished statements. Throughout all of this, Mr. O'Neill was very matter-of-fact, respectful and never strident.
In the end, enough of the public saw through the censorship of the mainstream media, the heavy-handed tactics of the Democratic operatives and John Kerry's "chest full of medals." When it came to deciding who was being straight with the people, the Swift Boat veterans were found to be the ones that were credible and believable. The presidential election results prove it.
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During the most mean-spirited verbal gunfire of any presidential campaign I remember, I have most respected the steady, measured refusal of swift boat veteran John O'Neill to let his fierce, robot-like attackers deter him from his successful determination to show that John Kerry is — as the title of his book puts it — unfit for command.
Mr. O'Neill was called a "liar" to his face on a number of television appearances, and, on the Oct. 14 "Nightline," ABC-TV's Ted Koppel actually sent a crew to Vietnam to film alleged eyewitnesses in order to disprove one of the accounts in "Unfit for Command" of how Mr. Kerry won his Silver Star. Casually, ABC News director Andrew Morse mentioned that "the Vietnamese require an official minder to accompany journalists on reporting trips." The minder-censor from the Communist totalitarian state was there, watching, to ensure that the "eyewitnesses" stuck to the government script.
On camera, Mr. O'Neill told Mr. Koppel: "You went to a country where all the elections are hundred-percent [victory margin] elections, and you relied on people that were enemies of the United States" for the alleged testimony. Mr. O'Neill repeatedly showed Mr. Koppel how the supposed eyewitnesses contradicted Mr. Kerry's own accounts in the past.
At first, the mainstream media had ignored the charges of the Swift Boat Veterans. Alison Mitchell, deputy national editor of The New York Times, admitted to Editor & Publisher that she's "not sure that in an era of no-cable television we would even have looked into (the Swift Boat story)." But as happened with the exposure of Dan Rather's use of ultimately discredited documents to deride George W. Bush's National Guard service, cable television and the Internet allowed the public to examine both sides of the swift boat veterans stories.
Moreover, in a front-page Aug. 22 Washington Post story, reporter Michael Dobbs noted, as Mr. O'Neill often has, that "although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records." When Mr. Dobbs tried to get those Kerry records through a Freedom of Information request, he received just over six pages and was told by the Navy Personnel Command that the full file consisting of at least 100 pages could not be released unless Mr. Kerry himself signed a Standard Form 180 granting permission.
To this day, Mr. Kerry has not signed that release form.
In his story of one contested episode during Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam, Mr. Dobbs found that the edge favored Mr. Kerry's version, but that in Mr. Dobbs' extensive interviews, the accounts by both Mr. Kerry and his swift boat opponents "contain significant flaws and factual errors." Only Mr. Kerry refused to be interviewed for the story.
Among the relatively few reporters who have engaged in substantial research on the contentions of both sides, the most painstakingly persistent has been Thomas Lipscomb in his reports in the Chicago Sun- Times and the New York Sun. Mr. Lipscomb has found much that credits Mr. O'Neill's charges, and so have I.
The former publisher of Times Books and an old-fashioned journalist in the tradition of one of my mentors, George Seldes, Mr. Lipscomb is an insistent fact-checker, dogged until he's ready to file his story. Accordingly, a Lipscomb report on the front-page of the Nov. 1 New York Sun begins: "A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975.... The (subsequent 1978) 'honorable discharge' on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record." If I were still teaching journalism, I would have the students study Mr. Lipscomb's entire article as an example of the quality of research that complex stories require but do not often get during the hurried reporting in the present 24-hour news cycle.
As that news cycle keeps churning, a few other reporters have taken the time to find out more about the so-called Bush operative Mr. O'Neill. In both the Aug. 28 New York Times and Los Angeles Times, a careful reader would have discovered that Mr. O'Neill voted for Democrats Hubert Humphrey, and, years later, Al Gore, for president. And his favorite presidential candidate this year was John Edwards. Also, Mr. O'Neill has described George W. Bush as an "empty suit."
Yet, on Election Day, historian Douglas Brinkley who wrote a hagiographic book on Mr. Kerry, "Tour of Duty," triumphantly told the Financial Times that the mainstream media have "exposed Kerry's critics as liars and frauds." I would not take a course with that careless historian; but I respect Mr. O'Neill for his courage and his public service for having enabled many Americans to look much more closely as John Kerry's presidential qualifications. And, indeed, the swift boat veterans did a lot to keep Kerry from the Oval Office
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/18 @ 12:54 PM — (Reply)
How come the media never asked John Kerry one tough question about his service? How come he still refuses to sign Form 180 realeasing all his records? The bottom line if you want to call 250 decorated veterans liars go ahead. I know having served that there is a problem with a guy that by the sheer numbers alone think there is something wrong. Again in the military even if you don't particularly like a guy (I don't expect you to understand unless you have served)if he was professional than you can respect the fact that he served.
Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same cause - honor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.
-- President Abraham Lincoln, December 2, 1863
In 1971, a Vietnam veteran wrote a speech defending the honor of the servicemen and women who served in that war and its surrounding theaters of operation. He hoped to present it before Congress, but was prevented from doing so, while the Senate testimony of anti-war Vietnam vet John Kerry was splashed all over the media. John O'Neill's eloquent defense of the Vietnam veteran lay sleeping in old files for more than 33 years, but it retains its original power and deserves to be heard at this point in America's history.
Through political contacts, former Navy Lieutenant John F. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran from Coastal Division 11 (Swift boat patrols), became the public voice of disaffected and often radical men who claimed not only to be Vietnam veterans, but also to have witnessed or perpetrated war crimes in South Vietnam. Enamored of the tall, well-educated Kerry, Sen. William J. Fulbright (D-Ark), invited him to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971, about what his organization claimed was the criminal legacy of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam.
Kerry was the leading spokesman of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), an organization described in several books as having been started by Veterans for Peace, another radical group which had been identified and cited before the Congress as a Communist Party USA front organization. Kerry's Yale education and eloquence helped to deflect attention from the radical orientation of the VVAW, so that when he spoke on that April day before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, his words were printed across the front pages of the newspapers and heard on television -- words that charged U.S. servicemen with committing war crimes as a matter of policy.
The most damning part of Kerry's accusation was based on "testimony" at the VVAW's Winter Soldier hearings regarding war crimes: "They told stories that at times they had raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable tele-phones 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."
Kerry charged that these practices were normal, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." [Kerry reportedly expanded on this theme in a speech that same month before the New York Stock Exchange in which he said that "Guilty as Lt. Calley (of My Lai massacre infamy) might have been of the actual act of murder, the verdict does not single out the real criminal. Those of us who have served in Vietnam know that the real guilty party is the United States of America."]
Meanwhile, another Navy Lieutenant from Coastal Division 11, John O'Neill, wrote an equally eloquent defense of the Vietnam serviceman, but his efforts to testify before a Congressional committee failed to come to fruition. O'Neill, who had served a full year on the Mekong River and Mekong Delta waterways -- eight months more than Kerry -- and through many more firefights, would have presented a very different view of what he saw on the water and on the ground during his tour of duty. His words would have given the American people and the world a totally different image of those who fought for freedom in a land far, far away.
O'Neill represented a new group of Vietnam vets, Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace (VVJP), created as a counter-voice to the radicalism of the VVAW. The group included members from the 5th Special Forces, the Army, Marines, and Navy. Among the names of the VVJP leadership were those of Minarik, Kerns, Johnson, Siegal, Kesler and Zeller. Thousands more soon joined the group across the country, making it nearly equal in membership to the far more heavily publicized VVAW.
In April, 1971, O'Neill's mission was to publicly defend the honor of the American Vietnam veteran, but he never got the chance to do so until July, when he faced off against Kerry on the Dick Cavett Show, and according to most press reviews, cleaned his clock.
O'Neill's efforts to speak to Congress were described by syndicated columnist Holmes Alexander in an article for Human Events (weekly) on June 19, 1971: "Lt. John O'Neill served in the same unit that Kerry was in, Coastal Division 11, in the Mekong Delta, and O'Neill had asked his two Texas Senators and his San Antonio congressman to get him into the witness chair. This didn't pan out, but O'Neill would have made some remarks which I am able to produce here".
Alexander was only able to cite three paragraphs of O'Neill's three page speech. Today, we have the opportunity to read all of Lt. John O'Neill's stirring words in defense of his comrades in arms.
----------
The Unheard Speech
I have come to speak for peace -- a just and lasting peace in Southeast Asia. On the basis of almost three years spent in Southeast Asia, I believe the best way to achieve peace and end the American involvement in the Vietnam war is through the President's Vietnamization policy.
From the text of testimony given to this committee by Lt. John Kerry on the 22nd of April, 1971: "I am here as one member of the group of 1000, 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."
I am a Vietnam veteran. As a matter of fact, I served in the same unit as Mr. Kerry, Coastal Division 11, while I was in Vietnam. On the basis of our shared experiences, I would like to make a few observations. 500,000 Vietnam veterans have joined the VFW and American Legion. Does Mr. Kerry speak for them? Over 1 million of the 2-1/2 million Vietnam veterans remain in the Armed Services. Does Mr. Kerry speak for them? NO - Mr. Kerry speaks for no one except himself and his embittered little group of 1000 out of a total of 2-1/2 million Vietnam veterans.
Mr. Kerry speaks of "...crimes committed on a day to day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." I served in Coastal Division 11 for a year. I never saw one war crime committed by Allied Forces. I served for much of the prior two years in waters adjacent to Vietnam. I never saw one war crime committed by Allied Forces.
That is not to say that there are no war crimes committed in Vietnam. While serving in Operation Seafloat in the Mekong Delta, I saw kidnappings of minors and assassination utilized almost daily by Viet Cong forces in the area.
Even among Allied Forces, there are certainly war crimes. In the city of Boston last year, there were 129 murders. Any group or city has psychotics. To say murder is part of the public policy in Boston is a lie. To say war crimes are commonly committed in Vietnam as a matter of policy is also a lie.
Mr. Kerry said: "The country does not know it yet but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men... who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal... we are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."
I am not angry. I have not been betrayed. I believe in America. I believe in the principle of self-determination, and from my own experiences, I believe that the Vietnamization policy of the President is the correct way to achieve this goal. So do the great majority of Vietnam veterans.
We don't often come to Washington. We have schools to attend, jobs to work at or maybe we're still in the Armed Services far from home. The President does our talking for us, as with most Americans. Mr. Kerry certainly does not.
According to Kerry's testimony: "We can not consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia."
When I belonged to Coastal Division 11 and earlier when Mr. Kerry belonged to Coastal Division 11, everyone there including he and I were volunteers for Vietnam. We always had a rule -- if you objected to a mission or to the unit itself -- you could submit a request and be assigned elsewhere. He never left the service and neither did I. I am proud and not ashamed of my service. Many of those who served in Coastal Division 11 in 1968, 1969, and 1970 are back in Vietnam. Those men, better men than either Mr. Kerry or myself, are certainly not ashamed.
Mr. Kerry went on to say: "We found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take the fight against the threat."
The unit Mr. Kerry and I served in does not exist any longer. The waterways we once patrolled and fought on are now patrolled by South Vietnamese. To paraphrase Winston Churchill "Give them the tools and they will finish the job." The continuing efforts of the brave South Vietnamese men who fight on the same rivers and canals we once fought on rebuts Mr. Kerry far better than I could.
Finally, John Kerry testified that, "We found all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies."
In March 1970, while operating in Operation Seafloat, we had a very slow moving American tug, escorted by a South Vietnamese swift boat. It was ambushed by the Viet Cong from heavy bunkers on the river bank. The South Vietnamese swift boat could have easily avoided the ambush. Instead, it turned and beached and assaulted the bunkers. This was the single most heroic act that I have witnessed during almost three years in Vietnam and it was done by South Vietnamese risking their lives to save American lives. This is not an isolated example.
It is also interesting to take a look at Mr. Kerry's solution to Vietnam -- he wants those same South Vietnamese to die in those same rice paddies for want of support from their allies -- the United States.
I could go on and on through the testimony of Mr. Kerry and others who appeared before this committee and find the same sort of misrepresentations. There is one that particularly concerns me. This is the use by the anti-war movement of the American dead to justify their cause. We all remember the demonstration last November. I knew so many people from the Naval Academy and Coastal Division 11 who died in Vietnam. Ken Norton, Hal Castle - a lot of people. How much more perverse, how much more morbid can you get than to use the dead for purposes they never intended. Can't they allow them to rest with their sacrifice stand-ing alone as mute testimony to their love of America?
Shall a radical minority govern the complacent majority? Shall South Vietnam be governed by the 10% who sympathize with the Viet Cong because they are willing to throw bombs? Shall the government of the United States be dominated by 250,000 people because they are able to appear in Washington? Shall Mr. Kerry and his little group of 1000 embittered men be allowed to represent their views as that of all veterans because they can be mustered anywhere and appear on every news program? I hope not, for the country's sake.
John O'Neill
April, 1971
----------
General Douglas McArthur, famed hero of World War II and Korea, said in his farewell address to Congress in 1951 that "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
Not this time, General.
Today, an "old sailor" has stood up for one last mission. He has taken his place on the bridge of the ship "America" to warn his country of the dangers from within, just as 9/11 warned us of the dangers from without. Though John O'Neill is a bit older and grayer than he was when he fought in Vietnam, he is back at his post once again, working to serve and protect his beloved country. And he is far from alone.
John O'Neill's weapons today are words, and his objective is to reclaim the honor of those who served so valiantly on the battlefields of Southeast Asia so long ago, even as a new generation of American servicemen and women are deployed once again on battlefields around the world, protecting America from new enemies.
John O'Neill speaks for those who fell in the line of duty and in the cause of freedom -- those who can no longer speak for themselves -- to defend their honor and their sacrifice. He speaks for the silent majority of Vietnam veterans who want to proclaim to their country and the world that they served the cause of freedom with their honor and their blood, and that no one can ever take this away from them again. And lastly, he speaks for men such as veteran Jay McConville of Alexandria, Virginia, who wrote this to the editor of "National Review" last March:
"I was in the military many years after Vietnam, but there were still veterans of that war in units alongside me. They were, without exception, well adjusted, honorable, and patriotic men, deservedly proud of their service. Perhaps by confronting Kerry's Vietnam lies, we can finally, as a nation, fully acknowledge the heroism of these veterans, and remove the undeserved badge of shame that has needlessly and wrongfully been affixed to them..."
The difference between 1971 and today is that Vietnam veterans now have a chance to tell their side of the story, to refute the many attacks on their honor, and to defend their service of long ago.
They want to reclaim their honor, Senator Kerry.
They want it back now.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/18 @ 01:08 PM — (Reply)
Why are you promoting John O'Neill when he is a proven liar?
It's just typical Republican tactics to ignore the realities around you. John O'Neill is a proven liar who has been debunked. And so has the entire Swift Boat Vets for Liars.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/18 @ 01:41 PM — (Reply)
He's been debunked by radical left wingers...hardly an unbiased opinion. I'll put it to you this way...263 men are testifying in a court case 250 say one thing 13 say another...who should I believe? I should believe people who were eyewitnesses. And if what John Kerry said is true about him participating in war crimes what does that make him?
Now as far as "typical Republican tactics" ...that's a trite little phrase you use way to often thinking it will shut people up.
BTW this argument was really settled on Election Day.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/19 @ 07:40 AM — (Reply)
The FACTS debunked John O'Neill. Don't blame us because you don't have the truth on your side. That's the problem with the Republican Party of today: they don't live in the reality-based community. You all are so wedded to your own ideas, even when the facts tell you you're wrong.
You say you should believe the people who were eyewitnesses. You are correct. And the eyewitnesses were the people who were actually on the boat with John Kerry! And those people supported him! What part of that don't you understand?
This issue was solved on election day? Tell that to the people in African-American neighborhoods in Ohio whose votes were suppressed on Election Day. Tell that to the folks who waited in line 4, 6 and even 10 hours to vote, and finally had to leave, because they had other obligations, like taking ederly parents to doctors appointments.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/19 @ 08:11 PM — (Reply)
He didn't spend every waking moment on that boat. Why aren't you upset about the close races in New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota etc where the margin was even smaller and no recount..etc was asked for...the reason..John Kerry won those states. 10 hours OH MY GOD....you could have been in Iraq and took a chance at getting shot at...do you think there were any Republicans who waited 10 hrs to vote...how about the Ohio check this out hahhahahahh
William Anthony, a Democrat who is chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party in Ohio's capital of Columbus, rejects any suggestion of voter suppression. "Most of the precincts that stayed open late because of long lines were in the suburbs," he told the Columbus Dispatch last November. Mr. Anthony, who is also chair of the Franklin County elections board, acknowledged that the high turnout and a ballot that involved more than 100 choices for some voters did create lines, but added that he was offended by allegations from "a band of conspiracy theorists" that voter suppression had occurred. "I am a black man. Why would I sit there and disenfranchise voters in my own community?" That, in turn, raises the question: Why do Democrats like Mr. Dean persist in inciting racial tensions with wildly exaggerated claims that black voters are being disenfranchised?
We all have obligations...elderly parents...kids...work...
Comment by Elmers Borther— 2005/09/20 @ 09:24 PM — (Reply)
Again, typical Republican proudly not living in the reality based community. Do you realize that in 2005, NO ONE waits in line 10 hours to do anything..except apparently to vote.
Check out this excerpt of an article from the December 15, 2004 edition of the Washington Post:
Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio
By Michael Powell and Peter Slevin
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Tanya Thivener's is a tale of two voting precincts
in Franklin County. In her city neighborhood, which is vastly
Democratic and majority black, the 38-year-old mortgage broker found a line
snaking out of the precinct door.
She stood in line for four hours -- one hour in the rain -- and
watched dozens of potential voters mutter in disgust and walk away without
casting a ballot. Afterward, Thivener hopped in her car and drove to her
mother's house, in the vastly Republican and majority white suburb of
Harrisburg. How long, she asked, did it take her to vote?
Fifteen minutes, her mother replied.
"It was . . . poor planning," Thivener said. "County officials knew
they had this huge increase in registrations, and yet there weren't
enough machines in the city. You really hope this wasn't intentional."
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/24 @ 08:28 PM — (Reply)
Well I stood in lines for 20 years in the Navy so you could vote. You're what we call in my house "ungrateful".
Nobody whined except the losers. Suggest you get a thesaurus to look up other words that mean "typical", because that's not an argument.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/30 @ 03:34 PM — (Reply)