Hummm...
Now, personally, the issues at hand in this election are the most important to me. Less important is either running candidates personal military service record. I have wresteld with this issue and have come to this. Vietnam was perhaps the most senseless conflict the United States has been involved in. But, the men who served there deverse our respect, our support and our grattitude for nothing other than the fact that in most cases, they didn't volunteer for their tour of duty, but instead were ordered to go and went silently and strongly and fought for their country's mistake(even if it was veiled behind rightousness).
Now, George W. Bush served but allegations have arisen that he pulled strings to serve home as opposed to abroad. John Kerry went to Vietnam for 4 months then came back and proceeded to stain the image of the troops with, as far as I can see because I have been doing a LOT of reading, not much more than over blown stories of what he "supposedly" witnessed first hand from a swift boat on the rivers of Vietnam. Hummm...so which is worse really? Also, swift boat operations were primarily on the water as the word SWIFT BOAT would imply. I know many military personal, both active and inactive, both young and old. All of told me that it would have been pretty hard for Kerry to "see" any of the things he talked about as it was not the primary function of swift boat crews to be invloved in close quaters combat with the enemy...leads me to believe these statements of his are word of mouth regurgitation of something someone else had to say or saw.
That being said, he will not receive my vote. In my opinion it is better to admit you're scared and serve in a capacity you can handle, as GWB did then to serve for four months as a coward then come home and condem ALL of his fellow fighting men for the supposed actions of a few. I will say this to everyone who loves to side with John Kerry, everyone who in my eyes are no better than the low-lifes at the airports spitting, FUCKING SPITTING on our soldiers coming back from Vietnam. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WAR IS LIKE, NO GODDAMNED IDEA. And neither do I for that matter, so stop acting like you do...it is a fucking disgrace. But I'm not running around pretending I do like a lot of these would be intellectual 18-20 somethings. Things happen in the heat of the moment you cannot control. This comes from the mouth of many a fighting man I have known, and trust me, I believe I know more than most. Things like killing an innocent person to single handly disarming a machine gun nest to save your fellow troops from certain death. I know decorated Army Majors who served in Vietnam, to Recon Marines who served in Somali, to Air Force Captains currently serving in Iraq and Afganistan. If Kerry saw these thing he says he did, it was the actions of a few. Not of the fucking majority. It was the actions of scared kids doing what they had to in the heat of the moment...in the hell that is war.
Here is a little anecdote I'd like to share with you to drive the point home. I grew up with a kid named Rob Domicola. Nice, clean cut, church going athlete type kid from a good family. I saw him the other night in the bar after about 8 or more years. Most of which he has spent in the Marie Corps being shuttled all over the world to kill people. I did not recognize him. He was not the same Rob I had gone to grade school and highschool with. Moral? WAR CHANGES SOME PEOPLE. Makes them do things out of character. Things which are not right but on the other hand which may be necessary. He told me when he had his psych eval at the end of his tours the doctor asked him if he felt remorse for the people he had killed. His response: "It was either kill or be killed. I did what I had to do to come home to my family. So in short. No." If I had asked him about killing in 1995, I'm sure he would have had a different response. But after being stabbed three times and shot twice, after earning a purple heart because the third stab wound was acquired fending off a Somalian Rebel trying to kill an UNARMED Navy Coreman attempting to save the life of a wounded Marine...I don't blame him for being a bit jaded. All I am trying to get at is this: What went on in Vietnam is Gods to judge...not fucking John Kerrys...and the fact he said those things makes him unfit for command in my eyes. How can you support a man who would turn his back on his own brothers in arms full well KNOWING what Vietnam was like?
Some of this is incoherent, and I apologize for that. I was just reading some articles on Kerry and Vietnam from a bunch of places...not JUST anti-Kerry places, and I wanted to write what I was feeling. Also I like this particular letter to Kerry.
Dear Mr. Kerry;
After spending only four months in the country of Vietnam, you testified before Congress in 1971 with these exact words about incidents you say you witnessed: "They personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Viet Nam."
Spread that on a farmer's field where it will do some good. I spent a year there in 1968-69 in a combat arms unit. I was a Field Artillery Forward Observer in an Infantry company and I saw combat every day until I was wounded. When I returned from the hospital, I was assigned to an artillery battery. I saw brave men fight and die; I saw brave, good men pass out all their rations to hungry kids, build churches and schools, donate to orphanages, cry silently at the sight of villagers slaughtered by North Vietnamese, but I never saw anything approaching the war crimes that you happened to witness as your boat sped by villages on the river bank. If you witnessed atrocities and did not report them, you are guilty of aiding and abetting. If you lied, you are simply unfit for leadership at any level. The most serious incident I witnessed was a young sergeant who grabbed the arm of a Vietnamese woman during a village search. An older, more experienced noncommissioned officer knocked the sergeant to the ground and told him, somewhat forcefully, that that woman was someone's mother and would be treated with respect. That's it, Kerry, that's my confession - I didn't report the incident.
I have children, and my children have children. They will, perhaps, stumble upon your words, much as one might stumble upon a pile of dog droppings. I do not relish the thought of having to explain that your "experiences" are either a bald-faced lie, or you belong to that less-than-1% of Viet Nam veterans who committed war crimes/atrocities. Either way, your words do great harm to the institution of the Senate, my home state of Massachusetts, the Armed Services in which I proudly served for 27 years, and the very country that you aspire to lead.
Is it true that you single-handedly prevented a vote on a Senate version of H.R. 2833, the Viet Nam Human Rights Act of 2001 - a bill that passed the House by a vote of 410-1? There are many who believe that our failure to speak decisively on that issue cost the lives of thousands of Montagnard tribesman in Viet Nam. Where do you stand on H.R. 1587, the Viet Nam Human Rights Act of 2003? Will you support a parallel bill in the Senate? Is it true that you served as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs and in that role you fought hard to limit the expenditure of funds to investigate sightings or search for remains? You have, I believe, been a steadfast, staunch and vocal advocate for normalizing relations with Viet Nam. Could it be that your beloved first cousin, Mr. Forbes, CEO of Colliers International, recently signed a contract with Hanoi worth billions of dollars? Any truth to the rumor that you didn't really fling your "hard-earned" military medals over the White House fence in a juvenile fit of pique as you say you did, but rather, you threw your roommate's medals instead?
I know dozens of retired military professionals. None of them support you - there is a reason for that. They all served honorably and well, and they all believe that you did not. I know war heroes, and your, sir, are no war hero.
-- Glenn Lackey