Home » Kerry–old habits die hard (but who’s counting?)

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Kerry–old habits die hard (but who’s counting?) — 13 Comments

  1. I spent 49 months in Southeast Asia during the war, including my time in country. I was in one of the ‘you call, we haul outfits. I never saw nor heard of anything even close to what Hanoi John claimed and I seriously doubt the ‘Emmunah’ is telling the entire truth. He sounds like a war protestor that would not have served in Nam. People sure like to make up war stories but I learned to tell the difference in a fairy tale and a war story at an early age. A fairy tale always starts with ‘once upon a time’, and a war story always starts ‘now this ain’t no BS’. Either one should be taken with a grain of salt. I think 99% of the stuff you hear should start with the latter.

  2. Mark,

    That is not the issue. The point is that if the soldiers were willing to testify as to what happened, then they should have been willing to sign depositions as to the facts. Since they would not and also since many of them have been found not even to have been in the military let alone on the front lines in vietnam, the impression is that they were lying as to those things happening exactly as they testified. No one at all has said that no incidents happened. The question is the veracity of the people who were testifying, not least Sen Kerry himself.

    If you are going to cast stones at the people you served with, then you should have the b*lls to sign that statement or else say nothing at all. Apparently in the case of Sen kerry’s Form 180, he prefers to say nothing at all. In the case of the men testifying in 1971, apparently they also refuse to own up to the actual events in a verifiable way. That therefore makes me believe that it was all a big fraud and our servicement have been paying the bill for those pieces of scum for almost 35 years and will continue to pay that bill so long as that big POS Kerry is still around to blather about his vietnam service, fraudulent as it probably is.

  3. So to recap, the atrocities occurred but it wasn’t the Winter Soldiers who participated in or witnessed the behavior that were genuine because they won’t sign depositions they were with John Kerry?

    Unflippinbelievable. The terrorists really did a number on you folks. It’s like a pack of hollocost deniers. Don’t expect thinking Americans to buy it. The facts say otherwise.

  4. Excellent post. The real reason that they didn’t sign the depositions is that they didn’t want people to focus on specific individual incidents; they wanted folks to believe that the war crimes they described were commonplace and every day. Indeed, look at Bob Herbert’s column today on Aidan Delgado (the John Kerry of his generation) in which Delgado makes it clear:

    His goal, he said, is to convince his listeners that the abuse of innocent Iraqis by the American military is not limited to “a few bad apples,” as the military would like the public to believe.

    Get it? The specific charges are bad and deserve investigation. But that does not serve the anti-warrior’s purpose, which is to cast blame on the entire system, the entire war.

    Of course, another reason that they didn’t sign depositions is that many were BS’ing about being in Vietnam, and many others were BS’ing about what they’d done there–Filmstrip Projector Rambo Ward Churchill is just a johnny-come-lately to that effort.

    Good to see you getting some recognition in the blogosphere–you really are a terrific writer and thinker!

  5. emmunah does not seem to have read the original piece, which addressed the actions and words of certain individuals, especially John Kerry, not the question of what happened or didn’t in Vietnam.

    If John Kerry simply jumped on what was, at the time, a popular bandwagon, and lied to get attention, and his words and actions hurt the innocent, as it certainly appears, then he is beyond despicable.

    In the context of 1970s zeitgeist, to lie about the atrocities he had seen was similar to lying about one’s heroics during a war spent in a cushy job stateside, during WW II. Furthermore, it netted him a political career as a young, inexperienced, and otherwise utterly unremarkable and probably unelectable man. And it left a legacy of damage, as such lies will.

    When a man is on trial for murder in Los Angeles, the prosecution is certainly not entitled to bring up random stories about murders in LA. The issue at hand is John Kerry’s integrity, not what happened somewhere in Vietnam, at some time, no matter how often it may have occurred.

    dr. sanity is right on: “John Kerry has received a free pass his entire life”

    Great blog, neo-neo!

  6. Emmunah–The thing is, the Winter Soldiers had already “ratted each other out” in public testimony that was recorded for posterity. The just didn’t go that extra mile and sign depositions, even though they themselves were offered immunity. They had done the damage to their fellow soldiers already, though.

    Other cases, such as My Lai, were very different. Soldiers were willing to testify against each other there. But, in contrast, not one of the Winter Soldier allegations has ever held up, although multiple investigations have been launched.

    What was the difference? Some think the difference was that many of the Winter Soldiers were psychologically damaged, it’s true–but that they had not been in Vietnam at all. These issues have never been totally resolved. See here and here for some of the claims against the veracity of those testifying at the Winter Soldier investigations. There is also a book, “Stolen Valor” by BG Burkett, that goes into some detail about this. And the only sworn affadavit of a Winter Soldier testifier apparently is one signed recently by a man named Steve Pitkin, who claims he was coerced into lying and making false atrocity allegations at the Winter Soldier hearings.

    There is no question, of course, that some atrocities occurred in Vietnam. And there’s no question that some men who served there had psychological damage afterwards (by the way, this happens, to some extent, in every war). But there’s a great deal of question about the veracity of those who testified in Kerry’s Winter Soldier investigations.

  7. I never saw any atrocities or torture in the unit I was with in Nam. Kerry wanted to be perceived as a warrior but he went home after a few months having sustained minor wounds(?). Purple hearts are worn on the body, not on paper. Too bad he didn’t have a flair for the dramatic, othewise he could have taken off his shirt and shown the world some of his battle scars. I don’t think he has any scars from Viet Nam, just like he didn’t witness any atrocities or see any torture. I always found it amazing that as an Officer he was not able to take any action against atrocities yet was able to get himself in front of the cameras and a Senate hearing to take action afterwards.

  8. I have read personal correspondence from soldiers coming back from Iraq, and/or in Iraq with regard to their “in country” behavior. It does not surprise me that no one is going to sign a deposition.

    Soldiers, especially in Vietnam, did not “rat each other out” to the “man”. Yeah, yeah, what do I know right? Well, I was assigned to three different Army Medical Centers while I was in the Army, and I served on the psych wards as part of my MOS, so I heard all of the same stories Kerry told…only I heard them before it become “PC” to forget them, or to even use the same terminology that they used then.

    Soldiers, at that young age, indoctrinated (yes, the military does that. There is even a psych dept. that studies how BEST to do it) into fighting and relying only on their brothers in arms will do things in a combat situation that they would NEVER do in their natural environment. In Vietnam, depending on where you were, it really was the law of the jungle. This is true of all wars, but Kerry’s primary crime was in breaking the code of silence that soldiers keep to themselves and telling people.

    You see, it was not ALL Vietnam Vets….but enough…and it was the command structure too…and combined with rampant drug use, a breakdown in disipline and you have a lot of choas and needless death.

    Dealing with that is difficult, and there are a few different coping mechanisms. One is to deny, one is to talk it out. If you are the denying kind, then the one that talks steals your honor. All a soldier has is his honor. That’s the real reason that these Vet’s that talked are hated…and must be brought low…because their honor must be stolen in order to retreive the “rightful” soldiers honor that comes with denial. Nothing frightens those who have repressed memories more than one who would expose those memories…it takes a lot of pscyhic muscle to keep those memories at bay.

    Having counseled Vets, Victims of Torture (who were often torturors themselves) and refugees…it’s never easy to admit to humanity what you do, or what was done to you. This is why it will always be such a divisive issue.

    Sorry this is so long:). I seem unable to write the neat and short paragraphs that so many have mastered in our internet age:)

  9. It’s no surprise that many of the Winter Soldiers didn’t want to go into details. Then the details of their service may have been looked into. It was later proven that some had never served in Vietnam and some were never in the military at all.

  10. The truth is that John Kerry has received a free pass his entire life and no one has ever called him on it (well, a few have tried); but Kerry has NEVER suffered any consequences from his behavior. Most people don’t even know about the discrepancies in his record or about not signing the form to release his records. He continually counts on the kindness of strangers (the press).

  11. It’s interesting, considering all the interest in Bush’s time in the Guard that no journalist ever challenged Kerry before the election.
    I’m trying to think of a reason besides media bias.
    Trying……..

    Richard Aubrey
    raubrey@sbcglobal.net

  12. Kerry apparently was able to have his silver star record cleaned up, since he had it reissued several times. I suspect that he will sign his 180 once he gets that cleaned up too.

  13. 92 Amens….I’m thinking we should begin focusing attention to Tim Russert, in the hopes he will push Kerry into signing. At some point Russert begins to lose cred by not pursuing the issue. Imus doesn’t stand to lose anything, but when he latches onto an issue, he can raise a ruckus.

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