General Interest > Tacitus' Realm

John Kerry

<< < (6/6)

kaydeejaded:
Kerry is a decorated vietnam veteran he is not exactly ignorant to the world

is George Bush?

hmmm I think they are still trying to figure out where he was AWOL
Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
PERICLES (430 BC)
--- End quote ---

thepatriot:

--- Quote ---On 2004-04-14 20:42:00, kaydeejaded wrote:

"Kerry is a decorated vietnam veteran he is not exactly ignorant to the world



is George Bush?



hmmm I think they are still trying to figure out where he was AWOL
Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
PERICLES (430 BC)
--- End quote ---
"

--- End quote ---





The following was sent to a Marine chat net by a retired Marine Master Sergeant who was in S-2, 3rd Bn, 1st Marines, Korea in 1954. It calls into serious question John Kerry's military actions in Vietnam. We present it to give our readers another perspective to the media's one-sided "war hero" adulation, and to open his actions to the light of public discourse. -- The Editors.

"I was in the Delta shortly after John Kerry left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used, and I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:

(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware that fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job, but that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.

(2) He collected three Purple Hearts but has no limp. All his injuries were so minor that he lost no time from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats were almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds, at least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three Purple Hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong.

(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.

(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring-do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.

(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple: If you had somebody on the beach, your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.

Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Japanese destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early and requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress. In that election, he finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970, so he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and has Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting. A few years later he winds up in the Senate himself, where he votes against every major defense bill and says the CIA is irrelevant after the Berlin Wall came down. He votes against the Gulf War (a big political mistake since that turned out well), then decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq -- but that didn't fare as well with the Democrats, so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering our flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander-in-Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated."

Anonymous:
Why is it that the Democrat power-brokers hope Kerry DOESN'T win the election?  Because Hillary Clinton has a better chance of winning the presidency in 2008 if Bush is re-elected.

Think about it, Kerry is only where he is because of the size of his campaign fund war-chest.  The real favorite of the Democratic Party is Senator Clinton.  If Kerry wins and manages not to make any major mistakes, Clinton won't stand a chance.

:smile:

Anonymous:
Man this guy's scary. Polls this weekend (3/20) had Bush and Kerry at 48% each, and when Nader was facctored in, I think it was something like 48% Bush, 43% Kerry and 5% Nader.

John Kerry says he is strong on defense, BUT

He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle
He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank
He voted to kill every Aircraft carrier laid down from 1988
He voted to kill the Aegis anti aircraft system
He voted to Kill the F-15 strike eagle
He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16
He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade
He voted to Kill the B-1
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the Patriot anti Missile system
He voted to Kill the FA-18
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the F117

In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for
the development and deployment of every weapons systems
since 1988 to include the battle armor! for our troops.

With Kerry as president our Army will be made up of naked
men running around with sticks and clubs.

He also voted to kill all anti terrorism activities of
every agency of the U.S. Government and to cut the
funding of the FBI by 60%, to cut the funding for
the CIA by 80%, and cut the funding for the NSA by 80%.

But then he voted to increase OUR funding for U.N
operations by 800%!!!

Is THIS a President YOU want?

Voting history can be accessed through Senate records

Here's more...

Former US Navy Lt. Kerry has the veteran vote
after he answers these questions:

LIKE MOST Vietnam War Veterans and Cold War Veterans, I am willing to forgive and forget. In fact, since former LCDR John McCain has forgiven the Vietnamese commies, I surely have no right to carry around anger about the Vietnam War and how it ended. But as you keep bringing it up in every speech you make "I am a Vietnam War Veteran" and "I won the Silver Star" I must ask a few questions. As we are both US Navy Vietnam War veterans and you were a commissioned officer and I was a petty officer I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, so please answer the following and I will quietly and respectfully listen to your answers;

Question number 1--Will you like President Bush release your service and medical records? Or do you want to hide the fact that you were only scratched and got 3 purple hearts to cut your combat zone tour to only 4 months? If you don't want to answer the question, simply lift up your shirt sleeve and show us a scar or two. What? No scars at all but 3 Purple Hearts permitted you and you demanded that your tour of duty be cut short by 2/3rds? Regulations require that to be awarded the Purple Heart you must be treated by a Medical Officer but that your "wounds" were so slight (if any) that you never saw a Medical Officer. One of your shipmates says that a wound was "self inflicted." You say in every speech that you are a "Vietnam War Veteran" and that President Bush only served in the National Guard and imply that the President is a draft dodger. But isn't it true that you are a FAILED draft dodger, having asked your draft board for a one year deferment so you could visit Paris and when they refused you, you joined the Navy. And while in the Navy didn't you take swift boat duty because you thought you would see little or no action. However, AFTER you were assigned, Admiral Zumwalt put those units into more direct combat roles.

Question number 2--Did you receive a Silver Star for chasing and killing a Vietnamese who was already wounded (or already killed) by another swift boat crewman? Did you get the Silver Star based on the Action Report that you wrote and the "action" that you alone witnessed? If you get a Silver Star for killing an enemy, wouldn't every soldier, sailor and marine who killed an enemy soldier also be entitled to wear a Silver Star? If you killed a wounded and helpless Vietnamese isn't that murder and not combat? Isn't what you did-the same act as what Lt. Calley committed- and he faced a court martial and was convicted? Your gunner's mate says that you were a coward and ran from the enemy. Another says that you've abandoned your shipmates until you needed them to dress up your campaign 35 years after the war.

Picture: Former US Navy Lt. John Forbes Kerry, directing mass demonstration in April 1971 in Washington DC, viewed by the world and encouraging our enemies as American servicemen were dying daily in Vietnam.

Didn't you throw your Silver Star back at the US Government in protest for our fight against worldwide communism. You've said that those were your medals...then you said they were someone else's medals...then you said that you threw your RIBBONS but NOT your medals and now we see your self awarded "Silver Star" proudly on display in your office. Is the Silver Star on display one that you bought at the gedunk (ship's store) or did you lie to us about throwing your medals away? Isn't your self awarded Silver Star for putting a bullet into a fleeing wounded (or already dead) enemy and your three Purple Hearts for self admitted scratches that took you out of action for ONE DAY an insult to every veteran?
Question number 3--While a US Navy commissioned officer did you commit a court-martial offense by repeatedly disobeying orders and putting your unarmoured swift boat and its crew in danger by beaching it in combat, killing unarmed civilians and children and/or killing wounded and helpless enemy combatants? What did Admiral Zumwalt mean when he said "I don't know if I should give Lt. Kerry a medal or a court martial for all the civilians he's killed. I want to put a straight jacket on Lt. Kerry." If you were Commander in Chief but had no "boss" would you also act out of control but have no one to put you in a "straight jacket?"

Question number 4--After your active duty in the Navy did you fulfill your Navy Reserve obligations or ignore them and devote all your time to anti American demonstrations which emboldened our enemy to eventually win the war? Because you encouraged our enemy when American fighting men were still in the field, can you give us a number of how many American soldiers, sailors and Marines you are responsible for killing? Why does LTC Oliver North say, "John Kerry has blood of American soldiers on his hands."

Question number 5 When you returned from Vietnam, you labeled all other Vietnam Veterans war criminals. You made these claims under oath. Were you lying then, or are you lying now? You attended your first pro Viet Cong rally and marched under the communist flag on October 15, 1969 when you were still on active duty in the US Navy. Would you call that treason? Were you wearing your US Navy dogtags, carrying a US Navy ID card and still obligated by the oath you took to "support and defend the United States" as you encouraged our enemy to continue to kill our soldiers, marines and sailors on the battle fields of southeast Asia?

Question number 6 You associated yourself with Hanoi Jane Fonda, an avowed Communist who supported North Vietnam. Hanoi Jane stated that our prisoners were LYING when they claimed to have been tortured by the Vietnamese. Do you believe former LCDR John MCCain to be a liar?

Question number 7 Have you condemned Jane Fonda and asked her not to support your campaign? In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that "if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S." The Department of Justice was set to charge Jane Fonda with treason, but the President stopped that action so the country could heal after our Vietnamese allies were slaughtered. Was the Justice Department set to charge you with treason as well? What did Hanoi Jane mean when she called you "a hero?" Did she mean you were an American hero for killing Vietnamese civilians? Or, did she mean that you are a Viet Cong or Communist Vietnam "hero" for helping them win the war. Picture: Kerry sitting behind "Hanoi" Jane Fonda at antiwar rally.
 
Question number 8 You wrote a book entitled The New Soldier where the cover MOCKS the Iwo Jima memorial with scruffy men "raising" an upside-down United States flag.
7,000 Marines DIED at Iwo Jima including three from the famous photo you Mock. Do you care to apologize to the 7,000 families of those Marines? During the Vietnam War why did you encourage American soldiers and sailors to desert in your book THE NEW SOLDIER and in your speeches. As our Commander in Chief would desertion during wartime be "ok" with you?

Question number 9 You have stated that going into the National Guard was like running off to Canada. Tens of thousands of Guardsmen served in Vietnam, several thousand gave their lives...do you care to apologize? Didn't you try to avoid Vietnam service by asking for a one year vacation from the draft board so you could go to Paris in the hopes the war would be over by the time you returned to your county at war? Lt. Bush flew a F102. Many of the men who flew F102s were killed in them. Would you care to explain how risking your life to fly a fighter plane is cowardly--explain this to the widows and their children? The F102 was tasked with meeting and shooting down Soviet bombers coming to the USA by flying over Canada to destroy US cities and military installations. Surely as Lt. Bush would shoot them they would be trying to shoot and kill Lt. Bush. Please explain the cowardice in Lt. Bush's military service? In your mind is engaging the enemy "over Canada" the same as "fleeing to Canada?" Also, wasn't Lt. Bush risking his life in the early 1970's when you were at the very same time "protesting" the war, encouraging our enemies and calling us sailors, soldiers and veterans "war criminals?"

Question number 10 You have stated you would turn the decision on deployment of US troops over to the United Nations and OPPOSED the death penalty even for terrorists who murder Americans. How would you win the war on terrorism given your stated positions? You state that you voted for the war but now state that you were only voting for the "process" of the UN putting pressure on Iraq. Please show us in the vote the word "process." Also explain why 99 other US Senators could not find the word "process" in the bill they voted on. Finally, please explain how we are to believe anything you say, or ever said, and how you are a member of our "band of brothers" after you called us all war criminals and after you gave aid and comfort to our enemy while still in the US Navy and betrayed all soldiers, sailors and Marines who served their country honorably? Picture: Author, USS Yorktown, USS Kearsarge
at Yankee Station off coast of North Vietnam 1968, 1969

Anonymous:
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who has called for full-disclosure of rivals' tax returns, now faces growing pressure to release his wife's records.

But in a Tax Day controversy, Teresa Heinz Kerry is personally determined to keep her returns out of public view -- at any cost!

"This is my life, my business, not John's," Mrs. Kerry recently explained to a campaign staffer, a top source tells the DRUDGE REPORT. "I think it is very important to keep the privacy zone. There is a tradition of this."

GHOST OF FERRARO

Top Kerry campaign staffers fear Heinz Kerry will not be able to hold back calls for a public release, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Staffers have been studying the '84 presidential campaign, when former Dem VP Candidate Geraldine Ferraro conceded release of her husband's tax returns, but only after an excruciating media fight!

Ferraro said that when she asked her husband, John Zaccaro, to release the returns his reaction was, "I won't tell you how to run the country and don't you tell me how to run my business."

Asked by reporters why Zaccaro was opposed to releasing his tax return, she said, "He feels his business interests would be affected."

That summer, a NEW YORK TIMES editorial hit Ferraro for refusing to disclose her husband's returns: "Disclosing tax returns, as originally promised, would not amount to telling Mr. Zaccaro how to run his business."

HEINZ ASSETS USED TO BOOST CAMPAIGN

In December '03, Kerry announced that he loaned his campaign $6.4 Million by mortgaging a share of a Boston home he jointly owns with his wife.

Teresa Heinz Kerry paid cash for the Beacon Hill mansion in January 1995.

But according To Kerry's own 1994 senate personal financial disclosure [signed May, 15, 1995], Kerry's own personal net worth was somewhere between a negative $130,000 to positive $34,995.

The current loan on the house carries an annual interest payment of $200,000, records show, more than Kerry's $158,000 Senate salary.

Kerry's campaign insists he intends to pay off the 30-year mortgage himself.

"Sen. Kerry is a man who has considerable assets," spokesman Michael Meehan explains.

But Kerry's own financial disclosures show no assets sufficient to pay the loan -- or even a way to keep up with the interest payments!

KERRY: CLEAR THE AIR

Besides a blurring of Heinz-Kerry assets, the campaign is also wresting with past quotes made by Kerry himself.

In his 1990 Senate race, Kerry asked his challenger to "clear the air" by releasing tax returns.

"I think people want to know whether someone they possibly might send to Washington to represent them in the Senate is someone who pays their fair share of taxes,'" Kerry said. "Why is James Rappaport hiding his tax returns?" Kerry asked. "Why is it some people can live up to that standard and he can't? It seems to me that he ought to be able to release those returns and clear the air...

"Why doesn't he just release them? What is he hiding?"

And at the height of last year's primary race, Kerry vowed that "openness" would be the "hallmark" of his administration.

"As president, openness will be the hallmark of my administration, not some talking point... The highest office in the land requires the highest level of openness for the American people."

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page