Why the Vietnam War Still Matters

Did anyone see Nightline several weeks ago regarding what actually happened with Kerry in Vietnam? Reporters went to Vietnam to interview survivors of the event who clearly corroborated official accounts. One even said a Swift Boat “investigator” had tried to get him to say something else several weeks before, and abruptly terminated the interview when he would not. Pathetic.

I fought in Vietnam in 1967-68. I was in the 101st Abn and saw almost constant combat in my tour of duty. I am appalled that nobody has stood up to these Swiftboat Veterans and shown them the irrefutable evidence of what John Kerry said on that fateful day was the truth. The Toledo Blade just won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the fact that the U. S. Army has known about the atrocities committed by servicemen in Vietnam but did nothing about it. If this is not a cover-up then I don’t know what to call it. John Kerry displayed great leadership qualities by taking great risk to himself to bring the truth to light and start the healing process for the nation. He allowedmany veterans to start the journey home. His actions must be viewed in the context of the times, 1971. To try to distort his actions by making us look at them through the prism of 9-11 is going to have a negative impact on many veterans. Yet this is what the Swiftboat Veterans have done. They never saw the same war I saw. I slept on the floor of the jungle in a hole i scraped out of the ground so I could have cover when the incoming started. I don’t remember sleeping in a bed for my entire year. I remember my best friend dying in my arms. This is the Vietnam I remember and the Vietnam John Kerry let me come home from.

This is to Peter Fraser - All I can say is “thank you” for your service to our country and for your answer here today on this subject. I think you have said it concisely,without resentment, and a sense of courage to speak out. Thank you!

The author of this article must have been raised in lala land.  He hasn’t looked into the alegations that have been made by the Swiftboat Veterans, he just brushes them off.  I have to question the validity of his brushing off the 260 Swiftboat Veterans based on information from two or three personnel who have claimed that all to the stories are lies.  the Swiftboat Veterans include men who had attained all levels of rank within the military from the lowest enlisted through I know at least one Officer grade six, a full Colonel.  The writer appearantly doesn’t want to take the time to review the actions of the two or three who were at one time part of Kerry’s Winter Soldiers.  The writer did not check into the validity of Kerrys comments during his speach before congress in 1971.  Kerry is supposed to have reported only what was given to him by his fellow Winter Soldiers.  If the writer would check the roster of the Winter Soldiers and then check their records, he would find as others in the 70’s found, many of the Winter Soldiers had never been in Vietnam, and a few had never been soldiers at all. 

Many of the talking points of Kerry say that the men were not on his boat, but I would suggest that there were other men who were there in the same fight.  There were many men who reported on Kerry who were there when he was there, there were officers that defeated Kerry on televised debates during the 70’s and they are still ready to debate him.  Lets give them a chance.

The Kerry Campaign has demanded the Form 180 be filed for President Bush.  President Bush filed the form and his records are now public.  I challenge Senator Kerry to sign his Form 180 and let the opposition read the results.  I submit that Kerry will not do that, for Kerry failed to complete his three years of Reserve Duty.  Kerry was too busy going to France to meet with the North Vietnamese envoy and the leader of the North Vietnamese Army.  Kerry did not receive his discharge until 1978 and the type of that discharge has not been specified.  He should have been discharged in 1972 after serving his six years of duty.  Why did president Clinton Pardon Senator Kerry as one of his last minute pardons as he left the office of President in 2001?

Please go back and check the records, find out who the people were, where they served, when they served.  All of the records of both sides of the story and I will then respect what you have written.  Until that time, I will consider your report as one sided and biased, and lacking in the complete detail that a complete report should include.  The report of a biased reporter.

Dave Weissinger
Major, Aviation/Armor, USAR, Retired
Annona, Texas 75550

Our president, as often as he could appeared with our military as a back drop and reminder of his “commander and chief” status. He mentioned their service to their country, and that they deserve the support of all Americans. But, when these veterans’ return to civilian life with possibly the loss of limbs or suffering any number of other related war injuries this president will reduce their benefits and ignore their post war experience as part of the price of serving their country.
If you were fortunate to have come home from Vietnam in one piece and you had the courage to speak out against the war after serving with honor, then seek political office - you’re open to assaults on your service and your character by none other than another administration with many people that supported that war but avoided service.
Veterans from any war have minds, have experiences, have opinions and align themselves with one political ideology or another. So, it’s hardly a surprise to know that there are so called “veterans’ for truth” and opposed to John Kerry and that they are being financed by Republican money. Nothing wrong with that at it’s base but to attempt to dishonor a decorated veteran with innuendo and
misrepresentations in an attempt to resurrect the debate over the Vietnam war is not only dishonoring to all those that died but all those that served honorably and a complete disregard for the truth!
We have had a good deal of “support our troops” sentiment expressed by pro and anti war Americans (as they should be) since we embarked on another questionable war but we don’t really seem to care about them except that they are serving our president’s decision to sacrifice as many of their lives as it requires to “stop the threat of terrorism” by invading Iraq, a presumed threat and the hub of terrorism. And those pro-war signs reading: “support our troops” actually means support our president because he believes he’s doing “the right thing!” And all the evidence to the contrary be damned! We don’t want to repeat the “loss” of another war and have protesting in our streets, and anyone that does is in league with al Qeada and providing comfort to our enemy.
Arrogance, hubris, blind patriotism, and good old fashioned fear are our real enemy!
Senator John Kerry can’t be thanked enough for his service to this country and for the further display of his character and courage in coming out against that war, and willing to articulate for many of us how wrong the war was before the congress!
I am a Vietnam veteran supporting John Kerry not only because I disagree with the man in office on Iraq, the environment, social issues, and his lack of appreciation for all those that have died in this war and those that died in Vietnam ( which he supported but was not interested in fighting himself) No, I’m voting for Kerry because he exemplifies more of the American ideals that mean true patriotism and is superior to this president in all regards!.

WHAT MUST VIETNAMESE BE THINKING RE U.S. WAR HEROES?

All these years of silence from the Vietnamese.  Even the horror of 9/11 brought no reminder of the terror from the skies America threw on Indochina - carpet bombing, free fire zones!  Finally, on September 13, 2004, with the controversial presidential election issue of Vietnam war service, “Agence France Presse” thought to interview elderly Vietnamese generals in Hanoi.  CommonDreams.org published an article about the interview for U.S. readers.*

Asked if Kerry was courageous while serving in the southern Mekong Delta in 1968 and 1969, General Hoang Minh Thao, a respected historian of the Vietnamese army, replied, “I do not want to comment on the personal military career of Kerry. Let history judge itself.”

We can imagine what General Thao might have replied if he were not so polite in the Buddhist tradition of non-confrontation which one experiences quite consistently throughout Vietnam society.  What might any informed Vietnamese have in mind on the subject?  One could hypothesize something of what Vietnamese might be saying if they could permit themselves to speak candidly:  maybe something like the following would come out:

(“) Mr. Kerry saw fit to enlist in the war against us.  Whatever his reasons for doing so, the result for Vietnam led to at least one of our patriotic defenders losing his life by Lieutenant Kerry’s own hand, with all the accompanying grief and suffering of this young man’s family, friends and compatriots. From what I have read, Mr. Kerry also suffered with the realization of the human import of his deed as a soldier following orders, and was moved to protest the war against us vehemently after his discharge from the navy. 

What we Vietnamese, who suffered nearly three million dead, millions severely wounded
and enormous destruction, like to remember, is that hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans did not believe that we Vietnamese were America’s enemy and deserving of death and destruction.  Some very famous Americans took our side.  Actress Jane Fonda, heavyweight champion of the world Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King received the most attention. 

Those who opposed the war read the newspapers and watched the TV programs which justified the U.S. reintroducing and backing the French military to war on us and the subsequent attempt to create a separate client state named South Vietnam through the use of America’s military power.  Yet these millions of Americans were able to see the injustice being done to us, and hundreds of thousands participated in demonstrations against the war.

When we finally won a second time, or one could say when the U.S. left Vietnam, there were few claims of heroism for those who had come to fight us in our own country.  Wealthy and powerful America had been defeated by a much poorer nation struggling out of two hundred years of brutal French colonialism.  And the coverage of U.S. atrocities aroused feelings of shame rather than pride.

How curious it is for we Vietnamese to hear today the U.S. media hailing as heroes, anyone who had come to our Vietnam ready and willing to kill.  Why?  It was all for nothing.  The Viet government the U.S. now trades with in peace, is the same government as the one you tried to eradicate.  We listen and read of all this recent praising of the war in silence. How shall we Vietnamese consider our own soldiers, indeed all our people who resisted, fought and died for our independence?

In your Senate and House of Representatives sit many veterans of your war in our country.  They appear to accept the media reporting them as heroes.  What shall we think, feel? 

The two Presidential candidates who currently vie for honors regarding their Vietnam service and all the other prominent ‘Vietnam veterans’ had a good university education and would have known about our brutal colonial history of nearly 200 years of occupation and exploitation under the French.  They would also have known of Eisenhower’s statement conceding that Ho Chi Minh would have won 80+% of the vote had the U.S. allowed the all Vietnam election agreed upon in the Geneva Accords signed by the defeated French after nine years of war upon us.  Then how is it the vets can believe the media anchors describing ‘Vietnam veterans’ as having defended their country and freedom?

We have almost rebuilt our country.  We look to the future.  We make an effort to forget “My Lai”, to forget what was shown on “60 Minutes” of former Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey when he was a Navy Seal Commander.  Former bomber pilot Senator John McCain also wishes to put the past behind and works for reconciliation. But praising your veterans for what they did to us is hardly friendly toward us.  How shall we take your meaning.

Your Secretary McNamara now thinks the war which he supervised was ‘mistaken’.  Must every American war be seen as just?  Even one lost and ‘mistaken’, that took the lives of millions?  This ‘mistake’ on us continued under seven U.S. presidents.  Why are those who participated in the mistake now hailed as heroes?  There were, after all, so many other Americans who refused to participate, and saw the ‘mistake’ immediately, and not after so many of us had already been killed.

Most Vietnamese feel compassion for these latter day American ‘heroes’, and for the families of those Americans who fell in our land, even though they caused us such intense fear and suffering thirty years ago. In our culture humanity and kindness overcomes all past ignorance and the misery it caused.  But now we must extend our compassion to include those who feel pride in their mistakes and ignorance and killing.  It is wearisome in its confusion.  Especially as our children look to America for its advanced technology and wealth. (“)

[end of hypothetical Vietnamese view]

All the members of the Vietnam National Symphony lost family.  “Killed by the Americans” they would mention with a wisp of a disarming smile.  This writer had the honor of being Assistant Conductor in Hanoi and on tour under Japanese sponsorship during the 1990s. I got to know something of their gentle traditions, one of which is having a joyous dinner, as sumptuous as the year’s prosperity permits, on the anniversary of the death of a family member.

The orchestra, which Ho Chi Minh founded, played all four Brahms symphonies, and Beethoven, Prokovieff, Shostakovitch, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, dozens of Overtures and concertos including both Chopin concertos with the only Asian winner of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Dan Tai-son, who practiced for the competition in a
Hanoi bomb shelter.  I don’t know whether John McCain was making his twenty-nine bombing runs at the time.

The concerts were held in the beautiful yellow stucco Opera House, a smaller copy of the old Paris Opera.
It was from a balcony overlooking the huge square that Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independence flanked by an American Major and a British Colonel in 1945, not long after receiving a decoration from the U.S. OAS for his having led the fight against the Japanese and the Vichy French Army.  One day Robert McNamara came to town, invited to hold his symposium on the war.

My little hotel was just across from our new American Embassy in Hanoi, and the Ambassador was just so happy to be arranging business contracts with the same government many American boys died trying to defeat. 

Americans mourn the memory their sons who died fighting in Vietnam and never mention the many many more lives taken unfortunately by their sons.  What shall the Vietnamese make of it?  That American lives are more important?  And that the destruction to their country means nothing to Americans?

Neurologists maintain that around age five, a child begins to create a sensitivity for imagining how other people are feeling. Why the ability, of a representative amount of Americans, to put themselves in the shoes of others, seems to stop at the border, is difficult to understand. On TV talk shows it is the norm to discount the death and destruction of the peoples we conquer by omitting any mention of it. 

Thus the collective awareness of the America public seems to parallel that of a four year old when when it concerns people of foreign countries suffering casualties from U.S. military action.  It has been coined as an expression that ‘Vietnam’ for us is not a nation of people, rather just a war by that name, our war, and it was only experienced by American military personnel.  Maybe we inherited a European colonial attitude.  Maybe has to do the insensitivity of industrialized society.  Maybe part of it is racist. 

Westerners who spend time in the Third World are often struck by the warm and sincere caring, sense of shared common nobility and innocense.  In 1993 I encountered the Vietnamese as soulful musicians, with a kind and charming sense of humor, and the most soft-spoken people in the world. 

One wonders, are we ever going to say that we are sorry to the survivors of our war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia?  Maybe if we addressed this still open wound of the past, we could apply what we learn to correct present insensitivity regarding ongoing Afghan and Iraqi casualties.

Jay Janson, now in New York

Dear Editors, behind by time spent as a musican and teacher in Hanoi, I have put my heart in this piece.  Seems weird that no one is writing about this insanity. It is in the category of denial of the Holocaust.  Except everyone simply accepts THIS absurdity because it is mass media promoted and nice mild mannered anchors are not seen as extremists.

The clergy of America woefully sidelined itself morally during the Viet war and now are equally unheard from as the media portrays the war as heroic.

I believe our progessive community is unable to challange this corporate media revamping the war on Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia as having been right (and glorious).  It will ultimately have to spring up from sane journalism outside the U.S.

jj

* “Former Enemies Say Iraq Fueling America’s Vietnam War Obsession”,
CommonDreams, Sept 13, 2004

This letter is to BAM who will not give his name or location, I consider him a bomb thrower who unwilling to show who he is or take recognition for his comments.  I challenge BAM to come out and specify exactly which comment does anything more than challenge the original writer to fully check his statistics and to fully report on the totality of the situation.  Yes, I fully believe that the original writer was from La la Land and I think that BAM grew up there too.

BAM’S COMMENT
Our president, as often as he could appeared with our military as a back
drop and reminder of his “commander and chief” status. He mentioned their
service to their country, and that they deserve the support of all
Americans. But, when these veterans’ return to civilian life with possibly
the loss of limbs or suffering any number of other related war injuries this
president will reduce their benefits and ignore their post war experience as
part of the price of serving their country.

Yes, our President has stood with our soldiers and he has made the situation better for our soldiers and the veterans.  President Bush has put more money and effort into the support of our veterans in the last four years that President Clinton did in eight years.  President Bush routinely visits our soldiers in Walter Reed and he thanks them for their service, he even went running with one young man from Louisiana who lost his leg. 

The President knows what it is to serve, he flew F-102 Jets in the Air National Guard, he qualified for an open position and he served his duty.  President Bush has signed his Form 180 and turned his records over for all to see.  John Kerry has not, as I stated in my original letter.  Have John Kerry sign his Form 180, for I question his service, he didn’t fulfill his original requirement of six years, he failed to perform his reserve duty.

BAM’S COMMENT
If you were fortunate to have come home from Vietnam in one piece and you
had the courage to speak out against the war after serving with honor, then
seek political office - you’re open to assaults on your service and your
character by none other than another administration with many people that
supported that war but avoided service.

Yes I served in that little war, and I was MEDIVACED to Camp Zama Japan.  I was personally shot five times during that little war, but I only received one Purple Heart.  I didn’t report every scratch that I received while I was serving, I continued doing my duty.  I was an Army helicopter pilot and I was shot down three times, the aircraft stopped running in midair and I took it to the ground from there, two were crash landings and the third was a hard landing that spread the skids.  I flew over 1600 hours of flight time in Vietnam, but I only got credit for 1058 Combat flight hours.  I flew into Laos and Cambodia in 1967 and 1968 supporting the 5th Special Forces (SOG) out of Kontum from FOB II.  I also flew in support of the 4th Infantry Division and the 101st Infantry Division, in both combat and combat service support operations.  I am respected by my contemporaries, I never left anyone unprotected, and I did all that I could to support my brothers on the ground. 

BAM’S COMMENT
Veterans from any war have minds, have experiences, have opinions and align themselves with one political ideology or another. So, it’s hardly a surprise to know that there are so called “veterans’ for truth” and opposed to John Kerry and that they are being financed by Republican money. Nothing wrong with that at it’s base but to attempt to dishonor a decorated veteran with innuendo and misrepresentations in an attempt to resurrect the debate over the Vietnam war is not only dishonoring to all those that died but all those that served honorably and a complete disregard for the truth!

Your response disregards those that served in the same unit as John Kerry, the group includes his contemporaries, his commanders and his Superior Officers.  You completely disregard the service of men like Colonel Day who served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and is currently the most highly decorated officer alive.  COL Day holds the Congressional Medal of Honor among his many awards.  The Swiftboat and POW Veterans include men who have served honorably and I challenge you to disavow their honesty with facts.  You are calling all of them liars by your lack of knowledge of their position.  That group includes both Democrats and Republicans, go ahead and call all of them liars, but this time put your name on the line, so they can challenge you.

BAM’S COMMENT
We have had a good deal of “support our troops” sentiment expressed by pro and anti war Americans (as they should be) since we embarked on another questionable war but we don’t really seem to care about them except that they are serving our president’s decision to sacrifice as many of their lives as it requires to “stop the threat of terrorism” by invading Iraq, a presumed threat and the hub of terrorism. And those pro-war signs reading: “support our troops” actually means support our president because he believes he’s doing “the right thing!” And all the evidence to the contrary be damned! We don’t want to repeat the “loss” of another war and have protesting in our streets, and anyone that does is in league with al Qeada and providing comfort to our enemy. Arrogance, hubris, blind patriotism, and good old fashioned fear are our real enemy!

If I remember correctly, President Bush said that he would find the terrorists wherever they were.  He prepared the Military for operations, then cleared the operations with Pakistan and got over-flight approval while he was negotiating with the Taliban.  When the negotiations with the Taliban failed, the president took us to war, and we are still there.  Yes, Usama Bin Laden has not been captured, but he isn’t in Afghanistan, and Pakistan is fighting in the frontier area trying to find UBL but he isn’t there either, he was last reported to be in Iran.  IRAN IS SUPPORTING TERRORISM; WILL KERRY TAKE US THERE TO CAPTURE UBL?  I don’t think so.  President Bush didn’t pick Iraq capriciously.  He went to the United Nations and had the 12th sanction added to the Iraqi Government, and that was unanimously approved, yes even France, Germany, Russia, and Syria.  Six months after Saddam had continued his blocking the UN Investigators progress, President Bush took action.  And I agree with that choice.  There were 12 sanctions against Saddam and he was ignoring all of them.  Saddam has thousands of graves to his credit, he has killed his own people, and he has killed more Muslims than any other government on the face of this earth.  Do you think that it was right for him to continue killing Moslems and supporting terrorism in Israel?  I don’t, do you?

BAM’S COMMENT
Senator John Kerry can’t be thanked enough for his service to this country and for the further display of his character and courage in coming out against that war, and willing to articulate for many of us how wrong the war was before the congress!

I am not attacking Senator Kerry, even though I don’t believe in what he did after his return from Vietnam.  I just want the man to display his full military record for all of us to evaluate his service and to explain why President Clinton included Senator Kerry in his pardons as he departed from office.  Why did Kerry have to be pardoned?  I question! 

BAM’S COMMENT
I am a Vietnam veteran supporting John Kerry not only because I disagree with the man in office on Iraq, the environment, social issues, and his lack of appreciation for all those that have died in this war and those that died in Vietnam (which he supported but was not interested in fighting himself) No, I’m voting for Kerry because he exemplifies more of the American ideals that mean true patriotism and is superior to this president in all regards!.

I respect your right to vote as you please, but I would like for you to take the time to evaluate the others that you disparage as liars.  Why is John Kerry not a liar, when the men of his unit in Vietnam are?  I ask you to check the records of those who you accuse.  I would be willing to bet that all of the Swiftboat and POW Veterans would be willing to sign their Form 180 to let the nation decide who is telling the truth.  I will, will you?  Will you ask Kerry to sign his Form 180?  His records on the website are selectively incomplete

With respect to your rights, I challenge you to sign your name!

Dave Weissinger
Major, Aviation / Armor, USAR, Retired
Annona, Texas

As I said, and you illustrate, veteran’s had then, and have now, a mindset to either the left or the right politcally, and you can speak in behalf of your bretheren that was supportive of the war in Vietnam and now supports another one in Iraq. I have no qualms with your service or whether you won or didn’t win any medals and appreciate your position regarding protesting, and in particular the very vocal and courageous John Kerry (albeit young and not totally judicious in his use of language at the time) that went before congress in behalf of many veterans and spoke out againt the war. Unlike yourself, I appreciated his speaking out against R.M.Nixon and the war.
Kerry wasn’t the only voice speaking against the war; there were hundred’s of thousands protesting, and trying to bring an end to the killing in Vietnam.
Your appreciation of Bush’s service is to say the least tough to swallow. I won’t waste any further language regarding his service as I don’t think it’s productive, and I have stated my view of him previously.
Your attention to my letter is of course appreciated, and I’m sorry it disturbs you that I as a veteran could support a man that you obviously don’t respect, but you seem to be more caught in the mythology of Vietnam than I am. We didn’t lose that war because of John Kerry; we failed there because our politicians had a failed view, resulting in 57 thousand of our military losing their lives and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lost theirs. Vietnam is now a united country, and a tourist site for Americans, and all those lives lost, all those names on the Vietnam memorial can’t be here to say what they thought of the war, can’t ask why we were there…
L.B.J. and then Nixon tried unsucessfully to keep the American people ignorant as to what was going on. They failed, because truth eventually prevails as it will about this new misadventure in Iraq.
Sorry Vietnam didn’t turn out the way you would have preferred, but as Lt. Kerry said, how do you ask the last man to give his life for a mistake? How many more mistakes will we make? How many more lives will we sacrifice for bad policies.
It’s difficult to admit mistakes for some people, perhaps Mr. Bush appeals to you for his wimpy machismo, makes “no mistakes”, and myopic - stay the course style. I don’t see him that way.
I, nor do I believe anyone else is going to convince you that you may be incorrect in your position. All I can say is, quit fretting over the wounds from Vietnam. I’m happy that you survived and that your here to speak/write of your position.
All the best,
(If it makes some kind of a difference)
BAM, is for Bruce A. Morgan
Artist/illustrator, MACV Headquarters, and Observer newspaper.
69-70

TO BAM:
Your words I agree with: quoted again here(Copied & Pasted) ... “It’s difficult to admit mistakes for some people, perhaps Mr. Bush appeals to you for his wimpy machismo, makes “no mistakes”, and myopic - stay the course style. I don’t see him that way. I, nor do I believe anyone else is going to convince you that you may be incorrect in your position. All I can say is, quit fretting over the wounds from Vietnam. I’m happy that you survived and that your here to speak/write of your position. “
I totally agree that it is hard to “admit mistakes”.  It takes a strong person to do so,and unfortunately, we do not have that in our current President.  Admitting mistakes, makes one human, and that is not God’s plan, according to Bush, who Faith brings makes him above the rest of us.  I was not very political before 2000,but since, then I can not just sit and watch this country go down without my fighting for it.  It is time we stood up and told the truth about the Iraq invasion.  It is to our advantage to acknowledge our faults and move on in a better direction. There is much there to do in correcting this problem.  Sometimes,the blind faith some people have in Bush, reminds me of the days when Hitler came to power, he couldn’t do anything wrong either.  Let us learn from history, not to repeat the dominance that was so prevalent then.

As a veteran of two tours in Nam, 67 and 70, and as an advisor who went to Vietnam after the Army invested a year in teaching me to speak Vietnamese, allow me a couple of commets.

First of all, the writer of the piece, Jackson Lears, whatever his background, knows NOTHING true about Vietnam or the war.  The bias in his piece is at least as absurd as the most extreme of the Swift Boat group claims.

The immutable truth is that Ho Chi Minh and his minions were the same kind of murderous totalitarian dictators as Mao and Stalin before them, and as such ordered and carried out atrocities against their “own” people that caused far more death and destruction than the death and collateral damage of bombing and Agent Orange by the US and RVN.

The mistakes of Vietnam were in understanding how to successfully attack the Communists wrapped in Nationalist clothing, and at the same time build a viable democratic government in the south.

We did much less well than we could have at both tasks.

But the noise about US atrocities, as in the recent news stories, is utterly disproportionate to its frequency and scope.

And those as close-minded and ignorant as Jackson Lear should bite their tongues and sneak off with their tails between their legs.

Liberal dregs.  Unable to think rationally. Too bad.

In disgust,

John Burris

Mr. Weissinger:
The president visiting wounded at Walter Reed is nothing special. He would be expected to do
that as the commander in chief. In fact his appearances in front of the military would not be so annoying if it weren’t for his abuse of them and the middle class families, which the majority of them are from are experiencing from his “compassionate conservatism!”
The president activating and over extending reservists is perhaps acceptable to you, and to a commander in chief that joined the Ntl Guard to avoid being called up while supporting the Vietnam war; it not only shows the lack of proper planning, but a disregard for the men serving him.
He (Bush) sat by while his cadre of political thugs criticized another Vietnam veteran, John McCain, for his service, and they even used his adoption of a dark skinned child in the south to make improper inferences.
Yea, ol’ Dubya is a swell guy. His real personality was evident during the three debates. As a supporter, you can be proud, he really appears to be as shallow as his opponents believe him to be and his supporters like. It’s the: he’s a lot like us syndrome that was in an essay some months back in Time magazine. He can’t speak coherently without a tele-prompter and has a limited view of the world. He does indeed apparently represent the Republican party, although I would be cautious in suggesting that all Republicans are as limited as their leader. There has been numbers of Republicans that have served in previous Republican administrations that have written of their concern for this president and his demonstrative lack of comprehension or interest in anything but being reelected.
I have said in the past and will say it again, G. W. Bush is absolutely the worst president in our history. Nixon would even rate above Bush, and dare I suggest but for all his obvious flaws he would also rate above Reagan. There are no presidents that are really comparable to Bush. He
without a doubt is one of a kind.
One thing proponents like to say is that Bush is likable. Reagan was probably likable. Bush is merely tolerable for most intelligent Republicans because he connects with “the people"…
Whether we can tolerate him for another 4 years - remains to be determined.
And Mr Burris, your point was exactly what? Ho Chi Minh was a bad guy and we should have
sacrificed all those expendable GI’s to get rid of him?

Thank you for at least stating your name and saying what you did during the war in Vietnam.  I now see where you may be coming from.  If you had been one of the combat veterans your attitude would have been different, carrying aircraft loads of dead bodies, having your unit brothers die in your arms, panicking while trying to save American Soldiers who were under attack and bearing the brunt of the load of the filthy job of combat will definitely give you a different view of what was going on during that little war.  I can see from your position that you were not burdened with combat or the death and destruction that many of your brothers had to face.  You served, and I have no problem with your service, and I will not belittle you for serving.

If you will return to my previous letter, I did not disparage Kerry, I only called into view that you were disparaging the Swiftboat and POW Veterans without fully checking into their allegations.  You listen to the things that you want to hear and block out the rest.  I suggest that you take the time to find out where those men were coming from and why they were saying what they were saying.  Those men have stated that they were both Republicans and Democrats and they were running against Kerry and they are standing before you to tell their stories.  As a veteran, you owe them the right to hear what they have to say, even if you don’t want to here it.  They have the right to present their side of the story. 

Kerry was uneducated in the facts when he spoke out against Nixon.  Nixon wasn’t even in office until 20 January of 1969.  He was only in office for two months when Kerry returned from Vietnam, yet Kerry blames him for the problems created by President Johnson who started that little war, and the Democrats who jumped into the fight and then cut the funding out from under President Nixon, forcing him to pull our troops out of Vietnam.  If you think the Democrats are so great, check their records for that time frame.  Go to congress and read the congressional record, who was in the lead?  President Johnson declaired that he was backing out of the office of the Presidency, “I will not accept the nomination for another term of office” in March on 1969, too late for the Democrats to select a valid attempt to maintain the job of the Presidency.  They didn’t want to take the blame for their sins, and Nixon who was a fool in my eyes jumped to become the leader of the free world.  BIG MISTAKE!  HE TOOK THE FALL FOR THE DEMOCRATS.  Check your history, you will see that I am right.  Kerry should have been protesting President Johnson.  44,000 plus of our soldiers had died under the leadership of President Johnson.  Yes, an additional 14,000 soldiers died under President Nixon, but if you will check the ratio of deaths to years in power, you will see that Nixon lead that war from 1969 through 1975 and fewer people died during his term of office, because he bombed the bejezus out of the enemy, including those in North Vietnam, and he got them to the Peace Talks in Paris.  The North Vietnamese backed out of South Vietnam until we were basically out of the war then they broke the treaty that they had signed and went in and defeated the South Vietnamese Government.  CHECK YOUR HISTORY.  Nixon did all of that while Kerry and his Winter Soldier Brothers were protesting the war.  Were you one of the Winter soldiers?

“We didn’t lose that war because of John Kerry; we failed there because our politicians had a failed view, resulting in 57 thousand of our military losing their lives and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lost theirs. “ These are your words, the number should say 58,400 plus of our military lost their lives, and that doesn’t include a whole bunch who have since died either through suicide, laborous deaths from suffering the effects of Agent Orange or the other chemical agent that we had dumped on us.  L.B.J.  lied to us, Nixon was anointed as President because he was virtually unopposed.  Nixon did what he had to do in order to clean up the mess that L.B.J. had gotten us into, and he had to fight the Democrats who were leading both the House and Senate during that time.  The truth died with the lies of President Johnson who ran the war from the “War Room” in the downstairs portion of the Whitehouse.  McNamara and his cronies should also bear the burden of their sins. 

“L.B.J. and then Nixon tried unsucessfully to keep the American people ignorant as to what was going on. They failed, because truth eventually prevails as it will about this new misadventure in Iraq.“ These are your words, and I say that you haven’t looked at the true history, and you won’t so you will never learn the true history.  That doesn’t mean that anyone lied, for everything was done in the open and Kerry was a part of the decision making process.  Go pull some of Kerry’s statements that he made during the Clinton years.  He was quite hawkish against Iraq, and his voice was loud and very open about how Saddam had WMD and that he was a danger to the free world.  He also voted to enter the war until he realized what he did, then he started squirming and trying to weazel his way out of his brash former comments.  GO PULL THE RECORDS!  To date, Kerry has come down firmly on every side of the war in Iraq.  GO PULL THE RECORDS!  You will say that I am lying, but you won’t check the records to prove me wrong. 

President Bush didn’t admit any mistakes during the news conference.  Neither would you if I asked you if you were sorry for beating your wife and children.

I haven’t fretted over my wounds from Vietnam, as a matter of fact I became an Aeronautical Engineer and I worked for NASA.  I am now retired and I am living a very good life.  I have been there and done that!  I am now living high on the hog!  Yes I have had failures, but I worked through my problems, and I studied and observed history.  I am firm in my positions because I have based them on history and facts. 

At least I am not a sarcastic person who spews rhetoric that he hasn’t checked for himself. 

I’m happy that you survived and that your here to speak/write of your position.

All the best,
(If it makes some kind of a difference)

Dave Weissinger

A question has puzzled me throughout this campaign. Why is military service so important, why is having fought in a war so important? The war in Vietnam ended just before I came of age to be cannon fodder in some silly quagmire, but by that time I had made up my mind, because, thanks to the Vietnam war, I had started reading the papers and cracking lots of books on war in general and Vietnam in particular. It was an avoidable war. Ho Chi Minh was actually quite pro-American originally. To my surprise, I found, too, that Castro was originally pro-American. Both understood which way the wind was blowing. On a playground dominated by a couple of bullies, if you want to survive, you’ve got to get protection from one of them. Domino theory? Nonsense. Playground theory.

Realistically, in our world, we seem to need a military. It’s a fact of our lives, currently, a sad fact, but it’s there. What I question, however, is why is the military so opposed to pacifists. I imagine that a veteran is a man or woman who has seen the war first hand, has seen the destruction, the unbelievable destruction wrought by man (and here I mean the Y chromosome too!) upon man. I imagine a veteran is one who returns with a profound understanding of that and has not pride, but perhaps a sense of humility before the lives taken, the land destroyed, the families annihilated. I imagine, in long nights of reading, that that former soldier is happy to be alive, is happy to out of the war, is profoundly thankful that he has made it back to tell the tale and through his experience has developed an understanding of the sheer bestiality of war, it’s backwardness, and even for the people who have said no. In Germany, at the end of the war, about 40,000 young men lost their lives because they said no to the war. In 1986, a tiny statue honoring those men was set up in Bremen and set of a firestorm of protest. It was, so some right-wing politicians said, an insult to veterans. Why? What is so fucking great about war. Most are unnecessary. WW2, for example, was an extension of WW1, plain and simple, and WW1 was perfectly unnecessary. So if the politicos and the three royal cousins had sat down and said: this is absurd, in 1914, they wouldn’t have had to send millions of men to be slaughtered in Europe. There wouldn’t have been any Hitler, and perhaps not even a Soviet Union. If.... the big historical question.

A fact remains: Winner or loser, war is to be regretted in my books, regretted and mourned, not glorified. It is an unfortunate fact, a result of misguided policies conducted by shortsighted men (Y chromosome) who more often than not have special interests behind them and ulterior motives that have nothing to do with the wellbeing of the people they are supposed to lead.

I have spoken to veterans, not only Vietnam veterans. Veterans of WW2, French, Americans, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians. I drove a truckload of aid down to Croatia and spoke to young guys there who had just gotten pulled, some were recovering, most were mentally imbalanced, clearly PTSD, I tried to get a couple of Vietnam vets down there to start something, didn’t work out. Lost souls, with posters of Rambo on the walls, machine guns in their closets, ready to go out and fight again, though the war itself was more or less over except in Bosnia.

I found a few vets who spoke about their experiences in truly moving ways. They had come to see the futility of it all, the Germans were often the most thoughtful, because they had lost the war and had to accept it. And their war was ghastly, the dark designs of their leaders all to visible. When it was over, they were happy to be back home, to be with their loved ones, and to thank their maker for getting them through the experience. One was a medic, a little Bavarian guy with arms like a gorilla, when he stacked his firewood he carried logs the way you would carry a stretcher. 3 years on the Eastern Front. The other one was a journalist, wounded three times, still limped because half his thigh was gone. Eastern front. I spoke to Americans and Brits and French from that war as well. I spoke to fellows who had spent 5 years in Soviet camps. I spoke to women who had suffered war, to refugees, to Russians.

On and on. In all my research there is one thing that evades me:
I have yet to find the glory of war.

I find the article above points out an important fact. The Vietnam war was stolen by politics. And I must agree with the author, that the radical right in the USA more or less grabbed it to get back to the other side. The “stab in the back” idea is there, no doubt about it. I just find it hypcocritical that we as a nation profess to be so danmned Christian and then instead of bowing our heads to the dead on all sides and reflecting on what really went wrong there, and then mending our ways, we go off to try and stamp out more countries without any sense of the suffering there. The “Saddam was a dictator” excuse doesn’t wash: We have aided and abetted dictators ourselves, not least Mr. Pol Pot in Cambodia. The WMD didn’t wash either. I don’t have a problem with W dodging the draft, if he would at least come clean with it. As for medals on chests, well fine. But do they say anything about a person’s character? I ask you cruelly, do they? I am sorry to say, not in my eyes. The whole person is important, what they made of their experience. As a young man I sought out people who could teach something from their experience, and perhaps its biological, but I would get ill hearing men glorifying their wars, and the ones that seemed to have really understood the brutality, the fact that there are no winners in a war, even the necessary ones, the vets who said “never again”… They were the ones with true courage in my eyes.

George W. Bush is not someone a generation can or should be looking up to. None of his failures are bad per se. What I dislike intensely in the man is his inability for self-reflection, especially in a man professing to be so religious. On the contrary, he derives all his arrogance and deviousness from that profession of faith. And who are his teachers? Disney-like preacher-businessmen like Pat Robertson? Tacky pounders like Billy Graham? Spreaders of disinformation like Mr. Rove? Has this man ever truly felt regret? Has this man ever truly felt anything? Yes he has, but when it got too much he drowned it in booze, and when that got too much, he hopped onto the easy religion boat. He has become a man without any true features, a total puppet. And those who are pulling his strings are disreputable cynics.

Kerry? I wish he would just be himself. It’s good enough for me, but it is not good enough for an electorate that is having difficulty distinguishing between real and drama, between information and propaganda, an electorate that wants to be bought, an electorate that has willingly made itself into a collection of “target groups”. So obviously, the man can’t be a classy Bostonite with a fine education. And George Bush, born in New Haven with a silver spoon in his mouth and a lot of golden-handed friends, has to act like a Texas ranchero. Is this what we have come to? Is this what soldiers have died for? I cannot believe it, and I can understand wanting to deny it. But until we begin really putting pressure on the characters that lead us, we can’t expect anything better. They reflect us, as we reflect them.

The war in Iraq is immoral, amoral, and fake. It’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake, to quote the real Talleyrand. It’s a piece of Hollywood drama made to sell the president. Its aim is not combating terrorism, because terrorism does not work with a front and trenches, it is state-less and timeless. Terrorism is combated with policy, in the tortuous paths of the banking world, in back alleys. And it is combated by understanding where it comes from. Bright eyed and bushytailed GIs spreading the gospel of McDonalds is unfortunately not what the world wants. We are still imbued by the images of Germans after World War Two. But back then, we really did bring Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms to people. We brought hope covered in Hershey chocolate. Iraq is different. The world is different. And above all: We, our motivation, is different. We are beginning to goosestep around this planet for the benefit of a handful of people who are growing richer by the day. That is not going to earn us hearts and minds.

I am sorry if any veterans here feel insulted. I still assume you did not like fighting the war you felt you had to fight or were sent to fight. Politicians betrayed you. I, for one, never have.

Dave:
You presume to know where I’m coming from because I was lucky enough to not be out in the jungles of Vietnam. You presume to think that I was any less concerned for those that were dying. You presume to think that I haven’t read verbatim the testimony of John Kerry before congress.
I did not disparage the swift boat veterans for their service; I called into question their allegations, and much of that was subsequently recanted or proved to be false.
Your allegiance to the men trying to smear Kerry is alright, you apparently would accept any distortions about the candidate that you were opposed to - I’m assuming. On the other hand you accept George Bush’s record as a defender of Texas from attack during that same period. Ok, that understandable as well. George Bush before he became Governor of your state had a very undistinguished business career. And I won’t even go into his record while he served as your governor.
A president whether Democrat or Republican that lies to the American people is just that, a liar.
we can go around and around about which president was more at fault for all the life lost in Vietnam but that’s irrelevant now. We are in the present and we have a president that doesn’t appear to really have any clue about what you poignantly point out, he never had buddies die in his arms, he was never in harms way, he wasn’t concerned with the suffering from PTSS and committing suicide…
As a veteran I owe it to all those that have died to seek the truth. As a veteran I do not owe it to those that have a political agenda and are willing to fabricate and distort the facts because they have never grown beyond their experience of Vietnam. With all due respect sir, when I can home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no parties, no sense of accomplishment and I was indistinguishable from anyone else that came home from Vietnam. No, I didn’t suffer the trauma of combat, didn’t become addicted to any drugs, didn’t have many of the troubles that others had, but do not mistake me for not having compassion for those in the body bags lying on the tarmac over at the air base that I’d seen. Don’t think that I did not appreciate what the many “grunts’ that I’d met were going through.
I have many friends that served in combat operations in Nam. They, to a man are proud “ditto heads”, and still haven’t gotten over their experiences and hatreds. I guess I was lucky, I had no
hatred festering, I didn’t have to kill anyone, I didn’t hate the Vietnamese and use pejorative slang names then or now, but to presume because I was at the headquarters that I didn’t appreciate the horrors of war is a mistake.
War is a complicated and troubling human activity and we can go through which ones were justified and which were arguably not, but in the end, lives are lost on both sides, collateral damages occur, and people will have differing opinions on the wisdom and actions of an administration that wages a war. We are, and have been having a debate on our current war in Iraq similar to our debate during Vietnam. The common and sad element is that people are dying
for what many in this country to believe to have been a major mistake. Men and women are experiencing the same fears in Iraq, holding their dying buddies in their arms, lying in hospitals with lost limbs, vision or suffering psychologically as have many of the participants in the nightmare called war.
You didn’t directly disparage Kerry as you point out and you graciously acknowledge my service while politely separating your service from mine as the more real war experience and therefore giving you some better judgement as to which man now is more capable to lead this country.
In no way shape or form would I denigrate any veteran that served. All experience is unique to the individual and we either grow and learn beyond the war and use that experience to the betterment of our lives or we don’t.
When I said quit fretting about the wounds of Vietnam; I meant in the larger sense, not a wound
deserving of a Purple Heart. As I said, I’m happy that you made it back.
I could relay many experiences that I had in Vietnam that were disturbing in many ways but
I would not equate those experiences with yours, and was not qualified to presume to know what went on in your mind during the war anymore than you were qualified to presume to know what went on in mine.
I can only guess as to where you are coming from.You were inclined to vote for Republicans during the Vietnam war, and your inclined to vote for them now, so, that supports my presumption that your motives are of course political beyond the war because today we are 30 plus years away from Vietnam...and the man you support is coming from a place that neither you nor I came from.
We can respectfully agree to disagree on which candidate is better.
Sincerely,
Bruce A. Morgan

Talleyrand:
Your question is important, and I for one feel no disrespect was intended by your thoughtful
inquiry.
My simple answer is that if your going to wage a war it would be helpful to have actually experienced war first hand to empathize with what the soldiers are being subjected to.
If you are hired to coach a sports team it serves you better to have been a player yourself to understand what it’s like out on the field or the floor.
Now, it may not be always the case that a commander in chief has served or that it was necesary that they served to be wise in the deployment of the military.
This time we have a stark contrast between the two candidates. One was protecting Texas from attack, and one was fighting in the Mekong Delta. One was wounded, and the other was imbibing drinks and damaging his mind. One was performing heroic deeds, and the other was aspiring to be a privilaged and well connected scofflaw. One spoke eloquently against the war and the other supported it without any eloquence. One went on to serve as a prosecutor, putting criminals in jail, the other went on misadventures into business and failed. One went on to serve as a US senator and tried to make a difference, the other eventually became the governor of the great state of Texas and decided to run for the presidency of the United States to do for the country what he had proudly done for his state. We know what happen there and we see what he has done as president.
Military service doesn’t guarantee that a man is qualified to be commander in chief and it wouldn’t be an issue now if one of these men didn’t wage an unjust war, didn’t admit to having made any mistakes, doesn’t seem to grasp his impact on the world by his limited view.
We have a choice now not between two men that have served in the military in one form or another but between two men that have made distinct choices to serve their country and to fight for what they think is right. One man has been fighting all along, and the other man is still lost in the world of privilage and unaccountability.
Thanks for your perspective and you efforts.
The veteran stereotype that has Rambo posters on their walls and are still internally fighting for recognition is a sad artifact of the Vietnam war. Not all of us are like that but we all are brothers and I for one appreciate thier pain and feelings of being unappreciated for their service.
Our miitary should be appreciated for their service whether we agree or disagree with a president that sends them into a war. Vietnam was an example of the few horror stories that
came from that war tainted all the veterans unfairly and we are still debating those issues because good and honorable men fought and died serving their country.Good and honorable men are
living in the wake of all the controversy from that war, such as our contributor above.
We may never resolve the hurt from that war but
we still have minds and can use our experinces to
avoid future wars.
Thanks again.

Indeed, BAM, when it comes to sending people off to war, rather someone who has experienced it first hand. He may even be a little more careful. Again, though: Roosevelt was a tough president and he never experienced war, but he was a man with empathy in spite of coming from a wealthy family. And I want to make sure it be noted, that the pacifist is also fighting in his/her way for the safety of the soldier.

You sound as if you have done the self-reflection that we all as human beings must do if we wish to “grow” as it were. None of us are very important, but we all contribute to evolution. I mentioned the vets I knew and know, because I knew their trauma. War traumatizes. It’s doing it now to young guys 19, 20, 21… Some will make it by force of will, by insight, by prayer, whatever, by a family that understands, perhaps even by meeting people at home who will say: Yes, it was a phony war. Others will not. (And Iraq will take over a generation to get over the trauma). And for what? It was all avoidable. I don’t have to convince you. In fact, I am not in the business of convincing. If people want to vote for Bush without thinking it is their prerogative. But It is not responsible towards the world, since Bush is pursuing very jingoistic policies. That’s why no one really cares if Luxembourg if Belgium goes to the right. Though we did go haywire when Austria put Wldheim up in the largely non-executive president seat.

Well, let us hope for the best! The word peace has evolved over the centuries. it still has a way to go!

TO BAM,
After reading all these notes here, I tend to agree with you and wish the rest of our country could see what the Republicans are doing to our country, using religion instead of the facts to say they are right. The facts speak for themselves, that is why, they are just using the religious foundations and hoping no one notices that they have made gross errors in fiscal as well as international diplomacy.  People need to actually read material on both sides and not rely only on the 30 second bleeps on TV commercials which both parties are putting on air.

As a 100% disabled veteran still living with the guilt and horrors, the distortions, lies, and crimes I saw performed daily and with a brutal callousness only displayed by serial killers and mass murderers, the very thought of that so-called war’s relevance infuriates me in a way only those who survived it can understand.

My question to all these chickenhawk and heavily fortified and deeply bunkered traitors who dare demean the ugly and inhuman actions that we were ordered to perform, invisibly, so to speak, by their predecessors’ similarly dissembling and
continuous blather about wars on terror and other people’s patriotic values make me sick. 

Where were they during that, “anti-communist, domino-effect-rationalized”, conflict if not pretending to be sudden scholars acquiring deferments to learn what?  How to lie, cheat, steal, and have other peoples’ children, in lieu of their own, wage lucrative for the few wars indiscriminately every few years and get away with it?  Where were they then when draftees were plucked out of their young lives’ momentum and taught to kill like rational but merciless sharks or be ignominiously killed themselves? 

They all have some sort of flimsy excuse for not participating in actual combat during any imperialist campaign but I see right through them.  There was no reason on Earth that I can see why these self-proclaimed super-patriots draped in flags they are not fit to even look at couldn’t VOLUNTEER for hazardous duty in the dozens of known and secret, “theaters”, of combat during the Southeast Asian wars or during the plentiful other bellicose times of military adventurism.

For instance, why didn’t this God-intimate present fraudulent Commander in Chief, even if he didn’t shirk his safe duty as an Air National Guardsman, VOLUNTEER to go and kill, destroy, maim, terrorize, rape, pillage, pervert, and cause general regional chaos in Southeast Asia? He and his cronies claim that anyone who opposes his criminal war policies are traitors.  If that’s true, What’s HIS excuse for NOT VOLUNTEERING with disregard for life or limb?...I’m certain his advisors have concocted one for him but whatever it may be it cannot alter the FACT that he DID NOT do his duty as an ostensibly super-patriotic citizen of this country and join the two million odd other soldiers who were forced to endure at least one year of being a sitting duck and murder machine.

Relevance?  What’s relevant is the stomach-turning and disgracefully un-democratic and obviously profit for death oriented policies this regime has foisted upon this and other compliant countries the world round.  What’s relevant is their lack of concern for the lives and well-being of their armed forces and the radiation-poisoned veterans it will produce, what’s relevant is their utter compassionlessness toward the lives of native civilians who happened to get in the way of their, “smart bombs”, in sovereign nations they have and will invade for the benefit of their political contributors and past or future employers.

They need to shut the hell up and start signing up for duty in those countries they’ve laid waste to and prove just how justified and necessary their stinking wars really are.  If they were forced, like the nobility of old - to lead the battle charges or be ridiculed out of their crowns and jewels for lack of honor and courage...I wonder just how many of them wouldn’t think twice before concocting death scenarios in the saftey of their plush offices.

Dominik:
Your contribution to this thread is very much appreciated and what you had to say would hopefully give some of the war advocates and Bush supporters something further to think about although probably not change their closed minds much..
All the best…

Dominik:
Thank you. I appreciate your courage to speak up again after all these years.  I too admire the courage of people, who have endured the war conflict, and have the courage to speak out against the regime that sent them into harm’s way in the first place. If one can not speak then this becomes a dictatorship and that we can not allow!

Dominik Mastroserio’s letter should be sent around to all the ignorant of the history of French colonialism in Indochina, ignorant of the story of Ho Chi Minh’s patriotic life, ignorant of the story of seven U.S. Presidents murderous attack on three innocent agrarian former colonial nations starting with Truman putting back in the French army against our OAS decorated ally Ho who let the fight against the Vichy French and Japanese.  Those pretending Mai Lai was the only masacre, and ignoring that more tons of bombs than twice that dropped in all of WWII
was the worst U.S. butchery in history, they should all read once a day for the rest of their lives, 100% disabled Mastroserio’s awesomely written letter and then look what the real anti-Americans in power are doing today overseas.  Democratic America?  Hey, when I was born one of every six human beings on the face of the planet was a colonial subject of that pretentious paragon of virtue ‘DEMOCRATIC’ English. After WWII America took over its role in the world.
in solidarity with real democratic Americans (informed, fair and honest),
jay janson

Jay:
Ignorance seems to be a major problem in this country! 
John O’Neal is the prime voice for the continued denial of anything done wrong in Vietnam! And he’s all over cable TV. Not admitting to having made mistakes then and not admitting to making any now is becoming the anthem of the swift boat veteran’s mentality, and this presidency.
Many were in denial during Vietnam, many are in denial now and will permit our current administration to wage war on anyone they chose including the American working class!!
I’m outraged at what this administration has been able to do and our media sits on the sidelines and doesn’t report the fouls! I’m outraged that more citizens are not aware! Just to day, I received an E-mail from a relative that used the cliche that “politicians are all crooks” as an excuse for not paying any attention!
We actually still have “undecided voters” and worse - apathetic nonvoters!

Those who responded to my comnment, Jay, Bam, et alia, are the only sort of people, who, were there a real war, that is, one in which all of us had to bear arms to defend our own adopted soil, (especially against Tyrants from within who are the most likely aliens to attempt another attack on America but on a larger scale than the one they perpetrated on 9-11-01), who I would be proud to sacrifice life and limb for.  They are the real patriots, the truly democratically-centered and humanitarian lovers of liberty and freedom for whom this nation was conceived. 

Even during the days of the Roman Imperial disgraceful experiment in human degradation and of unspeakable oppression upon conquered but resistant lands and its own people, a great man who Octavian Caeser, (Augustus), banished to his farm, by the name of Cicero, made it clear that only those wars necessary to defend one’s homeland were justifiable.  Think about that...in over 2,000 years we still don’t get it...talk about ignore-ance! 

“To ignore”: the infinitive verbal root of the word, “ignorance”, is, obviously, a greater defect of the human mind than the basest stupidity.  One can be stupid and honest about his or her opinions until they learn otherwise without dishonoring themselves.  Ignore-ance, if anything, is certainly not an unconscious decision but a willful evasion of the individual’s responsibility to learn and delve as deeply as personally possible, into the truth of life’s mysteries and especially those of human-created matters. To be ignore-ant is to foolishly wallow in one’s lack of knowledge and understanding...to which no honor or merit can possibly apply.

Who can justify their ignore-ance when what they are ignore-ing are issues such as the despoliation of nature, the befouling of the Earth due to ignore-ing the horrifyingly negative environmental impact that so-called, “progress”, has imposed on a Cosmologically-created, ineffable and incredibly intricate universal living system not even the most brilliant scientists and philosophers can fully understand? 

How can anyone ignore, to the degree that is done on so widespread a scale - so devestating and potentially Earth-desolating and humankind- extinguishing a matters such as, plutonium-polluted nuclear plant sites, the ineffectual and hazardously antiquated crumbling infrastructures of these euphemistically called, nuclear power plants - subsidized by we, the taxpayers, at scandalously budget-busting rates, and especially the inability to dispose of the waste products continually produced without effectual disposal criteria - so emblematic of these White Elephants? 

Is there a more frightening and revolting a probability than the China Syndrome scenarios which are more than likely to occur at any moment, at two hundred of these, “fully operational”, unprotected, inadequately-evacuation-ready time bombs?

I can go on and on about the consequences of ignorance born of pig-headed, obdurate and self-serving ideologies...about how jingoistic, fear mongering demagogues freeze peoples’ thought processes, en mass with fear about losing jobs, thanks to the media mouthpeices of the corporations that own these and other death-dealing monstrosities - rather than helping them learn about the real impending catastrophes that no amount of jobs can justify - which is the true mandate and contract between the fourth estate and it’s public - but I will return to this ongoing forum to count the ignorant, nay- saying fools who will never admit that their political heroes couldn’t give a fig about their lives and would do and say ANYTHING to keep them in ignore-ance. 

But that’s an entirely different though related story...for once we’ve crossed the threshold of mere ignore-ance, we’re getting into the pheonomenon of psychologically frozen Orwellian, “Crimestop”, mindsets which I begin to see in the people around me at an ever exponentially-mushrooming rate.

I just read this essay by Jackson Lears, a Yale PhD who is now a history professor at Rutgers.  His is one of the most reasonable analyses I’ve seen of why VN is such a presence in this election more than thirty years later, but it has the old flaw of unearned confidence in the rightness of the stance of antiwarriors during the war.  The war was so clearly wrong to people like Lears that they cannot see the possibility that their stance at the time was unsubstantiated by anything concrete. 

When I read thoughtful essays like Lears’s, I ask, Why did this writer not have my problem?  My problem was that I had no convincing evidence of the rightness or wrongness of either side.  Both were assertions without supporting evidence.  My real problem was that if I was going to challenge our government by refusing service, I needed some basis in actual life.  I could find none.  Only by going to Viet Nam early in January 1968 was I able to get an idea of what the Vietnamese people wanted, and even then the evidence was ambiguous until September 2, 1968 when I finally got an answer that convinced me. 

Jackson Lears is about my age (57), I would say, since he got his PhD from Yale in 1978.  He could be up to five years younger than I, but he is clearly of the Vietnam generation, one of those of us whose lives were at stake in the question of the day.  Since his own life was in danger, I have another problem with his analysis and somewhat too eager inclusion of napalm, free-fire zones, and the like under the umbrella of atrocity.  These practices were not against the Geneva Convention in play at the time, and more importantly, it is to cheapen our language of horror to lump these actions along with My Lai.  Most of the atrocities of the VN war were either individual or small unit aberrations.  We know about most of them because the perpetrators were charged with war crimes by military officials.  This was something that was evident to me when I was there in 1968.  I read news stories of soldiers charged with murder and rape of civilians.  Even though many of these charges seem to have been dropped or punished lightly, the fact that they were brought up at all indicates that atrocity was not the officially sanctioned method of conducting the war. 

While I agree with Kerry’s 1971 testimony in many aspects, including especially his attempt to fix the blame on commanders and politicians rather than on individual soldiers, who were betrayed by people who knew better, as Robert McNamara’s confessions have confirmed, I think Kerry should have made it clear, either then or more recently, that he was not charging all Vietnam War veterans with willing complicity in atrocity.  I did not commit any atrocities.  I did not see any atrocities.  I knew of aberrant, atrocious behavior of a few soldiers who either lost control or did not understand the discipline required of a soldier in combat, but I did not see anything remotely resembling My Lai, and while My Lai may not have been a unique incident, it certainly was not typical of the conduct of the war, and I will have to fight anyone who suggests it was if only to keep the historical record true. 

While he is more subtle than most of his persuasion, Mr.  Lears comes a bit too close to the point of view that atrocity was typical in VN for my taste.  To sum up, I do not believe that Mr.  Lears or anyone like him had enough reliable information at the time to be certain that the VN war was a “vile war.” I was in my ninth month in-country before I got a satisfactory answer to that question, a question that I went to Viet Nam specifically to get an answer to. “What do the Vietnamese people want?” To me, that was the only question, and I risked my life to get the answer.  If the Vietnamese people wanted us to help them, then I was willing to help them.  If the Vietnamese people did not want us to help them, then I wanted to leave them alone and get the Hell out of their country.  Anyone who did not go through just such a personal quest for truth could not possibly have had enough reliable information to have denounced that war as “vile” from the comfort of protected status in the United States.

It is for these reasons–his too loose definition of atrocity, his premature declaration of the vileness of the war, and his too ready support of Kerry, who at least earned the right to denounce the war–that I have to say that Jackson Lears, while better than most, fails to convince me that his most recent diatribe is anything other than a justification for his own behavior during a war that tested the mettle of all young men of our generation.

--Tim Trask

I too, went to Vietnam as an unaware young man, and while there none of the ambiguities of our reasoning for being there became clear. Although it didn’t take long after being in country that you started to reflect on our occupation and our motives. Something the 57 plus thousand that came home in body bags may have done as well, but now we don’t have the benefit of their thoughts.
Those of us that were lucky to come home and could write of our experience can not help writing with a little subjectivity.
I don’t believe Kerry ever indicted all of our young people as the swift boat ads attempt to suggest. I read it and understood the argument and believe he was right! The hawks of the war attempted then and are still trying to blame him for their failure to win the (unwinnable) war.
The one thing that was clear was that many of us treated the indigent population with disdain and distrust (understandable) and when incidents such as My Li came to my attention I wasn’t that surprised but knew that that horrible event did not represent me and thousands of others who were serving.
Reading analyses of Vietnam now is always fraught with rationalizations and perhaps the covering up of one’s own activities as Tim judges . Of course we weren’t all sadists, rapists, murders and drug addicted. Many unfortunately were “just carrying out orders” and under the guise of war and presumably being on the right side gave into the worst of their natures. War is not a pleasant activity!
In many of the weary publics minds at the time - the Lt. Calley soldier was what they began to associate with the injustice and increasing bad evidence of any successful prevention of the spread of communism. It was a wrong, misguided and very costly mistake, as we subsequently learned.
Certainly there were other GI’s that were brought up on charges, and as you suggest more or less let off without to serious punishment. Calley, actually got off relatively lightly considering the horror that he was responsible for. The rational again was that it was war and the mission was to search and destroy, whether they be water buffalo, ducks, men, women and children, anything that provided a body count number.
We may never resolve the internal stress many of us feel for being there, but eventually someone may produce a written document that puts to rest the conflict we are still debating after 30 years.
We weren’t all “baby killers” in fact most of us were trying to be honorable, compassionate, and understanding that this was their country that we were destroying, their families being killed, their forests be defoliated for reasons - in most GI’s minds - that was never completely clear, other than that our leaders were in charge and they knew what they were doing, and we were serving to spread democracy and preventing the spread of communism.
I don’t condone the bad behaviors of men in war but I, as well as anyone else knows, the men that were there fighting and dying were doing so because their country asked them to, and for many of us we had no choice, no deferments, no alternative service options, no knowledge of the right or wrong of the war, we were patriots and doing are duty like all the previous wars. We were
not welcomed home with parades and confetti, we were cursed and made to feel ashamed.

“We were
not welcomed home with parades and confetti, we were cursed and made to feel ashamed.”

Those words could have been written by any German soldier returning after the glorious slaughter of World War One. That war lasted “only” 4 years and a few months, but cost at least 12 million lives, some 2.5 million being Germans. Those vets returned to shame, to a starving country, to chaos… Speaking of PTSS: Those frustrated veterans formed the backbone of Hitler’s rise. Were they at fault? Were they volunteers? No, they were sent to do a job.

I am not sure that confetti is needed, but certainly honoring the dead and the survivors is, and I say that not as a pacifist, but as one opposed to war. The ones who should have been ashamed and cursed were the chracters who led the USA into that no-exit situation. I think worse than cursed (that at least would have been an expression that could have sparked a debate), the whole issue was ignored and swept under the carpet. Regan held the broom.

Talleyrand:
Yes, we forget that our enemies that were serving their countries had families and dreams, and were merely being used to further the ends of some goal of the leadership and conscripted to die for “a greater cause”.
The stereotyped Nazi soldiers that are typically presented in many movies has of course
created an unfair view of those men...We did the same with the Japanese of course.
In movies like Rambo, many Vietnam veterans could vicariously go back and wipe out our Vietnames enemy like a super hero. Rambo and other movies like that were a kind of pornography filling the needs of many men but not accurate about the reality.

Here are a few facts to clarify my background with respect to the Vietnam war. I went to a conservative southern university (U.Va.), never went near an SDS meeting, joined NROTC as an alternative to being drafted, and served as a communications officer on a guided-missile cruiser in the Pacific in 1969-70. I had been a Goldwater supporter but gradually--mostly by studying the history of the Vietnam war and of American foreign policy generally, I became an outspoken critic of the war (not a fashionable position at a conservative school.) It was perfectly possible to see the futility of our government’s policy without actually setting foot in Vietnam. Opposition to the war did not involve self-righteous accusations that most Americans committed atrocities, or silly and false assumptions that the VC and NVA were somehow incapable of atrocities. It was the policy that provoked outrage, not the men who were ordered to carry it out. No one I knew in the antiwar movement was hostile to the men who were actually serving in the military--on the contrary, we wanted to get them out of an impossible situation. I did not see combat, but I did see the mendacity of the top brass and civilian officials up close--including for example the denial of what everyone on board knew, that our ship carried nuclear weapons. I had a top-secret clearance and would have been part of the team of codebreakers decrypting the message that authorized the use of the ship’s nuclear weapons.  This caused me to stop and think.  To make a long story short, I applied for conscientious objector status and received an honorable discharge. I mention these facts so that readers will know I wasn’t insulated from the military and ignorant of its ways. I was not the stereotypical “flag-burning protester” from Berkeley or Columbia--and there were lots of other people like me, who served in the military and came from conservative backgrounds but nevertheless came to oppose the war. And some of us still remember who was actually responsible for it.

I think the article was “right on” (to use jargon from before I was born).  The comments are, overall, informed and expand on the topic.
However, I take exception to the argument put forth that it’s up to BAM or whomever to prove the Swift Boat Vets are lying.
That’s not BAM or anyone’s job.  It’s the job of the SBV to prove they are telling the truth.
BAM’s taken to task for not proving they’re lying.
As though there’s only ONE lie involved. 
They’re making the charges (contradicted by records and witnesses) and proof is incumbent upon them.
Lawrence O’Donnell did a great job the other night calling O’Neill a liar when he refused to answer a question.
William Rood is never mentioned by the chattering heads who bring on the SBV—either because they’re unaware of his front page Chicago Tribune article or because referring to it might make viewers say, “So why are you booking them?”
Regardless when a group wants to make charges (any group) in this country it is incumbent upon them to make their case.  It’s not the job of a poster on this page to refute the many lies.
Great article and, overall, great comments.

To Dave Weissinger,

You are an old man that has not got the balls to see any point of view other than what was afforded you when you were still to young to form your own. Your are convinced that you fought very bravely in a war that I would hate to think you believe was justified.

After a hard working life that you call succesful you are now a retired person enjoying the fruits of your labour. Wow what a man you are. For all your insight and studying history and the facts.

I guess I am being very unfair here and should give you a chance. You see my repulsion is fuelled by you “ I am Texan and live by the gun” Do you have a gun? or allot more than what you can ever finger?

At any rate, you mention Laos. While you are all comfortable in your SUV taking it easy, people in that little country are still dying due to the ordinance left behind by people like you who call your self brave.

You are not brave nor are you honourable. You take away the right of other people to live and farm their land at a whim because you so choose. Being brave is going up against any enemy with a both sides equally armed. Pretty much like sports. What fun would any sport be if one side “out gunned” the other. Yes, if the Vietnam war was allot more equal in fire power and resources you would not have made it back. Or more than likely you would have never seen Vietnam. People like you and Bush will only pick on sure bets. You have no balls old man and you certainly have no honour, not respect for life.

To Watson

Yes, I am sixty years old.  How old are you pinhead?  So you live in Texas, WHERE, it is a big state, you have my location.  Yes I come armed to the teeth.  Call your shots Pinhead.  So do you think that you have balls?  Put them on the line.

I can’t believe how short our memories are. After the story about the massacre at Mi Lai by the Americal Division in Vietnam (this division was made up of National Guard units), every reporter for every type of news outlet, spread out all over Vietnam looking for their own massacre story. And find them they did. I remember evry night, some news station would show the lastest atrocitie picture or video.
Vietnam is important. Why? I heard soldiers in Irag saying the same thing as soldiers did towards the end of our involvement in Vietnam, that “I’m just trying to take care of my friends so we can all get out of here in one piece”.
I thing we are silly, trying to argue over service records of individuals over 30 some years ago. This is like arguing whether Gen. Custer had enough men at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876

After the relatively articulate letters from Mr. Weissinger, that were more or less in agreement with the swift boat commercials and in defense of Bush’s Ntl Guard service, he now seems to be attempting a shoot out with “Watson” at high-noon on some dusty street there in Texas!
Calm down, keep your guns put away, and it doesn’t help to disparage anyone. We can disagree of course, and there is plenty of that here, but come on folks. For one, Dave isn’t anything like our “Carl” that was using bad language & twisted opinions, and he was supporting Bush. I don’t recall even if Dave claimed to be voting for anyone although I would assume that he would be for Bush based on what he has relayed.
He was wrong when he believed me to have been sarcastic because I was pleased that he was lucky to have returned, but written language can often be misinterpreted, especially if one has a bias and ready to dispute whatever they are reading that is from another point of view.
Atrocities were committed without a doubt. Many people died without a doubt! Many were fortunate to come home and form opinions after the fact, for and against the war.
Some like Dominick are 100% disabled and obviously has not wallowed in self pity but continues to learn and form educated opinions about that war and the human condition.
No one here can speak for all veterans nor should we pretend to, but from our life experience we’re entitled to evaluate the current Iraq circumstance, and the commander in chief that sent a new generation of men and women to die - ostensibly in defense of America - is what is the issue, and not whether one served in Vietnam in one capacity or other. We all, of course had different experiences during that war and some have unfortunately never gotten over it. I’m not a gun owner, not one, but I don’t concern myself with those that do unless I hear or read language that has become commonplace these days.Gun owners don’t bother me until I read that “all liberals should be shot” which I believe Carl expressed and I actually saw a bumper sticker with those very words. We don’t need to be shooting people because we disagree with them! It’s scary stuff!
And now that the assault weapons ban was allowed to transpire, well, that’s another letter…
All the best

Bruce,
Thank you for this letter, I was accepting the challenge of that pinhead Watson.  I think that he is a “CATFISH” (All mouth, eyes close when the mouth opens, no ears, and a brain that functions only on sleep and feeding frenzy). 

Yes atrocities happened during Vietnam, no one can disavow that.  Both sides committed atrocities and that has been recorded in history.  But, one can not paint all Vietnamese or all American Soldiers as bloodthirsty killers because of the attrocities.  The only time that I fired a weapon in anger was at a possible target that was approaching the perimeter at Camp Holloway in 1967 & 1968.  Yes, there were bodies in the grass around my sector of the perimeter those nights, but who shot them?  Other than that, I was a helicopter pilot flying a slick, that requires the use of both hands, both feet and the skill required to operate that beast when it is airborne.  I have directed fire, but, I haven’t, to my knowledge, killed another human being.

Yes, I feel that the people who disavow the Swift Boat veterans need to take some time to see what they are truly saying.  Yes, they disagree with John Kerry, and they think that he will make a very poor leader, as do I.  Looking at the actions of Senator Kerry for the few months, I see a man who makes decisions too rapidly and jumps at information to make a claim without first evaluating the information before he jumps on it.  Cases in Point:

(1.) John Kerry wanted to instantly put all of the findings of the 9-11 commission into operation immediately.  That commission is a panel of 10 people who made decisions based upon their skills and capabilities, and many of the observations that were made were excellent.  But they are only 10 people, I feel that Bush is handling the situation in the propper way, he is sending it to congress where a large group of people will evaluate the findings and flesh out the report to include funding and operational requirements.  Jumping to conclusions only causes one to take the wrong path, many at inopportune times, and it turns out to be expensive when one has to redo what they have already done and found to be not exactly wrong, but less efficient than it should have been.

(2.) The Democrats jumped on President Bush for not Immediately starting the Homeland Security Operations.  He didn’t just jump at the suggestion, he evaluated the suggestion first then he has committed himself to the cause after it was thoroughly evaluated.  Now we have a fledgling Homeland Security Organization and they are working hard to improve security for our nation.  Overall Security.

(3.) John Kerry has jumped on the fact that “President Bush” has only covered 5% of the shipping containers that are entering this nation.  What he hasn’t considered is that the evaluation of the shipping containers is in the Homeland Security Operation.  Homeland Security activities have included getting information from the ports and developing the best way to secure our ports, it is only a portion of their activity.  Homeland Security has been given a budget and they have to live within that budget.  The Congress, which Kerry is a part of, established the budget for Homeland Security operations.  To date they are working to cover security for all of us.  To dump everything into covering the shipping containers at the expense of working to protect our airlines, railways, roadways, and all of their other responsibilities would be fatal.  One must look at the facts, set priorities, and utilize the assets that are available to the best benefit.

(4.) John Kerry’s last jump on the 380 tons of explosives that are missing is going to blow up in his face.  60 Minutes was saving the story for a Sunday Night Suprise, but Kerry and the others Jumped on the effort.  Kerry got an advertisement out and on the air, within 20 hours of the report from the New York Times, leading many to believe that the two were in collusion in order to favor Kerry.  Now we have found out that our soldiers who were advancing on Bagdad were quartered in that site for an overnight.  They noted that there many were bombed out bunkers, and that there were no United Nations seals on the bunkers and they searched the bunkers for chemical weapons for their own safety, and they found only a few damaged rockets and some damaged equipment.  So they left the compound and proceded to Bagdad.  The explosives were gone before our people got there.  John Kerry screaming that President Bush failed to secure that lot of explosives is meeting only the requirements to sway the minds of the weak.  President Bush was not in Iraq, and Kerry’s statements only insults the military, for they are President Bush’s representatives in Iraq. 

Our nation doesn’t need a leader who jumps at the first suggestion and takes action without first evaluating the suggestion.  Kerry has been like that since he was in Vietnam.  Read the book, “Unfit For Command”, and reading between the lines, you will see an impulsive person who is single minded and only interested in self gratification.  Read his record in the jobs that he has performed, again he is only interested in self.  He is someone who will come down on all sides of every arguement, as we have seen during this political season alone.  He will say anything to have you follow him.  Is that what you want?  Go For it!

You get what our nation votes for, and to date if Kerry wins the election you will get exactly what he wants.  He is saying that he will reverse all of President Bush’s tax cuts and that he will only tax the rich.  Reversing “all” of Bush’s tax cuts will eliminate the tax cuts that moved the tax independance day from the second week of May to the first week of April.  That means that he will eliminate the $1,000 per child allocation that Bush established.  That means that he will bring back the tax on inheritances.  If you have a relative that dies and leaves you something, you will be taxed on that even though the taxes were paid on that property, you get taxed again, only this time it will be on the total value of the property on the date that you get it.  The rich are smart people, if you raise their taxes, they will just increase the cost of the products that they sell to you, and if you have to have it to live, Sin Loi!

Only when the people of this nation arise and form an organization that will go into Washington with a set agenda of cutting the pork out of our government, and establishing the need to support our own people first, will we be able to set a new direction.  But that will take initiative and money to get going. So none who are reading these boards will be able to support an activity such as that.  We are left to do what we can to convince others of what we feel is right and what is wrong. 

Dave Weissinger

can you summerize

Dave:

I have no complaint’s with some of your more general observations and will only point out a few that I do take exception to…

“ I see a man who makes decisions too rapidly and jumps at information to make a claim without first evaluating the information before he jumps on it.”

Apparently you think George W. Bush was more capable of making life and death decisions while thinking things completely through? His entire history is lackluster to say the least and he has never demostrated the ability to think things through. His only accomplishement that I can give him some credit for was to stop his drinking. But he couldn’t even do that like a reasonable man and admit that he had the problem and seek professional help. That would have been political suicide. When he had the pretzel incident and we got such a blown out of proportion explanation of why he lost conciousness and banged his head left many of pretzel fans wondering what was he drinking?

“Our nation doesn’t need a leader who jumps at the first suggestion and takes action without first evaluating the suggestion.”

Bush of course doesn’t listen to any suggestions that doesn’t fit his mind set. And we’re to accept from all the evidence that Bush is more capable of understanding the world and it’s complexities when this man values that he doesn’t read and apparently doesn’t even comprehend a simple PDB that says Osama bin Ladin intends on attacking us inside the US.

Your suggestion that the “trickle down theory” of economics is a good thing, and that if you roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy that they will react by raising prices of their products, cut wages, layoff workers, and behave like spoiled brats when their toys are taken away for being selfish.. Of course many of these wealthy Americans could care less about the American people it’s all about them and their profits. So what if home foreclosures are at an all time high, so what if the homeless numbers are soaring, so what if health care is unavailable to a large percentage of Americans, so what if the workers in many businesses are losing their overtime pay and their wages are not enough to keep up with the ever increasing prices of everything...There seems to be a contradiction in your logic. But, yea, Sin Loi…

The swift boat veterans agenda is as apparent as the RNC mailings to West Virginia and Arkansas voters that in so many words suggested that if they vote for Kerry that the bible would be banned, men would be able to marry men, and God would suddenly not exist...Should I take them seriously, no. As I have said they served honorably and like the rest of us have the distaste of the Vietnam debate still unresolved and the Republican party is attempting to exploit that turmoil for a political end. They did it with McCain & Cleland , now Kerry, and make no mistake - they would do it to you too.

I could list the litany of failures of this president but it’s serves little purpose. I’m hardly going to convince you of your position being incorrect anymore than you can convince me of mine being so. As I stated previously, I have veteran friends that are Rush Limbaugh aficionados and we disagree on everything political but we give each other our say. I’m not going to change their minds and they won’t change mine.

You did conclude you post with another paragraph that I can agree with...It would be a real change to have a real representative government. One really by, of and for the people...all the people not just special interests. It would be a refreshing change to have a president that was really a uniter and understood the world better, rather than the narrow and apparently limited minded individual we presently have.

I can’t say whether John Kerry is going to change things as quickly as many of us would like but the removal of George W. Bush will be the first step toward more sane policies domestically and abroad.

Sincerely,

Bruce

Bruce,

I just gave you four glaring examples to the following sentence, and I like you could probably drag on for hours giving examples of his complicity in jumping to conclusions all the way back to his involvement in the military where he jumped at the opportunity to become a Swift Boat Commander, he saw an opportunity to get a command without getting into any real danger.  Unfortunately, the Navy changed the mission of the Swift Boats from off shore interdiction to interdiction in the inland waterways.  Kerry was a kno