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Aug 24, 2004 One of these days, I'll learn not to express my opinions so openly (but not yet.) By doing so, I've opened myself to some of the vilest insults it's ever been my misfortune to witness, and these are directed against ME! ME! The guy who loves kids, this country and who has unlimited faith in its future and the opportunities that will open up for all my kids and grandkids if we can just hold the course. As my daughter will testify, I'm really a pussycat who wouldn't harm the proverbial fly. I've been inundated with viciousness unlike anything I've ever witnessed. I've been called an "idiot," "fascist," "jackbooted thug," "a..hole," and worse--all because I have chosen to tell the truth about the character (or lack of same) of the Democrat's annointed one for this year's election--told from the perspective of someone who was a victim of his lies and exaggerations before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. There are those who'll say that he was behaving "honorably" by coming home and opposing the war. If that's all he'd done, I'd agree, but he came home and "opposed the war" by trashing all of us who served honorably by branding us all in the minds of those seeing and hearing him as war criminals, baby-killers and rapists. One could almost think that he saw 'way too many screenings of "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now" for his own good, for he seems to have implanted some of what those such movies depicted in his own mind and now thinks of them as "documentaries" with him as the principle character. Differences of opinion aren't "lies." They're differences of opinon--nothing more. It's my opinion that Senator Kerry lied about and distorted his Vietnam experiences purely for political ambitions. When he came home, the far left was getting all the press coverage in the U.S. I believe that he deliberately allied himself with Hanoi Jane and her ilk believing that the publicity thus gained would help him in his political career. I had just started working as a police officer and watched with horror as he told horror stories about what was going on in Vietnam--stories that I absolutely KNEW to be phony. I'd heard similar stories from guys purporting to have first-hand knowledge of such things. Upon closer examination, however, it always turned out that they'd been assigned to some desk job in Saigon or to a maintenance outfit which hadn't seen a single day of combat and couldn't POSSIBLY have witnessed any of the stuff they were spouting off about. His supporters point out that he "volunteered" for the "Brown Navy" by going with the Swiftboats. What these people fail to mention is that, at the time he volunteered, Swiftboats were NOT used in that manner, but were being used by the Navy for relatively safe coastal patrol. It was only about the time that Kerry arrived in-country that Admiral Zumwalt changed their mission to include much more hazardous river patrols and "showing the flag" in VC- controlled areas, as he put it, so it's reasonable to suppose that Lt Kerry THOUGHT he was going into relatively safe duty at the time he volunteered. But, as I've said before, I don't have much question about his actual service. I'm perfectly willing to concede that Kerry's service in-country was honorable. However, his "service" once he left and went home was ANYTHING but honorable in my opinion. John Kerry hurt those still in Vietnam and he hurt all those who had served in Vietnam by his very public distortions of what duty was really like there. There is a VAST difference between honorably opposing the war and lying and distorting the truth for the PURPOSE of opposing the war. If the anti-war people of that era had simply used the tools that the Constitution affords them--petitions to the government, collectively AND individually, for example--I wouldn't have had much problem with them. Unfortunately, they used highly publicized riots, sit-ins, draft-card burnings and civil unrest (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) to convince Americans (and much of the rest of the world, for that matter) that we were criminals (that's the collective "we") illegally interfering with the "legitimate aspirations of a peace-loving" communist nation. We now know that the SDS (Students for Democratic Society), one of the more radical groups, headed by Jane Fonda-ex, Tom Hayden, was receiving cash infusions from the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. A Soviet defector tells stories of carrying paper bags full of cash across the Bay Bridge for delivery to these people. We've never yet had an adequate explanation of why former President Clinton-- another anti-war campus radical--went to Moscow, just a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle, in early January of 1969. It certainly wasn't as a "tourist" as he's claimed or if it was, his tourist agency owes him a BIG refund since the average temperature during that week was well below zero Farenheit. He, of course, returned to London to drop out of Oxford and organize and participate in anti-war protests in London. This man of "modest means" sure came up with a lot of cash when it became necessary. THESE then, are the people with whom Kerry chose to ally himself. He was, of course, perfectly free to do so, but allying oneself with far-left radicals supported by the USSR at that time in our history was, at best, very poor judgement and, at worst, treasonous behavior. I know that a lot of vets consider what he did to them to be at least as bad as Hanoi Jane's visit to Hanoi during the war and allowing herself to be used by the communists in that fashion. Unfortunately, this self-described "27-year-old veteran" (as though his age is an excuse) chose the wrong side then and is on the wrong side now. ------------ About the author: A semi-retired middle-manager in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Jared is currently writing his first book, which will contain TRUTHFUL accounts of his two tours in Vietnam, which should be a refreshing change from anyone who's read "Tour of Duty." Email: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net |
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