After he came home from Vietnam he claimed it an unjust war and a mistake and has done so ever since. So how can he now claim he defended this country in a mistake and shot a kid in the back as honorable?

There's more to leadership than waving the flag TK. He had the courage to tell it like it was. Even Nixon called him articulate!

I suppose there is some grace in flip flopping if you say it the right way. :p

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Were you there ( Vietnam-during the conflict) jeff'e'd?

If you weren't, then what are you basing your statement that, "He had the courage to tell it like it was" on?

I have two close relatives that I admire greatly who were there and who take great offense at John "Pierre" Kerry saying that they, like most of his 'brothers in arms' were a bunch of "RAPISTS and BABY KILLERS."

Oddly enough, when Kerry brought his color 8mm camera with him to Vietnam to re-enact scenes to make himself appear to be a war hero----He forgot to capture any footage of all those RAPES and CHILD MURDERS that all those troops were so busy committing.

After all, that's the way it really was...right?

When you wear two left shoes it's hard to make sense of anything :p

Well, you're right in that I wasn't there and I can't authenticate every word he used.

I do know that Kerry has said on many occasions that he wishes that he had used different words than he did 30 years ago.

I guess I don't have a problem with him having the courage to speak his mind based on his volunteer service to his country.

What I see today from those who "served" with him is a partisan view of what Kerry was like as a commander.

We'll see what McCain has to say in more detail shortly.

------------------------------------------------------------

John McCain was doing an extended stay in the Hanoi Hilton when Kerry was in Vietnam.

His say, and or view of Kerry's actual service in Vietnam would be as speculative as yours or mine.

Who cares what MCCain has to say on the matter. There are several present and past congressmen that served in Vietnam that support the Swiftboat vets and GW. Mccain is just one. Kerry made it a point to completely ignore is 20 year Senate record because it is the most liberal based on his voting record. That record will not sell in Iowa. So he decided in a time of war to sell his record in Vietnam and it is the hill he will die on as a presidential candidate. Either Vietnam was a travesty and a mistake as Kerry has maintained for 30 years or it was the right thing to do. Since he now firmly sits on both sides of the fence we need some serious answers. Which one was it John? This is a major major character issue that you cannot sluff off with a counter like well what did GW do? Did you serve in the militray liberal dodge.

How can he not?

Would he be more credible if he'd claimed it an unjust war if he hadn't experienced it first hand?

Oh that's right, Bouches don't need actual facts to form opinions.

And they are ...?

Elvis....the colonel is calling....its time for your medication!

SWIFT OFFICERS AND VETS: KERRY LIED ABOUT SPENDING CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA

**Exclusive**

Since the early 1970s, Kerry has spoken and written of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia. Kerry mentioned it in the floor of the Senate in 1986 when he charged that President Reagan’s actions in Central America were leading the U.S. in another Vietnam. Here’s what he said as excerpted from the new book, UNFIT FOR COMMAND:

I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me.

DRUDGE has learned from the accounts of Swift Boat officers and Kerry’s crewmembers that Kerry was never in Cambodia. UNFIT FOR COMMAND authors charge that Kerry made it all up.

“Despite the dramatic memories of his Christmas in Cambodia, Kerry’s statements are complete lies,” according to John O’Neil, co-author and the Swift Boat commander who took over Kerry’s boat. “Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War. . . . he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia.”

Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13’s patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about 55 miles from the Cambodian border. . . . Tom Anderson, Commander of River Division 531, who was in charge of PBRs (small river patrol crafts] confirmed that there were no Swifts anywhere in the area and they would have been stopped had they appeared.

All the living commanders in Kerry’s chain of command . . . deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia. They indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone there. At least three of the five crewmen on Kerry’s boat, Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner, deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia.

O’Neill observed that the Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty (Kerry’s recent biography). Instead, Kerry replaced the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 “near the Cambodian border” in a town called Sa Dec and Christmas day was spent at the base writing entries in his journal.

After conducting interviews and research, authors of Unfit for Command conclude, “The truth is that Kerry made up his secret mission into Cambodia.... the lie about the illegal Cambodian incursion painted his superiors up the chain of command. . . . as villains faced down by John Kerry, a solitary hero in grave and exotic danger and forced illegally against his will into harm’s way.”

Statement from Col George E. "Bud" Day, USAF, Ret., Medal of Honor Recipient, Former POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam, regarding Presidential election support:

"I am solidly in the camp for the reelection of President George W. Bush.

While opposition to my legal efforts to restore WWII/Korea era earned medical care by the Bush Administration was discouraging, the Kerry Vietnam anti-war movement directly encouraged the vicious torture I received as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, was demoralizing for other POW's and their families, and provided aid and comfort for North Vietnam to continue the war.

I can think of no action more despicable than false public condemnation of warriors on the field of battle, as John Kerry made under oath.

Senator Kerry is unfit to become President and our Commander-in-Chief."

Col, George "Bud" Day, USAF, Ret., Medal of Honor recipient, Former POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.

Here\'s the credibility of the Swifties Against Kerry.

I hear a certain Billy Squire song on the radio in the back ground whenever you post GH. Something about "stroke me,stroke me"

Funny thing is that Kerry's biggest Swfitboat supporters have been Hired by Kerry or his friends.

Another interesting viewpoint .

Kerry's war record
Robert Novak (archive)


August 9, 2004 | Print | Send


WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The television ad that aroused the wrath of John McCain and journalist supporters of John Kerry just begins deconstruction of the Democratic presidential candidate's war record. "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," a 214-page critique of his performance in Vietnam and the antiwar movement, is off the presses ahead of schedule.

I have read the book and found it is neither the political propaganda nor the urban legend that its detractors claim. It is a passionate but meticulously researched account of how Kerry went to war, what he did in the war and how he conducted himself after the war. The very serious charges by former comrades deserve answers but so far have produced only ad hominem counterattacks.

Why should details of what Kerry did more than 30 years ago be part of this election campaign? Only because the senator has made them integral to his strategy. Kerry as war hero received more attention at the Democratic National Convention than plans for the future. Thus, what he did in his shortened four months of combat becomes a valid campaign issue.

John E. O'Neill, co-author of "Unfit for Command," replaced Kerry as commander of Swift Boat PCF 94 in 1969 and has been confronting him since 1971. O'Neill told me he is no George W. Bush partisan and probably would have supported John Edwards had he been nominated for president, but is committed to keeping Kerry out of the Oval Office. Thus, reversing the usual formulation, the assault on Kerry is personal but not political.

O'Neill told me neither he nor his co-author (Jerome R. Corsi, a writer and expert on the Vietnam antiwar movement) has had contact with the Bush White House or the Bush-Cheney campaign. He said he and Corsi, on their own initiative, went to conservative Regnery Publishing to offer the book.

The co-authors paint Kerry as a reluctant warrior. Contrary to claims by Kerry's supporters that he served two combat hitches in Vietnam, his one-year term aboard a guided missile frigate was far from action. His four months in the brown water navy were terminated eight months early by a third Purple Heart wound, none of which required hospitalization.

The book's strength is the vehemence of testimony by swift boat veterans, alleging that Kerry "gamed" the system to win decorations and later betrayed comrades by charging war crimes. Typical is the quote by Bob Hildreth, commanding an accompanying boat: "I would never want Kerry behind me. I wouldn't want him in front of me, either. And I sure wouldn't want him commanding our kids in Iraq and Afghanistan." Some 200 "Swiftees" on May 4 signed a letter to Kerry demanding full release of his service records.

The book's weakness is support for Kerry's presidential campaign by his swift boat crewmates, presumably people who knew him best. O'Neill told me that these former sailors served with Kerry no more than five weeks. Jim Rassmann, now part of the Kerry presidential campaign, was a Special Forces lieutenant spending a few days with Kerry when he fell or was knocked off the swift boat while under fire and was fished out of the Mekong River by the future candidate.

The "band of brothers" was organized by Kerry, according to this book. It tells of a 2003 telephone call to Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded swift boats in Vietnam, telling him he was running for president. Hoffmann, mistakenly thinking it was former Sen. Bob Kerrey, "responded enthusiastically." Once the admiral realized it was John Kerry, "he declined to give Kerry his support." Hoffmann is quoted as saying, "I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States."

"Unfit for Command" sends a devastating message, unless effectively refuted. Perhaps most disturbing are allegations that Kerry's combat decorations are unjustified. His first Purple Heart, the book alleges, was accidentally self-inflicted. His commander, Grant Hibbard, is quoted as saying: "I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself." Full release of documents demanded by his critics could settle this claim quickly if it is unwarranted.

Nice book review by a political pundit. A book which is merely the opinion of the author on events that happened over 35 years ago.

What's the point?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
O'Neill told me he is no George W. Bush partisan and probably would have supported John Edwards had he been nominated for president, but is committed to keeping Kerry out of the Oval Office. Thus, reversing the usual formulation, the assault on Kerry is personal but not political.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bull. Check this out.
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=John_E._O\'Neill

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Theking:

Funny thing is that Kerry's biggest Swfitboat supporters have been Hired by Kerry or his friends.--TK
------------------------------------------------------------

That's true. The Kerry supporters have been compensated for their vocal support. I haven't seen any proof that the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are motivated by anything other than having the truth about what they wittnessed
made public.

BTW--The money that the Texas citizen donated to Sb V for T organization helped to produce and air the groups add--not pay the people who spoke in it.

George Soros gives money to the Kerry '04 and other democratic candidates election fund-- raisers. He also has given large sums of money to Moveon.org and 527's--does that automatically link Kerry and other democrats to Moveon.org and everything produced and claimed by the 527's?

George Soros and others are just working within the guidelines of the McCain/Finegold campaign finance reform bill--If someone doesn't like that, they should attack the legislation---not the people who find ways to work around it.

Suggesting that John O'neill is a political hack doesn't hold up if you ask yourself what his motivations were when he publically challenged Kerry and his claims about his own and others Vietnam service BEFORE he ever met Nixon, or Kerry ever announced that he was seeking a political office.

It seems to me that O'neill has been CONSISTANT about his opposition to Kerry and the accusations he made about the men who served in Vietnam (before and after Kerry ever asked for a single vote). Kerry would be well served if his own views on anything were consistant from month to month--much less over 30 years like O'neill's.

It has nothing to do with Bush and continuing down that path is ignorant. It's about Kerry and only Kerry.

Is that right?

So if you wind up thinking this important enough to not vote for Kerry.............who do you vote for then? Hmmm? The draft dodger?

So I guess if you don't vote for the war protester, you could vote for the draft dodger......or Ralph Nader.

For the record Dan, that was Elvis calling you ignorant.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by AuntyM:

The voters would never react adversly enough to the truth, so they have to make up lies.--AM

I was making reference to John O'neill--what lies are you suggesting he made up?
What are you basing that assertion on?
------------------------------------------------------------

Such good patriots like O'Neil should surely condemn Bush's lack of credible excuse for the gap in his weak service record---AM

Bush may have never served in Vietnam, but he never went before the nation and said that the men who did were a bunch of, "RAPISTS and BABY KILLERS" like Hanoi John did either. That's why Kerry can only get a small handfull of the over two million of men who served there to stand behind him. Oddly enough, that small handfull of men have been compensated for their vocal support.

Like deep throat said, "follow the money."

Money, so they say---is the root of all..............

..............I think I need a Lear Jet

------------------------------------------------------------

DanS,

If you really disagree with this war and want our troops to come home--Ralph Nader is the ONLY candidate running who has consistantly said we should have never invaded Iraq and removed Saddam's regime, and if elected promisses to withdraw the troops immediately.

BTW--The next time you're out in a boat that's stalled and or capsizing and the US Coast Guard comes to your rescue--be sure to thank the 'Draft Dodger' that enlisted in the 'Guard during the Vietnam era that probably trained the younger Guardemen that are saving your life.

You're right; Bush "never went before the nation and said that the men who did were a bunch of, RAPISTS and BABY KILLERS." Instead he chose to voice his opinion through actions - being much stronger than words.

And what did he say? He said, "I'm too good to be dieing for my country. Hell, let them other less fortunate fellars do all that dieing and stuff. I got me some beer to drink and coke to snort."

Doesn't change the fact: Kerry was there. Bush was not. Both by conscious decision.

By the way, did Kerry say that all the men that fought in Vietnam were guilty of rape and murder? Or did he merely mention those were but a few of the atrocities experienced there? Can you unequivocally state that he lied about rape and murder happening during the war?

So, to recap, we have a guy that used his personal and family connections to avoid combat, thus forcing someone else to go in his stead. The guy can't even provide documentation to prove beyond doubt that he even completed the service he signed up forto avoid combat. He is the guy you claim to represent good.

The other guy went to combat of his own volition, even volunteered for ultra-hazardous duty. He didn't like what he saw or experienced. He comes home and uses his American rights to help convince policy makers that the war was killing fellow Americans needlessly. By stopping the war, thousands of Americans were spared the horror of war and death. This is the guy you claim represents bad.



Weird value system.

This just added:
By the way, go do a real quick Google using the following: coast guard vietnam

You'll love what you find.

Hey AuntyM,

Did you see or read the entire interview that Gen. Franks gave Hannity?

You and or Slate did a pretty good cut and past job of paraphrasing Gen. Frank's words--since you're googling skills are unparralled---you should provide the interview in it's ENTIRETY.

Then you and everyone else who's interested can read where Gen. Franks says that even though we haven't found WMD's yet--he still believes invading Iraq and removing Saddam and his regime was the RIGHT thing to do. When it comes to fighting terrorists Gen. Franks also said that we have two choices, we can either A.) fight them over there or B.) fight them over here

DanS,
If it where my candidates only claim to fame and I found out he was misrepresenting it I would not vote. Specifcally if the other candidates where that repugnant to me.


"things Kerry said are undeniable,"

Nice that all the context was removed to make an invalid point. Franks and others have comented on this before. To deny that atrocities did not occur in Vietnam is silly. Of course they did. But Kerry's assertion that they where the policy of the US and that he wittnessed them are wrong. It was minority of people as usual. Did command turn thier heads? I am sure they did based on what I have read. Nothing that did not happen in other wars or that will not happen in future wars. The difference is the left intends to uncover it 35 years later to use it as an excuse for their candidate.

Franks also support s the War, comdems the Un and Supports Bush. or is it a case of picking and choosing positions to try and make a point?

They sure are out of context. He was making a comment about Kerrys comments on war atrocities. He was not commenting on if Kerry was justified to call it a unjust, amoral and illegal war for 35 years. Then to use his service in an unjust,Amoral and illegal war as the drumbeat for his presidential bid.

I was gonna bring up Bush's other claims to fame...........but there aren't any.

I am not implying that he did it's real clear. Franks was discussing the fact that he thought war atrocities did in fact occur and that Kerry was justified in saying such. There is no context in the discussion about franks views on Kerry flip flopping or Kerry switch for Anti war to pounding his own ddrum re his actions in the war. Franks is merely commenting on one topic Re; the vietnam war. it's very Micahel Moorish to pull it out of context and insert it into a debate about wheather or not kerry's actions can be defended then vs. now. Being a natural born American citizen qualifies one to be president , Franks is playing a game and few are bright enough to catch it. He supports conservative values clearly.

Then the growth of the Federal Government, the deficit spending, and the tinkering with the Constitution must be driving him nuts.
Unless he's one of those "neo-con" conservatives.

Oh, he's a witty one, that Franks. :rolleyes:

Get over yourself.

yes he is GH here is a piece that shows how much so. "

Franks Undecided on Presidential Vote

Monday, August 09, 2004


WASHINGTON — Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, producer of the early military successes in Afghanistan (search) and Iraq (search), said Sunday that criticism of John Kerry's (search) war record is political hyperbole and Kerry is "absolutely" qualified to be commander in chief.

A year into retirement, Franks also said he has not decided whether to endorse President Bush (search) for re-election. "I don't know yet. I'm leaning in that direction," he said on a Sunday morning news show.

Franks, whose hometown is Midland, Texas — where the president and first lady Laura Bush grew up — has been making television appearances in recent days to publicize his just-published memoirs, "American Soldier."

"Do you think Senator Kerry is qualified to be commander in chief?" Franks was asked.

"Absolutely!" he said.

But like the criticism of Kerry, the retired general said the Democratic nominee's recent harsh words about the war plan Franks created in Afghanistan was motivated by politics and his failure to capture Al Qaeda (search) network leader Usama bin Laden.

"I think a presidential election year is a marvelous thing. I think Senator Kerry is a patriot. And I think what ... what we're doing is, we're seeing an attempt to sort of draw the lines between the two parties in this country. And I wouldn't have it any other way," Franks said.

The characterization of Kerry as a coward and liar who did not earn the medals awarded him for his Vietnam service came in a television ad sponsored by a group that fashions calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (search). Kerry was skipper of one of the small Mekong River boats and received the Silver Star and Bronze Star for valor and three Purple Hearts for wounds.

"I really work hard to stay away from hyperbole," Franks said. "People ask me all the time about 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and then others will ask me about some equally vitriolic view at the end of the continuum on the conservative side."

"I believe that life really is someplace between the two," Franks said, "and so I am not a fan of hyperbole, whether it is for or against Senator Kerry or George W. Bush."

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is the anti-Bush film by documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

Franks said he also has not decided whether he would want to speak at the Republican National Convention.

"I'm a fiercely independent kind of guy and rather proud of it," Franks said.

What game are you talk'n about TK, like getting a high cabinet position....? Who in the political military sphere isn't playing that game....

Based on Bush's poor poll #'s, there's probably a lot of folks in that sphere that are worried about their next job!

I'd say your thread is pretty well done TK!

The only ones that believe this junk are the desparate, predictable neocons who can't help themselves but to tear down their opponent.

Originally posted by AuntyM:

....John O'Neill has had an agenda against Kerry BECAUSE Kerry told the truth and did what his conscience dictated when he testified before Congress. --AM

Again I ask you, what are you basing your assertion that, "Kerry told the truth" on?
------------------------------------------------------------
Todays voters won't condemn Kerry for his testimony---AM

Alot of those Vietnam vet's (many of whom are registered voters) that were called, "RAPISTS and BABY KILLERS" will.
------------------------------------------------------------
Like I said, not one of these characters has challenged Kerry's record where it really mattered. With the US Navy.--AM

You haven't read Unfit for Command--the men who served with and around Kerry question both his actions as a Naval officer and the medals he received.

Ummmmmmm....the documented cases of rape and murder that took place in Vietnam??

Just taking a crazy guess.....

I had a good friend who served in Viet Nam and was on one of those PT boats. His stories were very similar to Apocolypse Now...heads on poles and belts of ears ...Remember the body count? Westmoreland and company. Every night on the news we saw the body counts...The officers would encourage proof of kills....By the way , my friend came back a very different and wierd person. Other friends never came back.

What I can't figure out is why Kerry volunteered to go. He must have known all this stuff was going on and most likely was against the policies involved before volunteering. Perhaps he went just to set things up for the protest after his 4 months of service???

Perhaps he thought draft dodgers were scumbags?

------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately GW didn't bring a color 8mm video camera with him to re-enact his service in the 'Guard for posterity.

Hopefully, the military may be able to find his service records for the small period of time in question--GW has offered to make them public.

Unfortunatly Lt. Kerry won't release his medical records for the two Purple Hearts that his fellow service men are calling into question.

It seems to me that if he (Kerry) is telling the truth and the multiple fellow service men are lying---then releasing the records about his Purple Hearts would clear up an awful lot.

When john boy signed up for swift boat duty the swift boats were doing recon and described as non-combat, but then shazam! shazam! suprise suprise they're mission had changed and it was too late for him to get out.

One guy can fly a jet fighter while the other guy can beach a tollycraft.

one guy can snort a rail of blow three feet long, the other guy served his country...voluntarily.

papaslap

One guy can fly a jet fighter while the other guy can beach a tollycraft.

------------------------------------------------------------

What jet fighter? Only fighting Bush did while Kerry served his Country (Vietnam), was fighting off the many hangovers from alcohol and drugs abuse.
The drug and alcohol abuse has cause permanent brain damage and is why he can't remember how to complete a whole sentence. Most people in America and the World see Bush as a HOMER SIMPSON like character with nuclear weapons and a wet brain. Doh! Some scary stuff.

Bush was AWOL and a alcoholic Drug addict, while Kerry was serving his Country honorably.

What's your point?

"Like I said, not one of these characters has challenged Kerry's record where it really mattered. With the US Navy. That speaks volumns about an agenda."

Same for GW's NAtnl Guard service then?


Two sides to every coin.

"Nuanced? Kerry's story just doesn't add up

By Mark Steyn

John Kerry is too strange to be president. I don't mean "strange" in the way of his predecessor. Al Gore, the first Android-American to run for president, was weird. But Kerry's strangeness is of an entirely different order. For purposes of comparison, go back a couple of months to that fevered few weeks when Michael Moore, bigshot Democrats and the media were hounding Bush over his allegedly spotty attendance in the Texas Air National Guard during the early Seventies.

The point is, even if it were true, it fits the Bush narrative: he was a lackadaisical son of privilege who goofed around, drank too much, found Jesus, sobered up and got his life together. If you've got 30-year-old pictures of him dancing naked on a bar in Mexico when he was supposed to be back at the air base, so what? It's compatible with the official version. That's Bush: the bad stuff still fits the picture.

But with Kerry, even before any gaffes or scandals, the official narrative makes no sense. He's publicly opposed to the Vietnam War. But he volunteers for it. Then he comes back disgusted with his experience in war, publicly hurls his medals away (or someone else's: that story keeps changing), denounces his fellow veterans as war criminals, torturers and rapists, and claims that he personally committed atrocities.

But then he decides to run for president and suddenly Jane Fonda morphs into John Wayne and all those war criminals are war heroes he wants at every rally and he's got his medals back and his disgust at his wartime experience has mysteriously turned into pride in his wartime experience to the exclusion of all else.

If Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand or any of his other Hollywood supporters got a script like that, they'd send it to rewrite. Either that or they'd figure they'd got an early, rejected draft of the new Manchurian Candidate.

That's what people mean when they talk about how "complex" and "nuanced" Kerry is. They don't mean his positions on the great questions of the day are complex and nuanced.

Quite the contrary: for the purposes of this campaign, his entire political career – 20 years as Senator, Lieutenant-Governor to Michael Dukakis – has been dropped from his CV. If Kerry had exhibited the slightest trace of any interestingly complex view of any policy matter, you can be sure we'd have heard about it. But he hasn't.

So the only "complex" aspect of the Kerry campaign is the man himself, who's complex in ways that don't seem entirely healthy. My chums across the page were rather dismissive yesterday about "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth", a group of fellow officers who think he's unfit to be president.

Let's take it as read that Swiftees who support or oppose Kerry are "politically motivated": the fact is, the Swiftees opposed to him significantly outnumber the four who support him, which is interesting in itself. But consider just one of the items from their new book about him.

For decades, John Kerry has told anyone who'd listen that at Christmas 1968 he was on an illegal mission inside Cambodia. On the floor of the Senate in 1986, while attacking President Reagan for turning Central America into another Vietnam quagmire (wrong as usual), Kerry said: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared – seared – in me."

The illegal Yuletide foray was so seared into him that he brought it up at every opportunity.

As he told the Boston Herald in 1979, "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

LBJ was President on Christmas Eve 1968, but let that pass. Here's an Associated Press story from 1992: "Navy Lt John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders… By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia."

Just one problem. It never happened. Every living officer up his chain of command says Kerry was never ordered to Cambodia. At least three of his five crewmen say their boat was never in Cambodia. And if you don't believe any of his fellow veterans, read the excerpt from Kerry's own journal published in Tour Of Duty, the recent hagiography by Douglas Brinkley.

On December 24 1968, Kerry was at Sa Dec – that's well inside Vietnam, 55 miles from the Cambodian border – and waxing wistful to his diary about a quiet Christmas far from home: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."

I'm Vietnammed out. But it's the centrepiece of Kerry's campaign: the other day, asked a straightforward question about 9/11, he stuck to the current millennium for a good 20 seconds and then veered off into "the war that I fought in was a war where we saw America lose its support for the war, where the soldiers came back having had to do what our soldiers are doing today, carry an M-16 in another country, try to tell the difference between friend and foe. I know what it's like to go out at night on patrol", etc, etc. So, since Vietnam seems to be the only subject on which he has anything to say, it would be reassuring to know that at least he's got that right.

For most of his adult life John Kerry has peddled as his central Vietnam anecdote – the one that drove him to turn on his nation's leaders – what appears to be a complete fantasy. Why would he do such a thing? If there's a good answer to that question, maybe someone in his doting press pack would like to ask it.

These Swift Boat guys keep changing their stories. On Nightline last evening, one of guys in the attack Ad was shown on video with a glowing recommendation of Kerry when he was running for Senator in 1996.

Let Bush and his supporters be revealed for what the represent, ugly partisons with nothing of value to share but contrived charachter attacks! The fact is that Kerry is a decorated Veteran and Bush is not and no books or political adds are going to change that!

Wow Jeff'ed you blast partisan attacks and then knock one off for yourself. Consistantly inconsistant is the left.

BTW it's a dodge to defend Kerry with attacks on Bush. If your kid was smoking dope and you where busting him for it would you allow him off the hook because he attacked the next door neighbor for his past DWI. Makes about as much snse as what you are saying.

Hello pot................meet the kettle.

Gawd! Do you listen to yourself??!! And you call Kerry a flip-flopper? Holy smokes!!

You are too much sometimes.

What is very clear is that Kerry can say anything he wants and his actions can be counter to what he says. He can lie,contradict himself all day long and his base voters don't care. Not because he is JF Kerry but because he is not GW Bush.

Post just one 'contradiction'.

TK,

I blast partisan attacks when they lack credibility. To use AM's term, when some of "the not so Swift Boat guys" one day support Kerry and the next sign on to this smear campaign, which is backed by big $$ Republican contributions, this should cause everyone to question their integrity, especially when the are going after a decorated Veteran.

I don't have a problem with Veterans who dislike what Kerry had to say after the war. That is their perogitive. The Nightline program, not only highlighted the inconsistencies of the partisan attack adds, but also that Veterans seem to be very split on Kerry, some admire that he spoke his mind and some think he went over the line.

------------------------------------------------------------

1.) "I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars, before I voted against it."--- John "they call him Flipper-Flipper.... king of the Mekong" Kerry

Knowing the full context and depth of the issue, what is contradictory about that?

:rolleyes:

I try to follow what the current administration does to, or for, veterans. It ain't good.

They claim that Bouche has allocated more for vets than before, but the truth is that he's continually denied the amount VA has asked for. Consider, also, the number of wounded vets coming from Afghanistan and Iraq now. The number of people needing VA benefits is growing tremendously, and is going to be a major concern in the near future.

And he's still trying to close VA hospitals.