When my two year old son falls down on the play ground and skins his knee and gives himself a fat lip, I give him a kiss and a kick in his pants and tell him to "shake it off", it's only a boo boo, go back and play.

When John Kerry gets a "boo boo", the same should have been done to him. I know he put in for the Purple Hearts and got them but for crying out loud! Well you decide.....

Dec. 3, 1968 - John Kerry was grazed on his left arm above the elbow. There was shrapnel removed, then it was dressed and treated with an antibiotic.

Feb. 20, 1969 - Kerry was hit by a two millimeter square piece of B-40 shrapnel. Navy physicians left it where it was, and the wound closed up without risk of infection.

March 1969 - In a firefight, John was thrown against a bulkhead sustaining an injury (contusion) to R forearm and sustained another small piece of shrapnel in L upper buttock. A contusion is a fancy medical term for a 'bruise'.

And for this we have to hear every lefty out there tell us John Kerry is a war hero! My ASS! He used this war to benifit himself politicaly. He comes back, throws his buddies under the bus by telling LIES to the American people. Telling us that war was wrong. Now he uses that same war to say he was a hero. John Kerry will say anything anytime it will help him!

He is a POS! That's my opinion.

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

I am 52 years old. I lived through Viet Nam. I attended two funerals of high school friends that came home in a few small pieces, (Closed casket). I have met 2 individuals who were in Nam that proudly showed me shriveled up human ears on a string. One of them had less than 20, the other had 50+. Both related stories of how they set the villages on fire with their tracer bullets and then proceeded to kill anything, man, woman, child or beast, that ran out. Then they would cut off these villagers ears to convince other villages not to help the Viet Cong. I have a brother-in-law that was a Marine in Viet Nam and he will not talk about that war. He spent 2 tours of duty there. Casper Weinberger, the guy who kept the war alive with lies and deceptions, has admitted that we shouldn't have continued to fight that war. Now, what is so wrong about Kerry exposing these atrocities and trying to end the madness?

Now all the guys that were on the boat are liars too!! Good on you mikeyd, you have it all figured out. I would think that any vet that went to battle anywhere anytime under any conditions would receive the benefit of the doubt, of course only in your world they would have to be Republicans because they are the only ones that know about these things. Where was your hero, and the majority if not all of his staff( Powell excluded of course) all this time?

The generals and admirals that stood up for Kerry I guess they don't know what the hell they were talking about either ...huh!

DC
S.N.O.B. #1009
You've probably heard of me!

If you are injured in combat you are entitled to a Purple Heart. 3 of them for minor injuries is not something to be proud of, but they are earned.

I was thrown out of a Huey Helicopter that crashed a few seconds later. I was one of 3 who were awarded a Purple Heart, the others got Silver Stars (Posthumously).

Until you have actually be in the face of battle, frightened out of your wits, you won't know what it is like to get hit by schrapnel, a small caliber bullet or even tossed around and brusied.

Personally I don't like Kerry, but I will not hold his military honors against him. I just don't like him or the Democrats in general.

Doc ***** Tobacco is a filthy weed, I like it...

SNOB Member 1033 1/3

...thanks for making my point Doc....all I'm saying whether you like the man or not or the party for that matter, is that it was live ammo coming at him yet he turned his boat around and rescued a fellow soldier out of a river, from certain death,under hostile action, with disregard for his own safety. You can't take that away from him. IMO any man or women who has been under fire deserves whatever medals or citations they receive, they can't or at least should not be belittled by someone who wasn't there, or at best only knows what he has read from political opponents. I doubt the Viet Cong were differentiating between R's and Ds out in the field. All of the other stuff IMO is fluff and partisan politics.

BTW Doc....thanks for your service to our country.

DC
S.N.O.B. #1009
You've probably heard of me!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Double Corona:
Now all the guys that were on the boat are liars too!!

---

No, just John F. Kerry.

On June 6, 1971, John Kerry described the work of the Swift boats to the Washington Star as follows:

"We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people, and morale became so low among the officers on those 'swift boats' that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam."

What John Kerry told the Washington Star was a lie.

Contrary to Kerry's claim, our consistent policy was to take every precaution to avoid harming civilians. On many occasions we did this at the cost of suffering additional casualties ourselves. We have interviewed hundreds of veterans who served on the Swift Boats or supported them, and there is simply no justification for Kerry's statement. Several members of our organization addressed the issue of atrocities during our May 4 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

John Kerry also completely misrepresented our meeting with General Abrams and Admiral Zumwalt. Far from being a pep talk for officers distressed by their butchery of civilians, the purpose of this conference with the two highest-ranking American officers in Vietnam was to announce a new Swift boat mission: to drive the Vietcong out of the Ca Mau Peninsula. The goal of Operation SeaLords was to dominate the rivers in this area, and to eventually establish a permanent presence in the Cua Lon River, an effort later named Operation SeaFloat. This was to be done publicly, with the full participation of the media, to negate the claim of North Vietnamese negotiator Lee Duc Tho that Henry Kissinger could not legitimately represent South Vietnam because the U.S. did not control these areas.

We succeeded in that mission. We returned to Anthoi and drove the Vietcong out of the region, and soon the North Vietnamese and Vietcong representatives in Paris returned to the negotiating tables.

----------

As its dominant tactic in their battle against the war, the antiwar movement successfully demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a series of "tribunals" or hearings into war crimes. But... they were packed with pretenders and liars -- historian Guenter Lewy, writing in "America in Vietnam"

John Kerry's lies about the activities of the Swift boats were part of a larger pattern of deception. As a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Kerry testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971, telling the Senators and a national audience that American troops "...had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam..." and accused the U.S. military of committing war crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Kerry's charges were based on a VVAW conference called the "Winter Soldier Investigation" -- a leftist propaganda event funded primarily by Jane Fonda. None of the Winter Soldier "witnesses" Kerry cited were willing to sign affadavits, and their gruesome stories lacked the names, dates and places that would allow their claims to be tested. Few were willing to cooperate with military investigators. The Naval Investigative Service found that several of the veterans said to have given statements at Winter Soldier were in fact imposters using the name of real veterans.

False testimony and exaggerations were primary characteristics of the war crimes disinformation campaign, and also of the VVAW itself. Executive Secretary Al Hubbard, for example, claimed to have been an Air Force Captain wounded in Vietnam piloting a transport plane. In fact, Hubbard had been a staff sergeant who was not a pilot and who was never assigned to Vietnam.

John Kerry and the VVAW worked closely with America's wartime enemies, arranged multiple meetings with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong leadership, and consistently supported their positions. Kerry and his radical comrades also played a key role in defining the false, damaging image of Vietnam veterans as psychologically disabled alcoholics and addicts, haunted by the crimes they had been forced to commit in a "racist" war.

Detailed information about the anti-war activities of John Kerry and the VVAW can be found at WinterSoldier.com.

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

DC here is what troubles me about Kerry. Any war vet I've ever talked to is rather humble and reluctant to talk about what happened. (with the possible exception of Audie Murphy). This guy opens up every speech talking about it. Something about it just turns me off. I don't remember Bob Dole continually treminding us of his heroics in WWII.(Or his rather severe injuries.) I happen to be a fan of stoicism.

Mike

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - Abraham Lincoln

D.C.
Your feeble attempts to defend John F. Kerry are laughable at best. Please provide me with the proof that these people (names & ranks) don’t have political reasons to support the lies claimed by John F. Kerry stated in my post above. Or are they merely saying that he got a tiny piece of shrapnel, a bruise and another owie?

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

quote:

---

Originally posted by James B:
I have met 2 individuals who were in Nam that proudly showed me shriveled up human ears on a string. One of them had less than 20, the other had 50+. Both related stories of how they set the villages on fire with their tracer bullets and then proceeded to kill anything, man, woman, child or beast, that ran out. Then they would cut off these villagers ears to convince other villages not to help the Viet Cong.

---

Nice story and I'm sure it's all true (rolling eyes). Tell us this, why did you not turn those two war criminals in to the local authorities?

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

John Kerry's service in Vietnam lasted 4 months and 12 days, beginning in November 1968 when he reported to Cam Rahn Bay for a month of training. His abbreviated combat tour ended shortly after he requested a transfer out of Vietnam on March 17, 1969, citing Navy instruction 1300.39 permitting personnel with three Purple Hearts to request reassignment. So far as we are able to determine, Kerry was the only Swift sailor ever to leave Vietnam without completing the standard one-year tour of duty, other than those who were seriously wounded or killed.

It is clear that at least one of Kerry's Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence, not enemy fire, and that Kerry went to unusual lengths to obtain the award after being turned down by his own commanding officer.

John Kerry has long insisted that using the three-injury loophole to leave combat early was his own idea, but Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright, who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's boat group, contradicts that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives." He therefore requested that Kerry be removed from his boat group. After John Kerry qualified for his third Purple Heart, Thomas Wright and two fellow officers informed him of the obscure regulation, and told him to go home. Wright concluded, "We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11."

Constructing a complete picture of Kerry's service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by the Kerry campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to his medal awards.

For this reason we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is in the process of researching John Kerry's time in Vietnam by conducting interviews with eyewitnesses to his activities, and we plan to add material to this section over the next several weeks as it becomes available. We will report the true circumstances of Kerry's medal awards and injuries, describe other controversial missions, and provide in-depth analysis of his fitness reports.

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

           Swift Veterans Quotes  
.



"While in Cam Rahn Bay, he trained on several 24-hour indoctrination missions, and one special skimmer operation with my most senior and trusted Lieutenant. The briefing from some members of that crew the morning after revealed that they had not received any enemy fire, and yet Lt.(jg) Kerry informed me of a wound -- he showed me a scratch on his arm and a piece of shrapnel in his hand that appeared to be from one of our own M-79s. It was later reported to me that Lt.(jg) Kerry had fired an M-79, and it had exploded off the adjacent shoreline. I do not recall being advised of any medical treatment, and probably said something like 'Forget it.' He later received a Purple Heart for that scratch, and I have no information as to how or whom.

Lt.(jg) Kerry was allowed to return to the good old USA after 4 months and a few days in-country, and then he proceeded to betray his former shipmates, calling them criminals who were committing atrocities. Today we are here to tell you that just the opposite is true. Our rules of engagement were quite strict, and the officers and men of Swift often did not even return fire when they were under fire if there was a possibility that innocent people -- fishermen, in a lot of cases -- might be hurt or injured. The rules and the good intentions of the men increased the possibility that we might take friendly casualties."

-- Commander Grant Hibbard, USN (retired)

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

This is all rather amusing. Of course Kerry is using his military service for his political advantage. He is, after all, a politician. He stuffs it down your throat as a response to the right wing attack machine which labels anyone against their agenda as unpatriotic. He will not let Bush monopolize or distort the patriotism issue. Furthermore, there is only one real point here: whatever may or may not of happened, at least Kerry served in Vietnam. And protested it. Both honorable positions. Bush was getting drunk and spending his daddy's friends' money on failed business ventures. We can debate this forever. The American people will decide, and unless Bush trots Osama bin Laden two weeks before the election, he will lose in November.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Double Corona:
Now all the guys that were on the boat are liars too!! Good on you mikeyd, you have it all figured out.
The generals and admirals that stood up for Kerry I guess they don't know what the hell they were talking about either ...huh!

---

"I served with these guys. I went on missions with them, and these men served honorably. Up and down the chain of command there was no acquiescence to atrocities. It was not condoned, it did not happen, and it was not reported to me verbally or in writing by any of these men including Lt.(jg) Kerry.

In 1971, '72, for almost 18 months, he stood before the television audiences and claimed that the 500,000 men and women in Vietnam, and in combat, were all villains -- there were no heroes. In 2004, one hero from the Vietnam War has appeared, running for President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief. It just galls one to think about it."

-- Captain George Elliott, USN (retired)

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

quote:

---

Originally posted by Double Corona:
Now all the guys that were on the boat are liars too!! Good on you mikeyd, you have it all figured out.
The generals and admirals that stood up for Kerry I guess they don't know what the hell they were talking about either ...huh!

---

"My name is Steve Gardner. I served in 1966 and 1967 on my first tour of duty in Vietnam on Swift boats, and I did my second tour in '68 and '69, involved with John Kerry in the last 2 1/2 months of my tour. The John Kerry that I know is not the John Kerry that everybody else is portraying. I served alongside him and behind him, five feet away from him in a gun tub, and watched as he made indecisive moves with our boat, put our boats in jeopardy, put our crews in jeopardy... if a man like that can't handle that 6-man crew boat, how can you expect him to be our Commander-in-Chief?"

-- Steven Gardner

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

quote:

---

Originally posted by Double Corona:
Now all the guys that were on the boat are liars too!! Good on you mikeyd, you have it all figured out.

The generals and admirals that stood up for Kerry I guess they don't know what the hell they were talking about either ...huh!

---

"I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of his judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust -- all absolute tenets of command. His biography, 'Tour of Duty,' by Douglas Brinkley, is replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact, contradictions and slanderous lies. His contempt for the military and authority is evident by even a most casual review of this biography. He arrived in-country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future. He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard for specific tactical assignments. He was a 'loose cannon.' In an abbreviated tour of four months and 12 days, and with his specious medals secure, Lt.(jg) Kerry bugged out and began his infamous betrayal of all United States forces in the Vietnam War. That included our soldiers, our marines, our sailors, our coast guardsmen, our airmen, and our POWs. His leadership within the so-called Vietnam Veterans Against the War and testimony before Congress in 1971 charging us with unspeakable atrocities remain an undocumented but nevertheless meticulous stain on the men and women who honorably stayed the course. Senator Kerry is not fit for command."

-- Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired), chairman, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Should I continue D.C.? I will wait for you to BACK up what you said!

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

quote:

---

Originally posted by harpbook:
Furthermore, there is only one real point here: whatever may or may not of happened, at least Kerry served in Vietnam. And protested it. Both honorable positions.

---

Which does not mean that he is fit for the job. As I have just pointed out by the people who were there!

Bush is fit for the job, has proved it and it chaps you ASS! Well, get ready for 4 more years!

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

Well harpbrook you are wrong about Kerry winning. nobody trusts him with the security of our country, and as long as that is number 1, he will be number 2.

You are going to have to show me one example of where the Bush Admin labeled anybody unpatriotic. Perhaps it's your own guilty conscience that is making you believe this.

Mike

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - Abraham Lincoln

quote:

---

Originally posted by harpbook:
Furthermore, there is only one real point here: whatever may or may not of happened, at least Kerry served in Vietnam. And protested it. Both honorable positions. Bush was getting drunk and spending his daddy's friends' money on failed business ventures. We can debate this forever. The American people will decide, and unless Bush trots Osama bin Laden two weeks before the election, he will lose in November.

---

At least Bush is not a war criminal!

There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.

-- John Kerry, on NBC's "Meet the Press" April 18, 1971

Mike D

I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me.
-- Mike Waidelich

I personally would like to know if all these people who have posted insulting Bush's military record were amking rabid posts like this about Clinton and his military service... you know when he went ROTC (Run Over To Canada) Well, it was actually England were he protested his country and some say even burned the flag. As for Kerry, well at least he served during Vietnam which is more than a lot of rich kids did back then.

There are some claiming to have served with Kerry who say he was a hero... There are some claiming to have served with Kerry claiming he is a liar and staged the footage when he was in Vietnam.
Some say he's a hypocrite for admitting to murdering people while protesting the war. Some say two of his purple hearts were for self inflicted wounds.

I gotta tell you, I personally don't give a ****!!

I don't care what he nor GWB were doing 30+ years ago. I care about the present and the future. I find Kerry's vision or lack thereof scary. I will vote for President Bush. I feel he has restored some of the values the office lacked for the 8 years prior and he has a better vision for t he future than Kerry. That's the bottom line. The rest is partisan BS...

"There are five things, above all else, that make life worth living: a good relationship with God, a good woman, good health, good friends, and a good cigar."
-- Prince Sined Yar Maharg