Kerry's Service Record

[RC]

I'm not a fan of Michael Moore and this just sounds like the same crap to me from the other side.

[haggis]

“I'm not a fan of Michael Moore and this just sounds like the same crap to me from the other side.”

Yeah, and your point is…?

It’s a dirty business and if Kerry’s going to hold up Bush’s military record (or the lack thereof) as an example of how Bush is unworthy how can anyone honestly believe that Kerry’s military service would be off limits? I've always known there is media bias but even I am astonished by the utter lack of analysis of anything Kerry has ever done in Vietnam before now.

Kerry needs to release all his military records, simple solution.

When the Bush was AWOL/deserter/liar story was in full play a few months back, the press went so far as to interview a dentist that had signed an exam record to question whether his signature had been forged. I guess the point was to try and establish that the record was altered to help Bush.

Why not even a bit of the same critical reporting now on the allegations against Kerry?

The press bias this year is frightening, not because Kerry as president will be so terrible (I doubt that he will be), but for what it says about the future of democracy in a world where traditional media still dominate public discourse.

Do you think for a moment that Kerry would remotely stand a chance if the press bias were reversed?

I’m afraid that the press might choose the president this year; I hope they will have “chosen wisely”. (Apologies to Indiana Jones)

[Shapley]

Both sides have their Michael Moore, always have. The fact that the issue was brought forward by people of questionable integrity does not mean it isn't an issue. Apparently there are people with legitimate questions about Kerry's record, and some Bush supporters with a zeal to get them to the forefront went about it the wrong way. The questions are still out there, and still unanswered. Obviously, the mainstream press doesn't want to confront Kerry with the questions (no surprise there), so they won't be asked.

Except, of course, on the Beethoven.com BB.

V/R
Shapley

[dai bread]

According to an article in my newspaper, John Kerry served only 4 months in Vietnam. If this is so, how did he get so many medals, and why is he allowed to dine out on them now?

My brother-in-law did 3 tours of duty with the Marines, so 4 months in a boat just doesn't cut it in my book. (He's still paying the price, too).

[RC]

Michael Moore analogy still works.

There were legitimate issues raised in the movie Farenheit 9/11 amongst the truth allusions, (not illusions).
Issues to which we may never have an adequate response from GWB and crew.

I'd like to see Kerry's records released.

I'd like to know what happened with Abu Graib. I'd like know how many people were detained and released with no charges after 9/11.
etc...

Its easy to say that all Kerry has to do is release his military records but would that make you vote for him? If I knew the truth about GWB would I vote for him?

[rwcrooks]

Bread,

I agree that there were a lot of medals awarded in a short amount of time.

But let's also remember that Kerry also has home movies of him stumbling around ashore with an M16. How many home movies does your brother-in-law have after 3 tours? No vet that I know has any, even my neighbor who was in the brown water navy (and can't seem to recall going ashore to get involved in firefights.)

What was the comment someone made earlier about people planning their careers decades in advance?

[haggis]

” Its easy to say that all Kerry has to do is release his military records but would that make you vote for him? If I knew the truth about GWB would I vote for him?”

Null point RC, do you really think that the people clambering for the release of GWB’s records were card carrying Republicans who wanted to evaluate his record before deciding to vote for him?

My original posit remains

Goose=gander

Fox

”The Kerry campaign first asserted that the Massachusetts senator never said that he was in Cambodia, only that he was near the country. But when presented with a copy of the Congressional Record and asked about Kerry's letter in the Boston Herald, the campaign said it would come up with an explanation. After repeated phone calls, there was still no clarification.”

This issue might be more serious than it appears to be, an old vet simply elaborating on a war story or inflating his service record.

Unless he can somehow square the story then he’s going to have to face allegations that he perjured himself before Congress and not just a little white "I didn't have sex" lie, either.

He was intentionally trying to sway a congressional committee. The point about Kerry's Cambodia service is the context of his claim. He used the claim as a club to bludgeon supporters of Reagan's Nicaragua policy. Nicaragua = Viet Nam. Reagan = Nixon. Support for the Contras = John Kerry sent to Cambodia by his duplicitous government.

In 1986 that testimony put defenders of Reagan's policies on the defensive. If his claim to Cambodia service is false it reveals a form of cynicism reminiscent of Nixon or Clinton.

If he can't prove his claim, it speaks poorly for his political character.

Serious stuff? I don’t know enough of the rules of Congress over these things but I rather doubt he would be impeached or subjected to anything serious.

Maybe he can have one of those “Clinton moment” on national TV where, with great sorrow, he admits that he’s lied to the country - some classy wordsmith will dress it up better, of course – and humbly beg the country’s forgiveness. Will it work?? IMO probably not, he’s no Bill Clinton, that’s for sure and given his oft-reported arrogance, I can’t see him doing it or pulling it off if he does.

Then there’s the “yuck” factor for me. The prominence that Kerry has placed on Vietnam is mystifying. For example, why would any active duty officer go back and restage his activities for film? What kind of person would do that? I had a camera in Desert Storm and Somalia, and I took pictures, but not in combat, and not to recreate my combat experiences; limited though they were.

(Ed. "I guess you're right, re-enactment of you diving under the table in the mess hall when the server dropped the pan probaly isn't the stuff to build a political career on"

"That's not fair, it was a really BIG pan!")

[Serenity]

I would put my mug and service record on a Wheaties cereal box for publicity.

[rwcrooks]

Haggis,

You mean to tell me that thoses films of Kerry wandering around with an M-16 were recreations? He took his boat and crew out again to have himself filmed?

Certainly, he is someone interested in his future.

[Shapley]

Here is a list of charges made in the book, from an advertisement I received by e-mail:

Meet the real John Kerry -- as self-obsessed and ruthlessly calculating as Slick Willie:

• "If there is anything I can do to unmask this charlatan please let me know. He brings disgrace to all who served" -- and similar assessments of Kerry from his fellow soldiers

• John Kerry: the only Swift Boat commander who received a Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound -- plus the facts about all his Purple Hearts, none of which was awarded for serious injuries

• How accompanying crewmen told the examining doctor that Kerry was running for President and had wounded himself when Kerry presented his "first wartime injury" for treatment

• The gunner's mate who sat behind and above Kerry for most of his Vietnam stay: why he came to regard Kerry as incompetent and dishonest

• Why fed-up Swift Boats personnel asked Kerry to go home after he had served just four months in Vietnam

• How Kerry spent much of his time in Vietnam filming himself in scenarios carefully designed to look dangerous

• The deafening silence that greeted Kerry's introduction as the man "who may be the next President of the United States" before a gathering of his Vietnam comrades-in-arms

• "I will tell you in all candor that the only baby killer I knew in Vietnam was John F. Kerry": the startling assessment of one of Kerry's fellow Swift Boat commanders

• How Kerry has actually admitted causing unnecessary civilian casualties in Vietnam

• War hero? Yes, to the Communists: How Kerry's photo was found in the "Heroes of the Vietnamese Resistance" section of a war museum in Communist Vietnam!

• The full truth about the medals that Kerry doesn't want you to think he threw away -- and has lied about repeatedly

• Kerry's strange reticence about revealing what he discussed at his meeting with Vietnamese Communists in Paris in 1970

• Proof that, despite his denials, Kerry really did attend the 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War meeting in which they discussed a plan to assassinate Senators

• How Kerry helped disseminate KGB-generated anti-American propaganda during his antiwar activities

• William F. Buckley's 1971 critique of Kerry's antiwar testimony: "the indictment of an ignorant young man" who was willing to level baseless charges

• Revealed: FBI records that show that Kerry referred to the Communist thug Ho Chi Minh as "the George Washington of Vietnam" in a speech in Philadelphia in 1971

• Photographs from the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, proving that the Vietnamese Reds consider Kerry a hero of their struggle against democracy and freedom

• How Kerry staged a self-promotion video while ignoring a memorial service for dead Vietnam comrades

• How Kerry lied about his Vietnam experiences
-- in a $50 million ad campaign

[haggis]

Rich,
There are at least two separate accounts that Kerry re-created his combat scenes. One was an article posted in the Boston Globe in 1996 that I can’t get (without paying for) but I found an editorial that mentions it – caveat emptor and emphasis added

The Hill

” Consider this scene from a remarkable profile of Kerry published in the Boston Globe in October 1996, when Kerry was in a tough re-election battle.

Kerry told reporter Charles Sennott the oft-repeated story of the February 1969 firefight in which Kerry attacked the Viet Cong who ambushed his Swift boat.

Kerry won the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart, for his efforts.

But the story wasn’t about the firefight itself. It was also Kerry’s reaction to it.

The future senator was so “focused on his future ambitions,” Sennott reported, that he bought a Super-8 movie camera, returned to the scene, and re-enacted the skirmish on film.

It was that film, transferred to videotape, that Kerry played for Sennott.

“I’ll show you where they shot from. See? That’s the hole covered up with reeds,” Kerry said as he ran the tape in slow motion.

Kerry told Sennott that his decision to re-enact the fight on film was no big deal — “just something I did, no great meaning to it.” But it’s clear that the old movie is a huge deal.

“Through hours of watching the films in the den of his newly renovated Beacon Hill mansion, it becomes apparent that these are memories and footage he returns to often,” Sennott wrote.

“Kerry jumps repeatedly from the couch to adjust the Sony large-screen TV in his home entertainment center, making sure the picture is clear, the color correct. He fast forwards, rewinds and freeze-frames the footage. His running commentary — vivid, sometimes touching, sometimes self-serving — never misses a beat.”.

That was in 1996, I would have thought if the “re-enactment” quote was wrong then Kerry would have corrected it before now.

The most recent allegation that he re-created combat was in the book the SBVT just published, but highlighted in a Drudge Report. I have no reason to doubt Drudge but I can’t state I’ve actually read the allegation. Hopefully I’ll get my copy next week.

"Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing," charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

"Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns.".

Like I said, this just nudges my personal “yuck” needle pretty high on the meter.

<small>[ 08-11-2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Haggis ]</small>

[Nicole Marie]

Can we stop with these posts? Please? As I;ve said before... we each have our opinions, we each are going to vote one way or the other in Nov.

It's getting old now. Even for me and that says a lot.

[rwcrooks]

Haggis,

I'm sure the author and contributors to the Unfit For Command book have their own agenda, but everyone does.

I think that the publication of this book will force Kerry to confront the issue.

The December 2003 of The Atlantic Monthly magazine has Kerry on the cover and an article called 'Tour of Duty' which contains the phrase:

"Kerry also turned over to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous "war notes"—journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war."

(How voluminous can you get in 4 months?) When I read the article, long before he was the front-runner, I thought that the excerpts from his letters sounded almost like planned speeches. Very self-serving. The web site went pay-per-view today, but your local library may have the mag.

[The Great Carouser]

Originally posted by Haggis:
My original posit remains

Goose=gander

...so much for 'full disclosure

"Destroyed" military records

hmmmm

[rwcrooks]

GC,

The article talks about records on microfilm that had started to breakdown. The records weren't intentionally destroyed as much as neglected.

I think that when people hear "destroyed" it sounds like someone intentionally, and with pre-meditation, destroyed the records, as opposed to pulling a reel of microfilm that had been stored, probably without being looked at for a quarter century and finding that it is breaking down.

This happens all the time to microfilm, home movies, slides, negatives, etc.

[Serenity]

Originally posted by Nicole Marie:
Can we stop with these posts? Please? As I;ve said before... we each have our opinions, we each are going to vote one way or the other in Nov.

It's getting old now. Even for me and that says a lot.

MUSICAL HIJACK!!

I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. -Ludwig van Beethoven

[Serenity]

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'

Bob Newhart

[Serenity]

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.


Victor Hugo

[Serenity]

Bach gave us God's Word.
Mozart gave us God's Laughter.
Beethoven gave us God's Fire.
God gave us Music that we might pray without words.

[Serenity]

We composers are at least as significant as the starts who make $14 million or $15 million. You just don't see us. - Michael Kamen