He should get the same recognition for his service as other veterans, no more, no less.
He deserves plenty of scorn for many other things, of course.
That assumption has killed innumerable people.
Yep, wherever Al was when that picture was taken, we have been told he served, in whatever capacity. I'm not down on him for that.
He has done plenty since then to be worthy of derision.
I’ve seen boonie grass and that background looks like it. Further the author says “look at the muzzle brake” - you can’t see the muzzle break because it has a plastic/nylon cap cover on it! I have a bunch of those for my ARs.
That said, it was dumb to be fiddling with the sling even if there was no magazine in it. The gear? I have no idea what the journalist hooch had in the way of bush gear, but I bet it wasn’t much.
Korea
Maybe there is a canteen on the other side of his ruck, to offset the weight? Also, many troops were in fact issued rubberized rain gear. Most uncomfortable to wear.
I remember reading somewhere that he was only in VN for like six months and during that time he stayed in Saigon and pretty much had his own security; he wasn’t even allowed to go out in the field.
I made that picture into a sign with the caption ‘Algore Demonstrates his Knowledge of Firearms Safety’. It was a big hit at the Second Amendment Sisters rally.
Those plants in the background look like phragmites (australis). Phragmites looks very “jungle like” but it’s an invasive weed that has been growing in the US for a couple hundred years. There is a lot of it around the Chesapeake bay.
This staged photo could have been taken anywhere. A foggy winter morning in Maryland perhaps?
I agree: the gear doesn’t look like anything worn in Vietnam.
It may have been taken elsewhere (stateside?) when he was in training.
But the statement that it was taken “in Vietnam” looked questionable from the first.
Algore was a REMF's REMF!
Wasn’t his length of “service” FOUR MONTHS before he was back home with a self-inflicted shot to his buttock? Or is that just a joke I heard.
When in the Boy Scouts going up into the Blue Ridge Mountains for a camping trip our gear was better stowed than that.
I wouldn’t piss on John Kerry if he was on fire but the analysis of the photo is BS.
I was in RVN in ‘68.
Weapons were not always kept loaded and mags were often carried in bandoleers rather than the issued mag pouches. A junior Navy officer might well have them under his rain jacket.
Might not there be another canteen on the OTHER SIDE of the ruck? I usually had one INSIDE the ruck as well.
I had a US Navy anorak which I had a zipper put into that I wore during monsoon season. I was not the only one and no one ever said anything about it.
In the central highlands we were issued, and needed, down sleeping bags and field jacket liners. It was not hot, all the time, everywhere, in Vitnam.
Wasn’t he supposed to be on a Swift Boat? If I were heading out on a boat, I would probably rig my pack diferently than if I were going to be humping it all day.
Food would be IN the rucksack not dangling around his neck where you could see it.
On a Swift Boat, if there were grenades they would be in a wooden case, not hanging from the skipper’s LBE.
We often wore boonie hats on patrol and left our steel pots behind. On the fire bases we usually left our steel pots on the trails of the guns. We wore soft hats or caps most of the time when not actually engaged in a fire mission or under attack.
His M16 has the shipping cover over the muzzle. A lot of troops did this to keep debris out of the muzzle. It was prohibited but we did it anyway.
If carrying a ruck, the LBE suspenders might not be used, especially if you are just heading down to the boat. If I weren’t heading out into the bush, just taking my gear down to the boat, I would not bother with tucking and rolling the straps.
Even in the Army (And Kerry was Navy) we wore our hair very long by the military standards of the day and that was much longer than troops do now.
Kerry could not have gotten away with dressing like that in any stateside training camp but in RVN it was quite common for troops to wear non-issued clothing, forego weekly haircuts and ignore uniform regulations.
The photo was taken in Vietnam as part of Kerry’s image building program.