Old Kerry Quotes Unearthed

No, that's not the name of the new Toby Keith CD. It's not some ill-timed remark from President Bush or even the title of a new book from Ann Coulter. That is but one of the provocative questions asked by Sen. John Kerry on CNN's Crossfire back in November of 1997.

That comment, and others cited below, came during Kerry's vigorous defense against charges that the Clinton administration was sparring with member nations of the UN Security Council, including France and Russia. We now know that France was illegally trading with Saddam during those years, which explains their behaviour, but what about Mr. Kerry?

It does appear that his position on war vacillates depending on the political benefit to him - and the party affiliation of the president initiating the action. Gulf War 1, Republican president George Bush 1, Kerry votes no - even though Saddam had invaded another country! (And now he talks like he supported it all along.)

1997-1998, Clinton wants to use military force, no problem, he's a Democrat. And while Kerry did vote to authorize the recent War in Iraq, he now claims he wasn't really voting to use force, just to threaten it.

On the campaign trail, Kerry blames the President for equipment shortages our troops are dealing with, relating stories of family members buying body armor on the Internet. Yet it was John Kerry, who inexplicably voted against the 87 Billion Dollar appropriations bill which included funding for that very same equipment.

Then again, Mr. Kerry has never let what he said yesterday interfere with what he needs to say today.

Take Kerry's response to the well-orchestrated Democrat charge that Bush was AWOL. He tried to appear above the fray, saying something like, well, it was a difficult issue, I understand that, "some people wanted to serve, others didn't."

That choice of words is curious because, while Kerry did serve, it was not his first choice. A February, 1970 Harvard Crimson article says, "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

And while Kerry and the Democrat Smear Machine forced the President to release all of his Vietnam era records, John Kerry refuses to release his medical records.

Kerry was in Vietnam for 4 months during which he was awarded 3 Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in battle. Mr. Kerry is the only obstacle to the release of those records, but for some reason he doesn't want the public to see them.

Of course, he probably doesn't want anybody to see this either, but here's more from that Crossfire transcript, Kerry, defending the Clinton administration from charges of failed leadership said, "On the contrary. The administration is leading - I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests."

Wait a second. John Kerry equating presidential leadership with going it alone? This doesn't sound like John F. Kerry circa 2004 does it? Then again, Kerry's never been one to let his position on an issue stop him from taking a completely different position on the very same issue.

Kerry continued, "And clearly it is not just our best interests, it is in the best interests of the world to make it clear to Saddam Hussein that he's not going to get away with a breach of the '91 agreement that he's got to live up to, which is: allowing us to know that he has dismantled his weapons."

More from Senator Kerry, the unilateralist hawk, "Clearly the allies may not like it,

This is major news--John Kerry didn't "CHOSE" to go to Vietnam like he leads you to believe, he asked the draft board if he could go study in Paris and they turned him down! Only THEN did he decide to join the Navy.

After he joined the Navy, he never chose to go into combat either.

Kerry has puffed up his Vietnam record so much that even some on FreeRepublic consider him some sort of Audie Murphy.

Here is my exchange, from another thread on this subject.

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What bothered me about this article saying Kerry "only served" four months on a tour is that he had a cushy job on the big ship and opted to volunteer for his second tour of duty on a swift boat. In other words he took himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty. That has to count for something.

That is what Kerry and the Democrats want us to believe and that is the version they are putting out. However, that version is pure Bravo Sierra and is not supported by the facts or by Kerry's own statements.

It would indeed be extremely admirable if Kerry had knowingly taken "himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty".

However, Kerry never volunteered for combat or any duty he dreamed would get him into combat.

Kerry was the First Division Officer when he served on the USS Gridley.

John F. Kerry, the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts is positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2004. Ensign (and later LTJG Kerry) reported aboard GRIDLEY straight out of the Fleet Training Center, San Diego on 8 June 1967. This boot Ensign headed up First Division and is shown here with Calvert BM1 and BMCS Enochs. His biographical materials never mention this period even though he was aboard GRIDLEY much longer than he was in Vietnam. Between having these two old salts reporting to him and Captain Slifer after him all the time, Ensign Kerry was a busy young man.

What is "First Division"?

First Division is one of the "Deck Divisions" on a ship. In Navy slang, the "Deck Apes". They swab the decks. They chip paint. They paint the areas they finished chipping. After that, they swab, they chip and they paint somemore. The bottom of the class at Navy Boot Camp ends up in a Deck Division.

In the Ward Room, the First Division Officer is the lowest guy in the ship's officers pecking order. When the XO or the CO need an S.L.J.O. (Shitty Little Jobs Officer), the First Division Officer is the guy that gets the job.

Kerry was in charge of the least skilled sailors in the lowest prestige division on his ship and, apparently, his C.O., Captain Slifer, was not making life very pleasant for our Boston Blue Blood who was more used to sailing on John F. Kennedy's yacht.

What to do?

Swift boats!

At the time, swift boats merely patrolled the coastline or ferried salors between ships.

Most importantly, a mere Lt.(j.g.) was the Officer in Charge (OIC).

Instead of being the SLJO on the USS Gridley, in charge of Deck Ape Division, with Captain Slifer making his life miserable, Kerry pictured himself as the OIC of his own boat, roaring up and down the South China Sea out of the war and with no Captain Slifer anywhere in sight.

But, don't take my word for it.

Let's hear it from John F. Kerry himself:

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ........"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."......... But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.

Two weeks after Kerry assumed command of his swift boat, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt put into effect his idea of getting those swift boats out of glorified water skiing duty........

Picture of yours truly "RD2 Joe Muharsky" water skiing behind PCF 94 March 1969. Pictured is signed by Senator John Kerry who was a LTJG in Coastal Division 11.

.......into the shooting war in the rivers of the Mekong Delta.

Oooooops.

As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

What does Kerry do now after you have gone from glorified water skier straight into deep kim-chee?

Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat and here he was in the middle of a friggin war!!

Kerry then racked up three Purple Hearts for "injuries" that kept him off duty for a grand total of.....drum roll, please..... two days of duty by his own admission and zero days according to his swift boat C.O.

Kerry then sea-lawyered himself out of combat after only four months and requested a transfer as an "Admiral's aide", preferably in "Boston, New York or Washington".

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ......... He requested and was granted a transfer out of Vietnam six months before his combat tour was slated to end on the grounds that he had earned three Purple Hearts. None of his wounds was disabling; he said one cost him two days of service and the other two did not lead to any absence. .........The bottom line is that Kerry could have remained but he chose to seek an early transfer.

When the Boston Globe asked Kerry to give permission for the release of his Navy medical records so that the Boston Globe could document what sort of injuries earned Kerry three Purple Hearts and a ticket out of combat after 4 months.........Kerry refused.

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made; from First Division Officer to swift boat OIC; from swift boat OIC to early termination of his combat tour; from early termination of his combat tour to Admiral's aide; from Admiral's aide to early discharge from active duty; from early discharge from active duty to politically-popular-in-Massachusets American-G.I.'s-are-war-criminals anti-war protestor.....

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made in his Navy carreer was made to further the comfort, safety and political ambitions of John F. Kerry.

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