Posted on 03/11/2004 7:04:08 AM PST by pwatson
Joe: Please pass this out to your list. I was refraining from writing but sometimes people have to hear first hand accounts for them to THINK about the casting of their vote. This is a bit long, but we are talking about the office of the President; those who cast a vote against George Bush simply to cast such a vote, should know the man that they are casting their vote for, John Kerry, is not who they are reading about.
Joe, you know me and know that I have been involved with the POW/MIA issue for more than 1/2 my life because my step-brother was shot down, captured, talked to at a POW camp and never repatriated. I was a good friend of Ted Guy--we founded Operation Just Cause together with George "Gunny" Fallon--and I kept my promise to him to go after John McCain when McCain was running for President. If Ted were still on earth today, he would want us to mobilize against John Kerry.
John Kerry worked harder for Communist Vietnam than he did when he spent four months in country fighting the Vietnamese. John Kerry chaired the SelectCommittee on POW/MIA Affairs that found that we "probably left men behind" when we pulled out of Vietnam. He also found that it was "doubtful any had survivedto present day." Kerry's chief aide in the Select Committee was Frances Zwenig who had shredded live sighting reports that dated to the 90's. She directed that Maj. General Needham shred the documents relative to live sighting reports in his Bangkok office. Zwenig now heads a for profit organization that directs American business in Vietnam.
Kerry's cousin, Stuart Forbes, headed Bonston-based Collier's International. Collier's Intern'l won the contract to represent Communist Vietnam in Commercial Real Estate deals worth billions of dollars in commission. Kerry claimed that his holdings are in a blind trust, but acknowledged that he has interest in Collier's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or mathematician to understand that the awarding of this contract would directly benefit John Kerry provided that the United States normalize relations with Vietnam. Kerry was instrumental in the normalization process being one of the people who was present when President Clinton signed the order re-establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Communist Vietnam. Kerry was the recipient of one of the pens that Clinton used to sign the orders.
The stereotype of the Vietnam Veteran is directly linked to John Kerry's testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Kerry testified to atrocities he claims to have witnessed during his four months in Vietnam. He testified that American military personnel committed crimes against humanity by killing women and babies and committing rape via gang bang, i.e. several GIs would rape one young girl. He further testified that because of these atrocities that were the rule rather than exception, Vietnam Veteran's bore the guilt that followed and therefore could not readjust to mainstream civilian life the way that their predecessors from the Korea War and World War II veteran's did upon their homecoming.
Most recently, John Kerry single-handedly defeated several bills in Congress to tie US Aid to Vietnam to Vietnam's Human Rights [abominable] record.
John Kerry's four month stint in Vietnam produced 3 purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star. All this from 18 missions in 48 days. He commanded a Swiff Boat.
On one occasion when his boat came under fire, he disregarded SOP to put the stern towards the fire and put balls to the wind (get the hell out of there.) Instead, he beached his craft, in direct violation of Navy regs, placing his crew at great risk. Luckily for him and his crew the enemy started to flee rather than rush them, and his gunner opened up with a 50 cal. shooting a communist. Kerry delivered the coup de grace and for his action he was awarded the Silver Star. He admitted to a war crime by killing a wounded enemy combatant who was already down, immobilized and unable to fight any further. I am not judging this; I am merely stating what he already testified to. If it was Joe Oliver that had done this, Joe would have had an Article 32 hearing for beaching his craft, for putting his crew in a dangerous position against Navy regs and for killing a wounded enemy combatant who had been unable to continue fighting at the time that Kerry finished him off. Instead, Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. A short time later, he used the thrice wounded rule to be relieved of duty and sent back stateside, leaving his crew behind. It was after he got back that he became a founding member of Vietnam Veteran's Against the War where he staged many rallies with the likes of Jane Fonda.
While POWs like Mike Benge languished in Tiger Cages and Ted Guy suffered beatings at the hands of the communist Vietnamese, Kerry propogated Vietnam's position on the War. Ho Chi Minh said that "We will win this war not in Vietnam but on the college campuses of the United States. We will win this war in the minds of the American people when they witness the voices of those who are against this war." John Kerry gave moral support not to his fellow Vietnam Veteran's but to the Communist Vietnamese.
George Bush was a guardsman. He very well may have been using the guard to keep him out of Vietnam. Given Kerry's four month stint fighting the communists and his actions after he came home, perhaps it would have been better if John Kerry had taken a page out of George Bush's playbook and joined the guard instead.
Make no mistake, John Kerry went to war and got the hell out of it as fast as he possibly could: 4 months in country, 3 purple hearts for relatively minor wounds, a bronze star and a silver star. At the rate that he was racking up the medals, one must consider that he put himself in for them whenever he would stub his toe.
Knowing that he could get out of 'Nam under the thrice wounded rule, does anyone doubt that he used Vietnam to help launch him into office?
The very same rhetoric that he used to help sway those college campuses, following the Ho Chi Minh doctrine of psych-warfare, he is now trying to attain the office of the president. He has voted against our Veteran's time and time again. He voted for the War in Iraq, but against providing the necessary funding. He has voted against providing military hardware for our troops and in some cases, he voted against continuing to purchase the existing hardware. In some cases our military personnel has to canabalize existing hardware for upkeeping as much as it can. Should our troops be without the tools needed to save their lives? Mr. Kerry thinks so.Don't take my word for it, go and view his voting record. http://www.pabaah.com/Kerry.html
Why would the POW/MIA Families list their names so freely in coming out against John Kerry?
http://www.powmiafamiliesagainstjohnkerry.com/whoweare.htm
Why would former POWs like Mike Benge, Larry Stark and others be so vocal in coming out against John Kerry? Why would brother Vietnam Veteran's be so loud in their angst about Kerry?
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/
Now for Bush. And I am sorry, Joe for doing this. I was on my way to work on a humdrum Tuesday morning. It was a beautiful pre-fall crisp day. I came out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and got caught on the light at the Tunnel's entrance to the West Side Highway like I do every day when I drive.
I kept the clutch in, took a pull from my cigarette and took a swig of coffee (breakfast of champions!) and watched the walk/don't walk sign. I was waiting for the don't walk to go from flashing to steady because once it is steady, you have a three count before the light changes. I popped the clutch and gunned it through the new light that they installed in between the Battery and the parking lot down near the World Trade Center.
I made it to that light and took another swig from the coffee. The drive is routine and I get into the right lane as I go through this light. This lane has the cabs turning into it from the hotel between the towers and most drivers avoid it because it is hazardous. I am used to NYC cabbies so I use it all the time.
There is always a bottleneck here. As I got in between the twins, in front of the hotel, the ground shook and I heard an explosion. I thought to myself, Oh %@!#%&. They had just opened up this area from the last bombing in 93 and the WSH was a pleasure to drive again. Now a friggin' gas main exploded. I had my eyes in my rear view to see if the street was being torn up, so I could determine what I had to do to get out of there. Things started falling on my car. I knew then that it wasn't a gas main. Some dimwitted news reporter ran a traffic helicopter into the tower or it had been bombed.
I got about a block away when I knew I would have to ditch my car. All the emergency vehicles were descending on the area, coming at me on the WSH on my side.
Traffic was going to be snarled. On my right there was a lot of some sort and on the other side of the lot I spied a small parking garage. The only problem was that to get to it, I would have to turn up a one way street going the wrong way. I figured with all the police, fire and ambulances that were rolling at us on our side of the street, I would not get a ticket for getting out of the way. I shot up the wrong way and coasted into the garage.
A sign said early bird special, $10.15. I asked the guy how much for the day. He said $50.00. I ripped a $50.00 dollar bill in half and tossed it to him telling him he would ge the other half when I got my car. I left the ingition key in the car.
I walked back to the WSH and looked at the gaping hole in the tower. I didn't know if it was tower one or two. But it was a big mother and it was billowing black smoke. It couldn't be a helicopter; that damage was done by a small plane. That corridor of the Hudson River is called Death Valley and is full of small fixed wing aircraft because small planes are not allowed to fly over Manhattan. So they practice over the Hudson from Teteboro Airport in NJ. What the hell could have gone so wrong that he buried his plane there? My eyes were momentarily diverted to a commercial jetliner that was coming up the Hudson. He was pretty low. I thought he was avoiding the smoke and that was why he was so low. I also thought that the lowness accounted for the sound. His engines were really whining.
I looked back to the smoking tower. Suddenly the SOB turned the jetliner toward the other twin. His wings were at an angle that they would not have gone totally into the twin, so he adjusted them, dropped yet a little lower and burried the jetliner into the twin and I will take that image to the grave with me.
The jet was swallowed by the tower. The side of the tower was popping. Picture a kid running a stick along a white picket fense. That's the only way I can describe what the side of the tower looked like as I was watching. Then the biggest explosion I had ever seen happened.
I do not care how dense you are, you knew we were under attack. I do not know what made me do it, but I started walking toward the disaster instead of away from.
People were jumping from the crippled towers by the hundreds, not by the few that the news stopped showing. The sound they made when they landed was a sound that I cannot find the words to describe, and yet I will never forget it either. Several landed within feet of me. I was sprayed with the soup that they turned into and I was horrified by it.
Denial. I was in major denial. As it happened. I was able to use my cell phone. I called my job and then I called the Empire State Building to tell them to evacuate (like I needed to!). I called my wife to tell her what was going on and my ex-wife who worked in the area. They had shut the subways down and then evacuated the financial district. There were thousands of us on the street.
We all know what happened. But as it happened no one believed it. The thing that came to mind was that it looked like a bad movie. It didn't even look real. That movie Independance Day when the Empire State Building is taken out, that looked more real than this.
A cop told me to move north if I wanted to help. He had to be there, I didn't. I started to move, but was tansfixed at the whole thing. Many of us moved a few feet, stopped and looked back. It was surreal.
One of the towers made a sickening groaning sound. It looked like the top of the building started slipping. I thought it was going to topple over. It slowly moved and then stopped and became totally silent. Or I blocked out the noise surrounding me. Then it looked like a spicket was turned on or a gyser or something like that and the top disappeared into the funnel that was created as the building imploded.
I walked through hell that day. Through fires and body parts. Shoes by the thousands. Paper was everywhere. I was covered in the hot, humid, sticky soot. I was temporarily blinded so people were guiding me where to walk. It was dark in the middle of a bright, crisp, clear morning. The smell was nauseatingly sweet and sickly. The end of the world.
As I made my way toward City Hall Park at Broadway and Park Row, the second tower came down and then the Verizon building collapsed, killing the cell phones. I cannot say with clarity that I saw the second tower come down. I felt it and I was covered with the debris again; but I am not sure that what I remember isn't something that I saw because of all the news coverage afterwards. I think that some of it was first hand experience and some of it is media imprint on my minds eye. I just don't know.
What I do know is that I saw the face of hell that day, that I was sprayed with remains of people who jumped and the soot that covered me from head to toe had the co-mingled remains of the terrorists in it. When I finally arrived home, I took a long, long shower trying to get that stuff off me. I threw all my clothes in the incinerator and I followed that up by going downstairs to the garbarge room and lighting a match, tossing it into the inicinerator and burning those clothes. I comforted my wife and daughter thanking God that I had survived.
I watched the endless news coverage and then the phone started ringing with the news that my cousin and friends were missing. The toll went to 5 then 12 then 17 and it finally topped out at 41. In the ensuing weeks and months, my cousins wife and the families of some of my murdered friends asked me to deal with the local government because, afterall, I had experience in dealing with the government over the missing due to my involvement in the POW/MIA issue.
It was far different but how could I turn them down? My cousin Charlie and my countless friends from AON, Marsh McKlennan, the Port Authority of NY-NJ, Fire and Police Department friends--all of these people wiped out on a clear, beautiful pre-fall day. Mitochondrial DNA testing was being done on remains not of those killed 30 years ago in a war, but yesterday in New York City. It was horrific and heartbreaking. Our city was badly injured. I went to the Chesea Piers and volunteered my time feeding the rescuers turned recoverers. I was walked down to the site by a firefighter that I had fed to see the 15 story smoldering rubble.
For months the fires burnt. There were hot spots that they sent thermo planes over the site so that those digging would not accidentally uncover a fire that was burning under the debris at more than 2000 degrees.
The smell hung over the city like smog until mid-to-late January. Between September 2001 to the end of May 2002 I went to memorials or funerals or both on a weekly basis; sometimes several times a week. Then I went to 2 in June, 3 in July and my final one in August 2002. A full year of funerals. Since then, I have gone to a few more in 2003 of those that I burried before. You see, at the time there were 19,500 body parts at the city Morgue. They would identify a piece of Charlie in October and then again in March and then again a year later. The same for Elkin and others.
I did a memorial to the attack for family and close friends and I never advertised it. By word of mouth it turned out to be the most viewed memorial on the internet. http://www.powforum.org/wtc is a list of the sites that mirror it. It has been written up at least 3 times in the Wall Street Journals Best of the Web and it has been a cathartic experience for me knowing that it has helped some people come to grips with the attack. That it shows exactly what happened that day while paying tribute to the heroes that responded and the resiliency in New Yorkers to deal with something that never happened before on mainland American soil.
Two politicians helped us through the hardest periods of the attack. Rudy Guiliani and George Bush. When George Bush came to NY and climbed one of the debris mounds, he put the world on notice that the folks that knocked down our buildings would hear us soon.
What most folks don't get is that 7 buildings came down that day. The two 110 foot twins, the 70 foot 7 WTC, the Verizon building, the hotel and some lessor known buildings. There are between 5 and 10 more that have to come down because of the structural damage. Today there are still over 15,000 body parts at the morgue.
I spent months down at the site, helping where I could to either clean up or to support those that were doing the clean up. I did it on my own time whenever I could. I pass the site every day, twice a day. I was there on the first anniversary when George and Laura Bush came down the 7 story ramp into the pit with the families. Bush was not surrounded by Secret Service or police. Either side of the ramp had an honor guard, but they walked down the middle of it by themselves. Bush admonished television crews that they could tape the scene, but without sound--what he had to say to us was private.
He told the world that you are either with us or against us and he has waged war on the animals and their supporters that did this to us. Saddam Hussien was just such a supporter, having given safe passage through Iraq to several high placed Al Queda members--even giving medical treatment to one of them. He has given members of other terrorists organizations financial support to the families of suicide bombers the act of which puts him directly on the against us side of the column.
The UN passed 17 prior resolutions against Iraq warning that if they did not give material proof that they had destroyed the weapons that they used against their own people before, against weapons that they used in Iran before, the conseuqences would be dire. They had a dozen years to enforce those resolutions. They did not.
Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe that he was continuing his Weapons of Mass Destruction program and never once gave an iota of material proof that his WMD program was dismantled. He allowed an embargo to continue against his nation for years and then kicked the inspectors out in 1998.
I have no doubt in my mind, none whatsoever, that the Bush administrations actions are responsible for there being no further attack on America since September 11th. I have no doubt, none whatsoever, that the world know believes in America once again. I have no doubt, none whatsoever, that the terrorists are wondering why the hell they attacked us. I have no problem, none whatsoever, that we have not found WMD in Iraq as yet. First of all, Saddam had 12 years to hide them. Second of all, I don't care if we don't find them. They won't be used against us or any other nation again, of that I am certain. That is because of Bush.
North Korea is willing to talk about their nuclear program because of Bush. Syria is hoping we won't target them next rather than snubbing their noses at us. Libya has voluntarily given up its own WMD program because of Bush.
Kerry has been for the war, against the war, for the war and now against the war. He is indecisive and he has helped prolong this war by keeping the debate over it going in Congress and by withholding the funds needed to prosecute the war.
The enemies of America understand now that their attack on us triggered a response the like of which they never suspected. They thought of us as weak, content, could not stomach a response. Bin Laden stated that we would never respond, that we were cowards.
The Embassy in Rhodesia; Somalia Mogadishu, the first World Trade Center bombing, Khboar Towers, the in tandem attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole. All of these led to the attack of September 11th and while its true that this attack happened on George Bush's watch, it has been proven that the attack was planned 2 years prior to that. Our non response to the other attacks led them to believe they could attack us like they did on September 11th with impunity.
Bush has led us through this and restored credibility to the word of the United States; that when we give a warning that warning had damn well better be taken seriously. He has told the UN that it risks irrelevance if it does not act and he has demonstrated better than any president before just how irrelevant the UN really is. It should go the route of its predecessor, the League of Nation, into oblivion. Kerry is using his anti-Vietnam War rhetoric that he used successfully in launching his political career and tailored it to anti-Iraq, anti-Bush rhetoric in order to gain the presidency.
You can bet that enemies of the United States are following this upcoming election closely. Our enemies are well financed and I am absolutely certain that some of this money has found its way to the Democratic Party in an effort to get Bush out of office. If that comes to fruition and John Kerry is installed as our commander in chief, then America will be attacked again. Of that I have absolutely no doubt. With Bush at the helm, they may try to attack us again, but their success is questionable since he has not swayed from the stance of wiping terrorism off the face of the earth.
We simply cannot afford on several fronts to allow Kerry to beat Bush in the upcoming election. 3,000 of our citizens already gave their lives; 41 of them were my cousin and friends. I have nieces and nephews who are engaging the enemy as I write this, proudly serving this nation.
We did not start this war. We did not want this war. We will win this war and we will win it because of George Bush. A vote for Kerry sets us back to pre-September 11th. We are at war. We need a wartime president, not an anti-war, indecisive target.
If this has not changed your minds, then consider your kids. This is going to be a long war. There may be a time when our kids have to fight it. With Bush at the helm now, it greatly enhances the chances that the war will be over a lot sooner than if Kerry gets into office. If Kerry gets into office, he will cut military spending, will take away the tools that our troops need to eradicate these vermin from our lives and the cost of it will be measured in the very body bags that he now rails against.
I go to the doctor for annual physicals and I go to the dentist for regular check ups. I do not wait for my breathing to become labored before going to the doctor and I do not wait for root canal is necessary before going to the dentist. I don't want to wait for another mushroom cloud or biological cloud or nerve agent cloud or dirty bomb cloud to rise up over another American city before taking preventative action. Buish has taken the war to them, on their land in their nations and has put those who have the propensity to assist them on notice that they help them no more.
This war is not about oil or American imperialism. The United States has a long tradition of sending our fine young men and women to fight for freedom well beyond our borders and yet the only land we have ever asked for is just enough to bury our dead. Some of those nations that we have liberated in the past and gave us that land marked with American headstones had momentarily forgotten about that.
George Bush has earned his second term. Don't let the issue get clouded. The Democrats want Bush out at all costs and there are those that simply want to vote against George Bush because he is George Bush. We have those that would do us harm on the run; don't give them time to regroup, time to catch their breaths. Let's stay the course and keep them running. I already walked through the face of hell once. I don't want to be in a position of having to do it again.
I do sincerely apologize for the length of this.
Steve Golding New York City
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