Posted on 08/25/2004 6:13:19 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Bump!
bump
Very well said! Let us have a voice! Swift Boat Vets have the same freedom of speech that Kerry does!
The Jaw (McCain) seems not to have his loyalties in order. It is amazing to me that after all his fence straddling that he seems to feel no groin pain... has he been castrated you think?
Impressive!!
I know McCain didn't listen to me when I called his office and I'm sure he won't listen to the Sarge, he is dead set on heading the Ministry of Speech and if he doesn't like your speech he would ban it.
BUMP
Good letter but I don't think you should touch on the subject of his "performance" Didn't he break several planes in traning and then get shot down on his very first mission? Maybe he was just unlucky but bring up his performance like that will probably put him on the defensive.
Senator McCain,
As a former Vietnam veteran, naval officer, and property owner in Arizona, I was very disappointed with your statement concerning the new book, Unfit for Command, and ad by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Namely, you have been reported to have stated, ''I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.''
I totally disagree with your characterization of the ad as being dishonest and dishonorable. Without knowing the facts, I don't see how you can characterize the ad as being dishonest. Senator Kerry refuses to release his full military records. I don't think it is dishonorable for American veterans to voice their opinions. Senator Kerry likes to trot out his Band of Brothers as political props and make them available to the media to extoll his virtues. God forbid if a veteran is critical of Kerry and may have some facts to back it up.
"None of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded." Technically true, but it should be noted that the PCFs did not operate independently but in groups of three or more depending on the mission. Kerry was not commanding a destroyer or aircraft carrier. He was operating a small boat with a crew of 6 including himself. The boats operated together within yards of one another, not independently. It is like the quarterback saying he did not serve with the middle linebacker. They may be on different units, but they are on the same team.
Kerry delights in rubbing his military service in people's faces because it can become a tar baby for those who are brave enough to question it. In the meantime, he gets a pass concerning his antiwar activities and dismal record as a legislator. His war record insulates him from criticism, garners sympathy when it is attacked, and becomes the focal point of his campaign defining the framework for the debate. It is a strategy that has worked for him over the past 25 years in public office. He used it to good effect to defeat Bill Weld.
Kerry's antiwar activities with the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War, his association with people like Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, and his meetings with the Vietnamese Communists in Paris and then advocating their negotiating posiitions before Congress are not the stuff of heroes or Presidential candidates.
If anyone is opening wounds from Vietnam, it is Kerry. He has brought Vietnam front and center. Now he wears his four plus months of service in-country as a badge of honor, but in 1971 Kerry made it a scarlett letter to be a Vietnam veteran. Most Americans under 45 don't even remember the Vietnam War. They are accepting the revisionist version of Kerry and the media. I am not for giving Kerry a pass.
I don't condemn men like Kerry's immediate supervisors, Hibbard and Elliot, who wrote Kerry's fitness reports and have deemed Kerry unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. I don't want to muzzle men who have earned the right to speak. You are damining the messengers for the message. If what these men are saying is true, John Kerry should not be Commander-Chief.
I applaud your service and gained some understanding of what the POWs endured from the Holzers book, "Aid and Comfort." You may have the ability to forgive people like John Kerry and Jane Fonda. I cannot.
That is a great letter kabar.
I hope he reads it and all the many ones that must be filling his mailbox.
And thank you very much for your service kabar.
Excellent letter, sir.
My husband wrote to him also.
They were USNA classmates.
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