Vets refuse to forgive Kerry for antiwar acts

From my post 32:

In the spring of 1992, he wrote a story about Clinton's conscience - wrestling about the draft while at Oxford. Theses stories by Talbott were big lies. Clinton rewarded Talbott by making him the number two person at the State Department. Sidney Blumenthal - The top White House spin master is a long time friend of the Clintons. Blumenthal is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Look here, from From “Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: The Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War”

The game of the rich has caught up to Pig America. The Vietnamese have kicked ass out of U.S. occupational troops. More and more G.I.’s will no longer listen to Pig Nixon’s orders and are turning their guns around on the real enemy. The Provisional Revolutionary Government in Vietnam (Viet Cong) has led the Vietnamese people to complete victory.

–Roxboro School SDS- Cleveland Heights – June 4, 1972

Recently many articles have appeared in the movement press expounding the virtues of deserting and going AWOL. “Come to Canada and be a man.” “Soldiers are pigs,” “To remain in the imperialist U.S. Army rather than leaving is comparable to being a Nazi.” Last year there were, by Pentagon counts,, 250,000 AWOL’s and over 53,000 deserters. This has not made much of a dent in the fighting strength of the U.S.Army. That dent has clearly come from the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people under the leadership of the NLF and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

–New York Regional SDS distributed at Boston University - Feb. 22, 1969

Students for a Democratic Society = SDS

Now THIS group: Youth Against War and Fascism was on Ho Chi Minh's Pen Pal list. Now THIS gets interesting!

My Dear -------

I have received your letter. You and the progressive American people, especially the youth, feel indignant at the barbarous crimes perpetrated in Vietnam by the U.S. imperialists who have thus besmeared the honor of the American people and the noble traditions of the United States. I am glad to learn that you and many other young Americans are actively endeavoring under varied forms to help push forward the movement against the war of aggression in Vietnam and in support of the Vietnamese people.

With affectionate greetings,

Signed, Uncle Ho

June 18, Nov. 25, 1965

On February 7, 1965, the U.S. began its systematic air massacre of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The U.S. also plans to bomb the system of dikes in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam which helps the North Vietnamese from drowning and starving. Just as the U.S. is attempting to drown in blood the liberation struggle of the South Vietnamese people because it is the model for liberation struggles everywhere, so North Vietnam is being bombed to bits because it shows all colonial and former colonial countries, by living example, that Socialism can solve their problems.

–Youth Against War and Fascism, Free University of New York - Aug. 27, 1966

As far as the Vietnamese are concerned, we are fighting on the side of Hitlerism, and they hope we lose. You are supposed to be fighting to “save the Vietnamese people from Communism.” Certainly Communist influence is very strong in the National Liberation Front, the rebel government. Yet most of the people support the NLF. Why ? The war in Vietnam is not being fought according to the rules. Prisoners are tortured. Our planes drop incendiaary bombs on civilian villages. Our soldiers shoot at women and children. Your officers will tell you that it is all necessary, that we couldn’t win the war any other way. We believe that the atrocities which are necessary to win this war against the people of Vietnam are inexcusable.

–Vietnam Day Committee, San Franscisco - Aug. 2, 1966.

More from the “Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: The Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War”

Look at the major leaders of the anti-war movement:

· Al Hubbard - Vietnam Veterans Against the War - signed the People’s Peace Treaty of 1971

· Jane Fonda - actress - signed the People’s Peace Treaty of 1971

See post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1209454/posts?page=59#59 for People's Peace Treaty

· Noam Chomsky, MIT

· Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr. Yale

· Rennie Davis, May Day Collective

· Rev. Daniel Berrigan,S.J.

· Dave Dellinger, People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice

· Daniel Ellsberg - MIT

· Richard Falk - Princeton

· Tom Hayden - Berkeley

· Abbie Hoffman - WPAX, NewYork

· Sidney Peck - People’s Coalition for Peace and justice

· Bobby Seale- Black Panther Party

· Benjamin Spock, doctor

· Gloria Steinem - author

· George Wald, biologist, Havard

· Cora Weiss - Women Strike for Peace

Many of the people who signed the various documents in “Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: The Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War” appeared again as signers of the “Not In Our Name” ad that appeared in papers all over the country, denouncing Bush and the wars on terrorism and Iraq.

Thanks Eastbound. Still reading “Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly".

So I have more to post. I feel like I'm just talking to myself here. Does anyone need this info?

And who had to stand in and fight for John Kerry after he left six months early?"

I agree: That was the concept that was startling for me, too. THAT is a living concept.

(snip)

Kerry’s Select Committee staff, in order to soft pedal thisabandonment, added in the report “We acknowledge that thereis no proof that U.S. POWs survived.”

Kerry’s “no proof” assertion, was an outright lie. It was aneffort by Kerry’s pro-Hanoi staff to bury our POW/MIA’sand further open the doors to trade with Vietnam.

Kerry maintained there was “no proof U.S. POWs survived,”but never produced evidence proving the left behind POWswere dead. Kerry has never answered the questions, who wasresponsible for their deaths or where their remains werelocated.

In fact, Kerry never demanded that Vietnam explain.

Kerry’s latest demonstration of support for the communistVietnamese is his prevention of the Vietnam Human RightsAct (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate. He claimshuman rights in Vietnam would deteriorate if he allows theVietnam Human Rights Act out of committee and into law.

Michael Young, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on In-ternational Religious Freedom (USCIRF), disagrees.

In testimony delivered February 12 before the East Asianand Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Re-lations Committee (Kerry is Ranking Minority Member of thecommittee), Young said: “In its travels to Vietnam, the Commission and staff have found that over the last two years, already poor human rights conditions have deteriorated. Key dissidents were imprisoned or placed under house arrest. Churches have been closed and some destroyed. In addition,the government of Vietnam has intensified its crackdowns onreligious and ethnic minorities in the northwestern provinces and the Central Highlands — including ongoing campaigns offorced renunciation of faith.”

Kerry was instrumental in mustering shepherding the normal-ization of trade and diplomatic relations between the UnitedStates and Vietnam in 1995 and in 2001 helped passed theBilateral Trade Act (BTA) in the hope that expanded eco-nomic ties would improve Vietnam’s human rights situation. But according to Young, “increased trade has not led toprogress in the area of protecting human rights and basic liberties. More dollars have not lead to democratization. Andquiet diplomacy alone has not produced tangible results.

”The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom.

Within the last two years, 354 churches of the Montagnards(a Christian ethnic minority) were forcibly disbanded and morethan 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone.

Vietnam’s secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. Hanoi’s communists are conducting organized outrages againstthe Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture ofgoat’s blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity.

Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just “dis-appeared.” The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult malepopulation fighting in Southeast Asia for the United States.Nevertheless, Hanoi John Kerry remains forever loyal to oldcommunist friends in Vietnam.

Click to download: http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/abt_kerry_pdf.pdf.

http://www.longwayhome.net/index.html

The Long Way Home Project presents “Men versus Myth” the first in a multi-part documentary series on the Vietnam War. Among the startling revelations: the best and the brightest served in Vietnam, the rest stayed home. The soldiers in Vietnam had the highest rate of volunteerism, were the best educated, and served for higher ideals than any fighting force that America had ever fielded. That he returned maligned and unwelcome is a travesty. That they were not “victims” but raised their families and became America’s community and business leaders is the amazing inspirational message of “Men Versus Myth”.

The Long Way Home Project presents the interactive television documentary “How We Won the War.” It was the summer of 1970. In South Vietnam the Communist forces were decimated and the countryside returned to friendly hands. After totally repelling desperate enemy attacks in 1968 and 1969, the American, Vietnamese, Australian and other Southeast Asia Treaty Organization forces had achieved what politicians and the media had said was impossible. Newly available historical information and the personal stories of the some of the major “players” of the period makes “How We Won…” both informative and entertaining.

Four successive administrations shed American blood and vowed to protect democratic South Vietnam from Communist takeover. The Long Way Home Project presents the television documentary “How We Lost the War”. Even with the military war won, the U.S. Congress, their supporters in the media, and activists in the Left had other ideas. The scale of our nation’s betrayal was unprecedented in American history and unworthy of a great nation. And yet the lessons that can be learned from the story are worth learning and will inspire future generations to vigilance and to service.

Long overlooked in the story of the Vietnam war are the South Vietnamese themselves. The Long Way Home Project presents the television documentary “The New Diaspora”, an inspirational look at their long history, their stories of hardship and struggle to reach freedom, and the success they found in their new countries. Both older and younger generations alike seek to find meaning in their new lives and yet rediscover and maintain a link with their heritage and a country that was left behind – a metaphor for a nation built by immigrants and refugees! With over a million Vietnamese-Americans in the U.S. and many thousands in other democratic nations around the world they form a living legacy to the commitment of the allied soldiers that fought for freedom and democracy.

Yes, it's definately relevant to the topic....

I hard copy and distribute many of these Kerry reports. Thanks very much for posting them.

History Channel boycotts Long Way Home, http://www.ourpatriots.com

Three new films, including Mr. Magruder’s How the Campus Lied About Vietnam, http://www.i-served.com/MagruderArticlesIndex.html , clearly repudiate the campus version of the war. Magruder says exposing these lies is crucial to minimize dangerous new polarization in war on terrorism.

Leonard Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, http://www.i-served.com/MagruderArticlesIndex.html has just sent out 50 free copies of his documentary, How the Campus Lied About Vietnam, as requested by universities and vet organizations all over the country. This is part of a new national campaign by his organization to promote using three new films on Vietnam to challenge the false view of the Vietnam War that has been institutionalized on campus to protect those who would not serve.

In view of the announcement yesterday by the History Channel that it will refuse to show one of the films, The Long Way Home, http://www.ourpatriots.com/ a four-part series, Mr. Magruder said that, to protest this media boycott, he will now continue to send out free copies of his film to all who request it as long as resources last.

The campus version of the Vietnam War also needs to be discredited because it is based on lies of the 60’s being recycled to attack the nation’s war on terrorism and could lead to another polarization and defeat.

This is the second time Mr. Magruder has launched a campaign against media bigotry. In 1986 he spent $8,000 in a successful national campaign to get PBS to show Television’s Vietnam, by paying to show the film himself on various TV stations across the country. This, along with a letter of appeal to all PBS station managers, precipitated a massive defection from the boycott. Narrated by Charlton Heston, the film showed how the national media distorted the truth about the Vietnam War. Wrote General Westmoreland to Magruder, “I congratulate you on your success in the showing of “Television’s Vietnam” on PBS stations around the country.” (letter, Sept.13, 1986)

Said The Washington Inquirer, “The most dedicated [on the PBS issue] is Leonard Magruder, who has been campaigning on behalf of Vietnam veterans for the last 6 years, having quit his professional job to protest against the treatment of Vietnam veterans.”

Mackubin Thomas Owens, who led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam in 1968-69, and is now a professor at the U.S. Naval College in Newport, Rhode Island, in a recent article on the Web refered to a “culture war” that continues to rage for the soul of America, the central objective of which is to control the way the past is portrayed (www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens060502.asp).

The significance of this is that “to control the past is to give meaning to the present and direction to the future.” Left/liberal academics continue to perpetuate a false image of the Vietnam War in an effort to impose their ideological agenda on student leaders of tomorrow. When this is publicly questioned, the invariable response, said Owens, is “How dare you question or ridicule the idealism of this holy period of history.” Mr. Magruder, who was a professor of psychology on three campuses during the 60’s said he was in complete agreement with Owens that “it was not idealism but hypocrisy.” This hypocrisy is made clear in three new documentaries, based largely on interviews with Vietnam vets, hat are having difficulty getting shown. “There are many forces in our society that would like to keep films like this from the public. We must protest this,”said Mr. Magruder.

Mr. Owens in his article went on to say,“There are two competing interpretations of the 1960’s.” In the anti-war version,the 60’s were “exciting, heroic, and uniquely infused with moral passion.” In the second version, “It was a time of incredible intellectual flatulence when precocious adolescents under the tutelage of Herbert Marcuse and the like affected a pose of moral superiority vis-a-vis their countrymen. It was a time when self-styled radicals embraced the enemy against whom their countrymen were fighting and dying.” This second version never mentions the legacy of the campus protestors, 250,000 South Vietnamese war dead, at least 100,000 summary executions at the hands of the Communists, a million and a half “boat people,” half of whom perished at sea, an equal number lost in “re-education camps,” a genocide in Cambodia, (over 2,000,000 lives lost), and an encouragement of Soviet adventurism. There is no question, said Mr. Magruder, that the campus war protestors of the 60’s ended up having supported genocide and tyranny, and if not stopped this time in their use of the same lies against the war on terrorism, they could end up destroying the nation.

Three documentaries have recently become available which emphasize the second, less flattering version of the 60’s. The importance of these films is that they clearly show that the war protests of the 60’s were ideologically motivated and rested on a false interpretation of the war more sympathetic to the enemy than to the American effort to save South Vietnam from Communist tyranny, and did great damage to the returned veterans. Said Mr. Magruder, “Bringing this out at this time of a new war, the war on terrorism, is extremely important as large segments of intellectual centers such as Harvard and Berkeley are recycling the same lies and again supporting the enemy, that is, the terrorists, just as they supported the Viet Cong in the 60’s.”

The first new film was recently mentioned in a news item out of CNS News.com, “Documentary Sheds New Light on Vietnam War.” Christel and Calvin Crane traveled 14,000 miles across America interviewing Vietnam vets, recorded in a four-part film, The Long Way Home Project, with commentary by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. According to a promotional press release, the series provides “a more positive and unbiased look at the country’s longest war and highlights many of the misconceptions America has about the men and women who served the country in this conflict.” Said Christel Crane, “It reveals the stereotype of the Vietnam Veteran as being almost completely false.” Vietnam vet and former Sec.of the Navy James Webb said of this stereotype in a recent article in U.S.A. Today, “Those who avoided serving in Vietnam have played the main role in protraying the war as an immoral conflict...to justify not having gone.” The four-volume set of films sells for $69.95. Information on it can be found at www.longwayhome.net. Said the CNS press release, “So far there have been no agreements to broadcast the documentary.” The History Channel has just announced it will refuse to show the film.

The second documentary is Silent Victory, http://www.silentvictory.com/ produced by Don C. Hall and Annette R. Hall. It is the story of Company F, 51st Long Range Patrol (Airborne) Infantry. Over $300,000 went into the making of the film and it has won three awards at various film festivals, one reviewer telling the producers it had received “the highest rating ever.” Yet all cable and major networks have returned the film to the producers marked “sight unseen.” The film may be purchased from the film’s website, www.silentvictory, for $24.95.

The third recent documentary related to the Vietnam War was produced by Mr. Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform. In the mid 80’s, Mr. Magruder took his home movie camera to Vietnam vet parades in Chicago and Houston and interviewed 68 Vietnam veterans at random, asking them the question that had been studiously avoided by the national media, “What do you think about the campus war protestors.” Across the board, the general response was that the position of the protestors was “false, hypocritical, and damaging to the war effort.”- (The Stalwart, K.U. student newspaper).

The film that came out of these interviews is a 1 -hour representative sample from the 68 interviews and is titled How the Campus Lied About Vietnam. As President of a student organizaton Mr. Magruder is able to reach a large number of faculty, administrators, and student organizations through the campus Internet and has at least three times over the last few years asked for some group or class to sponsor a showing of the film, with no response. “There are any number of classes in political science, American history, Asian studies, etc., that touch on the Vietnam War that should have expressed some interest in this film,” said Mr. Magruder, “but since it is known that the veterans in the film seriously question the campus ‘peace’ movement, this type of film is especially threatening to academics.”

American students, in fact the whole country, must become aware, based on films such as these, and all the new books and revelations in recent years including memoirs from the enemy, of how wrong the academics were who engineered the anti-war movement. This could prove a fatal blow to the largely leftist ideological agenda that is tyrannizing American higher, and even secondary education and threatening to lead to a new polarization over the war on terrorism like that which occurred in the 60’s. If students can see how academics lied to students about Vietnam in the 60’s, maybe they won’t take too seriously faculty pronouncements on the war on terrorism. The following is an example of what is happening along those lines.

Steve Miller, a junior at Santa Monica High School, CA, said this recently about the indoctrination that is going on in a June 14, 2002, article in Frontpage Magazine:

“There is a war going on in America, - a war of ideology. It’s being waged in public schools like mine. The problem is much more severe than many are aware. Those running the school and teaching the students have such deeply held left-wing beliefs that they cannot help but spread their agendas to the young people. This is evidenced in nearly ever facet of the school and has resulted in the indoctrination of thousands of students, some unaffected, but many more misinformed, misguided, and misdirected.

“Subsequent to 9/11, the school newspaper condemned the notion of a military response and a Muslim leader was brought to the school to explain the glory and splendor of Islam. My history teacher handed out a lengthy article lambasting the United States as absolutely wicked and also condemned the notion of a military response. Teachers hand out left-wing articles with little or no balance, administratrors avoid conservative speakers at all costs, liberals are routinely brought in who assert the same position that teachers drill into their students, multiculturalism is coupled with anti-Americanism, and history is rewritten leaving out everything that might cause students to be patriotic.”

This is a perfect description of what happened in higher and secondary education in the 60’s.

Even though, especially in the light of recent history books, there are no facts that the former war protestors can point to that vindicates their position, it is imperative for them to continue to urge the nation to ignore the correct historical conclusions. To admit to having been wrong in their views on the war would mean to face not only enormous guilt but even more important, disproof of their ideological or philosophical ( usually some version of Marxism) assumptions. They must of necessity cling to the position that they were right, that those who fought were wrong, and that there is nothing to discuss. Demonstrations that they were wrong, however, is absolutely crucial at this time when so many left/liberals on campuses across the nation are coming out in support of the international terrorists that are attempting to destroy America as well as beginning a monstrous new wave of anti-Semitism on campuses.

About fifty organizations will initially be showing the Magruder film: universities (such as Univ. of Colorado, Duke Univ., American Univ., Univ. of S.C., Rutgers.), veteran organizations (such as the Special Forces Association, 1st Marine Division Association, DAV, American Legion ), and numerous university R.O.T.C. units. A number of these organizations said they would try to get the film shown campus-wide, and on television.

Said Mr. Magruder, “I’m delighted. We have a beginning. The bigots who run the media (see the book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, by Bernard Goldberg) are about to be exposed on the subject of Vietnam. The national media and the Kansas media, as always, will try to cover this up, but with enterprising students all over the country getting these film on TV, these bigots will eventually be defeated.”

Micheal Clodfelter, Vietnam combat veteran and author of perhaps the best history to date of the Vietnam War, Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars,1772-1991, wrote this recently: “During an era when it was both politically incorrect and uncool to show support for the American men and women in uniform, Leonard Magruder was one of the comparatively few members of academia to publicly stand by and stand up for those warriors fighting America’s most devisive war. This film is a testament to Magruder’s loyalty to the veterans of Vietnam and the steadfastness of his convictions.”

Ping

The blood on Kerry’s hands

By Jim Bancroft, Sep 6, 2004

Every action has a reaction. We sometimes refer to Newton’s Third Law in ways that do not refer to physical science, but to social and emotional constructs, events we see or hear of, events we perceive of happening or events that we experience ourselves.

Newton’s Third Law of Energy is plainly stated as:

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"

Our actions as young adults often shape our own lives in ways we do not consider at the time, nor can we foresee the results of our actions in how they affect others in the future. A single drive in an automobile can lead to an accident due to a loss of attention on the road, having tragic consequences for those involved.

Engaging in political activity that is riotous, angry, and controversial, can also lead to unintended consequences, events that were never planned or foreseen, nor predicted.

The willful engagement in activity that is riotous, angry, violent, or controversial; the drawing of attention to your cause by your actions: to see that your actions encourage or embolden others to join in with your cause should bring the greatest pause in your own personal behavior, for it must be plainly seen that your actions can then bring about unintended consequences that are outside of your own personal control, involving the emotions and reactions of others who you may or may not know.

The more violent your initial action was, the reaction may be more violent, more controversial, more confrontational. And it will be you who initiated it because of your first actions, whether the end result was intended or foreseen or not.

In my life time, I have seen my country and our politics change in many ways. As a child, I watched the Vietnam War on television; I saw the body counts, I saw the nation fixated on the war shown on the TV screen, I cheered on the troops, and I felt sorrow when I saw the caskets and heard of our losses.

I also saw the anti-war protests on TV. I had to have my Dad explain some words and terms used by the Police in Detroit in 1968 after the riots in how they described the actions of the anti-war people who claimed to be for peace, but seemed to only come to fight and disrupt.

Their actions had consequences. The American people started to see our media play over and again the masses of people who looked normal sometimes, but also some that were the Hippie looking type people. Mostly, we saw abnormal behavior portrayed on television and in the news as being common.

We saw our nation change.

One of the people who most affected us, was John Kerry. John Kerry’s association with these anti-war groups changed our nation forever. Most people see it, those that are over a certain age anyways, maybe not the younger, the have no reference to judge by. But, I am 45, and even in my age, I see it. But, I wonder how many others do.

John Kerry’s actions, and the actions of those who openly protested against our country during the Vietnam War, made it socially acceptable to hate the US while living here, and to falsely claim what they are doing is Patriotism. The actions of the Vietnam protester were to make the call for Socialist or Communist type changes in our government system an accepted thing.

But that is not all. By their actions, a war was ended earlier than expected. Not in a way that was in our favor, but in a way that embarrassed our country even though we were winning the war militarily.

The actions of the anti-war groups affected national policy. We had anti-war groups start up earlier than 1968 when John Kerry entered Vietnam, true, but their acceptance and liveliness was not noticeable. It wasn’t until after John Kerry got home and started a group called Vietnam Veteran’s Against the War, VVAW, with his friend Jane Fonda that the openly socially acceptable participation in American anti-war activity took place in common American thought.

This was a significant group, in that, for the first time in our nation’s history that I can find, a group of veteran’s who had fought in a war, founded a group that was against national policy in calling for the war to end; not with a victory by our armed forces, but with a defeat of our armed forces. This group was calling for our own nation, THEIR own nation, to remove all troops from Vietnam, admit that our actions there were morally wrong.

They were calling for their nation to lose against the enemy, to give up the fight against the Communist system which genuinely threatened the nation of Vietnam since the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. And because of Vietnam’s geographic location, the seaways of South-East Asia would be threatened with a puppet government run by either China or the Soviet Union in direct opposition to the United States as a nation in order to spread their communist philosophy through the end of a gun.

And they did all this with the backing of our national media, and with all the backing of the political party that was against the President who was in power. . . who had absolutely nothing to do with starting the war in the first place.

These peace groups, led by John Kerry and Jane Fonda and Bill Clinton and their sort, caused our government to step back away from a national commitment to our allies in the South-East Asia peninsula, abandon our war against Communism in Vietnam, and in general, stop our pro-active response to the Communist threat that was a definite reality in the world then.

I titled this paper, “THE BLOOD ON KERRY’S HANDS” for a reason, and that reason all goes back to Vietnam and the effect that his participation in leading a group like VVAW had on the United States and the world.

The connection between VVAW and the peace groups and the early end of the Vietnam War without a US victory against the Communist forces fighting in South Vietnam has not been explored in depth by anyone that I am aware of. There are some things that are important to remember from this time period that can only be examined in hindsight; namely, What happened to the US and it’s policy in foreign affairs immediately following the Vietnam War, and why?

At the time John Kerry left Vietnam, it was early 1969. According to records kept by the US government, by the end of 1968, the US losses in personnel were 36,152 persons killed in action from service in Vietnam from all causes.

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/vietnam_war_casualty_lists/statistics.html#year

This is important for one significant reason: 1968 was the TET offensive, the last gasp of the North Vietnamese, a large offensive where the American people were told by a media that the war was un-winnable. But was this the case?

Here is a short synopsis of just what happened during the TET Offensive of 1968:

Myth: The Tet Offensive Was a Communist Victory

The 1968 Tet offensive was a total and complete miltary disaster for the North Vietnamese Communists no matter how you look at it. If you measure victory by territory gained or enemy killed, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong failed dismally in their attacks.

The NVA and VC had counted on a "People's Uprising" to carry them to victory, however there was no such uprising. They did exactly what the American military wanted them to do. They massed in large formations that were incredibly vulnerable to the awesome fire support the U.S. Military was able to bring to bear on them in a coordinated and devastating manner.

The NVA and VC attacked only ARVN installations with the exception of the US Embassy in Saigon. Despite reports to the contrary by all major television news networks and the print media, the VC sapper team of 15 men never entered the chancery building and all 15 VC were dead within 6 hours of the attack. They caused no damage to any property and managed to kill 4 US Army MPs, and one Marine guard. The South Vietnamese Police tasked with guarding the Embassy fled at the first sound of gunfire.

The NVA/VC launched major attacks on Saigon, Hue, Quang Tri City, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Kontum City, Ban Me Thout, My Tho, Can Tho, and Ben Tre. With the exception of the old imperial city of Hue, the NVA/VC were forced to retreat within 24 hours of the beginning of the offensive. In the process they suffered devastating losses among the southern VC cadres. Using the southern VC as the spearhead of these attacks was an intentional device on the part of the North Vietnamese politcal leadership. They did not want to share power with the southerners after the war, so they sent them out to what was inevitable slaughter. The NVA mainforce battalions were held in "reserve" according to Vo Nguyen Giap, in order to "exploit any breakthroughs".

In the first week of the attack the NVA/VC lost 32,204 confirmed killed, and 5,803 captured. US losses were 1,015 KHA, while ARVN losses were 2,819 killed. ARVN losses were higher because the NVA/VC, reluctant to enter into a set-piece battle with US forces, attacked targets defended almost exclusively by South Vietnamese troops.

Casualties among the people whom the NVA/VC claimed to be "liberating" were in excess of 7,000, with an additional 5,000 tortured and murdered by the NVA/VC in Hue and elsewhere. In Hue alone, allied forces discovered over 2,800 burial sites containing the mutilated bodies of local Vietnamese teachers, doctors, and political leaders.

http://www.11thcavnam.com/education/myth_the_tet_offensive_was_a_com.htm

General Vo Nguyen Giap, the leader of the North Vietnamese Army during the war, had these comments to make concerning the efforts of anti-war protesters like John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and VVAW, which Jane Fonda was the co-founder with John Kerry; this article is reprinted from NEWSMAX:

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/1/110432.shtml

Gen. Giap Thanks Kerry & Co. for Anti-war Protests

Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese general who led his forces to victory said Friday he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, one of whom was presidential candidate John Kerry.

"I would like to thank them," said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 93, without mentioning Kerry by name. "Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he added.

Reuters, which first reported Giap's comments, suggested that the former enemy general was mindful of Kerry's role in leading some of the highest-profile anti-war protests of the entire Vietnam War.

Before the British wire service quoted Gen. Giap, it noted:

"The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand."

North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."

"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.

Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."

"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.

Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.

"Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.

These are not insignificant statements. These North Vietnamese military men are crediting the American Anti-War movement with being the reason they held out in time of war. The obvious conflict in this statement of theirs is, if there was NO ANTI-WAR movement in the US, these North Vietnamese military men would have NOT been optimistic about the outcome of the war. They would have been approaching the US in an attitude of military weakness, not military strength.

This is undeniable. In fact, there are some more direct quotes from General Giap on this very subject.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/10/222651.shtml

Gen. Giap: Kerry's Group Helped Hanoi Defeat U.S.

The North Vietnamese general in charge of the military campaign that finally drove the U.S. out of South Vietnam in 1975 credited a group led by Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry with helping him achieve victory.

In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. - according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North.

That's why, he predicted on Tuesday, the Vietnam War issue "is going to blow up in Kerry's face."

"People are going to remember Gen. Giap saying if it weren't for these guys [Kerry's group], we would have lost," North told radio host Sean Hannity.

"The Vietnam Veterans Against the War encouraged people to desert, encouraged people to mutiny - some used what they wrote to justify fragging officers," noted the former Marine lieutenant colonel, who earned two purple hearts in Vietnam.

"John Kerry has blood of American soldiers on his hands," North said.

Finally, what must be shown here, are the true and accurate statements of an American who was held as Prisoners of War in Vietnam, and a comment written by John Kerry’s own Executive Officer from when he served on the USS Gridley.

This first statement below is an excerpt written to television host Joe Scarborough from Col. George E. "Bud" Day, the former cell mate of Senator John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton:

I was a POW of the Vietnamese in Hanoi in 1971, and I am aware that the testimony of John Kerry, the actions of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, and the radical left; all caused the commies to conclude that if they hung on, they would win. North Vietnamese General Bui Tin commented that every day the Communist leadership listened to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark gave them confidence to hold in the face of battlefield reverses. The guts of it was that propaganda from the anti-war group was part of their combat strategy.

While the Commies were hanging on, innumerable U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Air Force members were being killed in combat. Every battle wound to Americans after Kerry's misdirected testimony is related to Kerry's untruthfulness. John Kerry contributed to every one of these deaths with his lies about U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. He likewise defamed the U.S. with our allies and supporters.

His conduct also extended the imprisonment of the Vietnam Prisoners of War, of which I was one. I am certain of at least one POW death after his testimony, which might have been prevented with an earlier release of the POWs.

. . . .

I draw a direct comparison of General Benedict Arnold of the Revolutionary War, to Lieutenant John Kerry. Both went off to war, fought, and then turned against their country. General Arnold crossed over to the British for money and position. John Kerry crossed over to the Vietnamese with his assistance to the anti-war movement, and his direct liason with the Vietnamese diplomats in Paris. His reward. Political gain. Senator..United States.

This next excerpt is from Captain J. F. Kelly, who as Commander Kelly was XO of the USS GRIDLEY in the period of 1967 and 1968 when Kerry was aboard.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html

Every candidate for public office probably has some excess baggage to carry around that he’d rather not have. With Senator John Kerry, it’s undoubtedly his anti-Vietnam War activism that followed his heroic naval service in Vietnam.

Aside from a Christmas card and an aborted telephone call, I didn’t hear further from John until I read about his anti-war antics including his appearance with Hanoi Jane Fonda and the famous episode of throwing medals onto the capitol steps during a protest.

While he was protesting against the war, many of us were still fighting in it. Many of us felt betrayed that one of our own, a decorated hero, would give comfort to the enemy by such actions. Think what you want about the wisdom in getting involved in that war, two presidents, both Democrats, committed the armed forces they commanded to fight it. Make no mistake; actions by the likes of Fonda and Kerry were damaging to our morale, gave aid and comfort to the forces we were fighting and altered the eventual outcome in a manner less favorable to the United States than if they had kept their mouths shut. The time for anti-war protests is before the war starts.

There is no question that John Kerry earned his decorations and that he put his life at risk in the service of his country. There is no doubt in my mind, moreover, that he has the intelligence to serve as president. But there is also no doubt in my mind that his anti-war activities while our troops were still fighting, dying and being tortured in filthy Vietnam prisons were despicable.

For that reason, even aside from his anti-defense voting record in the Senate, he is one ex-shipmate that I could never support as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

And that is the point of this letter. The actions of John Kerry and the anti-war protesters caused American men and women to be killed in war time in Vietnam, the very war where they insisted we withdraw and claim we were at fault; where Americans were all war criminals and “baby-killers”. And it was a war we were winning.

According to American records, a total of 58,193 American personnel died in Vietnam from all causes, with 36,152 having died by the end of 1968 when John Kerry entered Vietnam. Kerry entered the Swift Boat Service in December of 1968 and served only 4 months before being sent home after his third Purple Heart.

In 1969, 11,616 American personnel died, and that is the year Kerry started protesting against the Vietnam war after his service. He had already made public statements against the war at the speech he gave at his Yale graduation:

"What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism. And this Vietnam War has found our policy makers forcing Americans into a strange corner . . . that if victory escapes us, it would not be the fault of those who lead, but of the doubters who stabbed them in the back -- notions all too typical of an America that had to find Americans to blame for the takeover in China by the communists, and then for the takeover in Cuba.

"The United States must, I think, bring itself to understand that the policy of intervention that was right for Western Europe does not and cannot find the same application to the rest of the world.

"We have not really lost the desire to serve. We question the very roots of what we are serving.''

Kerry’s actions after the war began as early as 1969 while an Admiral’s aide:

In October 1969, while Kerry was still on active duty assigned to Admiral Schlech, Kerry was flying Adam Walinsky (Robert F. Kennedy's former speech writer), around New York state to deliver anti-war.speeches.
BY Jan. 3, 1970, Kerry had become so inspired by Walinsky's anti-war beliefs that he petitioned Admiral Schlech, "to tell his boss that his conscientious dictated that he protest the war, that he wanted out of the Navy immediately so that he could run for congress."

Admiral Schlech consented and Kerry received an honorable discharge from the Navy six months early.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/page2.html

Kerry was full force into the VVAW by early 1970. The anti-war movement was well known by then and many protests were held including the ill fated Kent State incident.

John Kerry did not just protest in the US because of his beliefs, he also traveled to meet the Communist leaders of North Vietnam in Paris.

“John Kerry, in sworn testimony before the Senate in April 1971, said he met with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegations in Paris in May 1970. He said they discussed their peace proposals -- especially the eight points of Madam Binh. Kerry strongly recommended that the Senate accept those proposals.

I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh's points...

…I realize that even my visits in Paris, precedents had been set by Senator McCarthy and others, in a sense are on the borderline of private individuals negotiating, et cetera.”

In the ensuing months, Kerry became even more strident in his insistence that the US accept Madam Binh's (and the NVM and VC's) peace proposals.

Meanwhile, other representatives of Kerry's group, the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW ), met with the NVM and VC delegations in Paris, in March 1971. They were even photographed sitting at a table with them, as in a photo displayed in Winter Soldiers, by Richard Stacewicz, page 284.

Subsequently, VVAW representatives met with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegations on numerous occasions, both in Paris and even in Hanoi.

The VVAW even signed a treaty with the North Vietnamese which included all of Madam Binh's points, as noted by the historian of the anti-war movement, Gerald Nicosia, his book Home To War:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3778

The FBI has recently released the files on VVAW and can be found here, documenting the knowledge of Kerry’s visit to Paris to speak with the North Vietnamese:

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=VVAWFBI

These actions in meeting with foreign leaders who are directly engaged in treaty negotiations with the United States Government border on treason.

Did Navy Lt. Kerry violate The UCMJ?
August 23rd, 2004

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is a federal law, enacted by Congress. Its provisions are contained in United States Code, Title 10, Chapter 47. Article 36 of the UCMJ allows the President to prescribe rules and procedures to implement the provisions of the UCMJ. The President does this via the Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM) which is an executive order that contains detailed instructions for implementing military law for the United States Armed Forces.

The UCMJ states:

ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY

Any person who--

(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or

(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;

shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3778

John Kerry’s meeting with the North Vietnamese, the very people who are killing Americans in the war, borders precariously close to treason, enough to be investigated.

What must be reinforced here, however, is the effect of these actions concerning the point of this paper: What did the North Vietnamese say about why they prolonged the war?

It was the American Anti-War movement.

John Kerry was a part of that movement, a major leader of that movement.

The North Vietnamese publicly stated that the American anti-war movement encouraged them to continue to fight.

The next connection is impossible to avoid: John Kerry’s actions directly lead to American servicemen and women to be killed in combat because of the encouragement his actions gave to the enemy, the North Vietnamese.

From 1970 until the end of American involvement in 1975, 9,586 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Killed because American anti-war protests encouraged the North Vietnamese to continue fighting the war.

It is not a stretch to see that the actions of John Kerry and Jane Fonda directly lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans in the Vietnam War.

Is this the only list of failures or deaths caused by the American Anti-war movement? Sadly, no.

American foreign policy was changed dramatically after the Vietnam War. American military dominance was questioned, new weapons programs were held back, American intelligence operations were ended and our CIA was attacked and almost shut down, efforts to remain technologically superior were thwarted at times, and material replacement of military hardware was slowed or refused after 1975.

American prestige was shattered globally. The newspapers of the world all spoke of the American loss in Vietnam, the movie industry put out movies showing Vietnam veterans as psychotic drug abusers or wife beaters and social misfits.

But most importantly, it shattered American resolve to fight when necessary. The Democratic majority in Congress would enact the 1973 War Powers Resolution, forbidding the president from sending U.S. troops into combat for more than ninety days without congressional consent. Congress increasingly emphasized the limits of American power, and put a cap on the cost Americans would pay in pursuit of specific foreign policy objectives. The fear of getting bogged down in another Vietnam-like quagmire made a majority of Americans reluctant to intervene militarily in Third World countries. It caused American public opinion to sway and support a political party over another, even though the party portrayed in a negative light had nothing to do with causing the war and never received the respect it deserved with ending it without a total disaster for the American public had we followed the advice of the anti-war protesters.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/vietnam/postwar.htm

This lack of resolve showed in 1975 when the North Vietnamese invaded the South and began a slaughter, killing as many as 1 Million people, causing over 1.5 Million to 2 Million people to flee in small boats to save their very lives.

This lack of resolve showed later that year when the Khymer Rouge began their systematic genocide in Cambodia, leaving the US powerless to intervene to stop the killing, and over 1 Million people were slaughtered.

This lack of resolve showed even in 1979 when the American Embassy was overrun in Tehran, Iran, and then President Jimmy Carter failed to respond with forceful effort with our military in response to the new world threat: Islamic Terrorism.

This lack of resolve showed when then President Ronald Reagan failed to fully make a military effort in Lebanon because of a lack of backing in the House and Senate.

This lack of resolve showed when the Contras were supported for a year or two, only to have the Democrat Senate and House remove the means to provide for their actions against a Communist dictatorship in Nicaragua.

By then, it was almost too late. American resolve was a joke. It took the efforts of Ronald Reagan to rebuild our military out of the shambles that Jimmy Carter left it. It took the efforts of George H. W. Bush in defending the nation of Kuwait in the first Gulf War.

But, once again, an anti-war person came to the forefront, Bill Clinton, who during the 1990’s, ignored the obvious threat of radical Islam that the world was facing.

And again, in 2001, with a lot of words, people like John Kerry started blaming someone else instead of the bad guys for 9/11. John Kerry voted for war against the Taliban, and then again voted for war against Saddam Hussein.

But what happened next? The Anti-War movement came out of hiding, and in a war where the enemy directly provided aide and support for terrorists who exploded bombs on American soil, anti-war activists have once again divided the American people, and John Kerry is one of their leaders . . .again.

It is not that much of a stretch to see what happened from John Kerry’s actions in the 1960’s to today, and how people like him affected our national government policy through their activism and actions.

By leading and organizing protests against the war, John Kerry encouraged the North Vietnamese to continue the war, and thousands of Americans died...

Over a Million South Vietnamese died...

Over a Million Cambodians died . . .

American prestige was tarnished. . .

Islamic terrorism was born and not stopped because of American reluctance to engage in combat after Vietnam, reluctance which was called the “Vietnam Syndrome” . . .

Communism attempted to overthrow more countries in our own hemisphere . . .

An anti-war leader, Bill Clinton, carrying on the same traditions as John Kerry, failed to stop the obvious growing threat of Islamic Fundamentalist sponsored terrorism . . .

And now, we are engaged in a world wide terror war. The United States appears to be alone in it, too. All because of the pacifism and anti-Americanism of the American Anti-War movement of the 1960’s.

That’s when it started in our generation. John Kerry has blood on his hands.

Jim Bancroft is a former Marine who served in the United States Marine Corps from 1977 to 1981, and served off the coast of Iran for the Hostage Rescue Attempt of April 24-25, 1980.

STUDENT GROUP SAYS AMERICAN MEDIA COVERING UP GROWING POLLS THAT SHOW VIETNAM VETS DON’T WANT KERRY AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. SEEK TO EXPOSE THIS THROUGH FILM PLUS VET PANELS ON PUBLIC ACCESS TV, AND S.O.S. TO WORLD MEDIA.

Leonard Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas, today sent out 28 copies of a special edition of his documentary, How the Campus Lied About Vietnam, to Vietnam vet leaders requesting it from all over the country. The film, reduced to forty minutes, allows for 20 minutes of live commentary about Kerry by vet groups who plan to show the film on local Public Access TV.

The film is a representative sample from 62 interviews Mr. Magruder did with Vietnam vets at national parades during the mid-80’s. The subject is the damage that was done to returning vets by antiwar groups such as Kerry’s Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In addition, he announced he had also just sent out copies of his latest article to major media in the capitals of Europe detailing both Kerry’s weakness in the area of national security and the growing opposition to him as Commander-in-Chief by Vietnam veterans. The American media, he said, was not mentioning any of these issues. His article may be seen at the group’s website,

http://www.v-v-a-r.org

Other Vietnam vet groups against Kerry are

http://www.wintersoldier.com

and

http://www.nojohnkerry.org

Excerpts from the interviews with the veterans who appear in the film may be seen later in this article.

Following is the material that went out with the film on all of these issues:

“The Kerry statement to Congress in 1971, shown recently on C-SPAN, was more than what he now claims, just an anguished cry from those who had seen horror and wanted it ended. There was an agenda involved, an ideology, very similar to the one argued by people like Jane Fonda, Jerry Rubin, and Ramsey Clark. Kerry was probably more moderate than these three, but still, he did emphasize “atrocities,” “immorality,” and “out now” with no regard for the fate of the South Vietnamese, major themes of the protestors. Kerry told Congress the whole war rested on “atrocities,” that South Vietnam was a “nothing,” that the idea of Communist involvement was “mystical,” that it was a “civil war” between freedom fighters and an oppressive government being helped by America. He fed the falsehoods that those who fought the war were the young and poor, that minorities were disproportionately represented, that the Vietnam veteran is ashamed of his service, and that the government had used them. Kerry said the U.S. was “the criminal element” in Vietnam, not the Communist North. Craig Gordon of Newsday’s Washington Bureau wrote of Kerry’s testimony in an article on Feb 21, “It is considered by many to be one of the peace movement’s defining moments. Kerry’s speech helped galvanize the protests and turn popular opinion against the war.”

Kerry has made a few statements recently about this ’71 testimony. But he misrepresents it. The Winter Soldier charges were not “highly documented”; they are totally unsubstantiated. He didn’t “help people understand what was going on”; he helped to publicize lies. He didn’t “honor” the service of vets; he charged them and their officers with daily atrocities. This desperate posturing on his past radicalism tells us a lot. He tries to turn every questioning into an attack on his patriotism, a transparent and ineffective dodge.

Mackubin Thomas Owens, a Vietnam combat veteran, now professor of strategy at the Naval War College, put the issue best in an article recently in The National Review: “Kerry invokes his Vietnam veteran service at every turn. But an honest, enterprising reporter should ask him, ‘Were you lying in 1971 or are you lying now?’ If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn’t possibly be proud of his Vietnam service. But if he is proud of his service today then he should apologize to every veteran of that war for slandering them to advance his political ambitions.”

Stephen B. Young in an article commenting on celebrations of the thirtieth anniversary of the Vietnam War said, “A generation congratulates itself once again for doing what the North Vietnamese never could have done—defeat the United States. History, as they say, is written by the victors, and the victor in this conflict was the American anti-war movement. It is no wonder, then, that our national recollection of the war matches that of the New Left.”

It is this recollection, rising to the surface in this debate over Kerry’s 1971 testimony, that is really at stake, with media and campus clearly trying to keep the issue from surfacing. For thirty years the media and the university have institutionalized the Big Lie of the campus war protestors and gotten away with it by simply refusing to debate the issue with veterans, which now they may have to do. (see my article, “Kerry Too Naive” at v-v-a-r.org)

Here is an example of the Big Lie, taken from Mutiny Does not Happen Lightly: the Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War.

“The May 2nd movement is launching an anti-induction campaign on the campuses. ...based on the refusal to fight against the people of Vietnam. Some chapters of May 2 plan to campaign to donate blood and other medical aid to the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) to concretely show our support for national liberation struggles. Receiving blood from U.S. college students will be a terrific morale booster for the Vietnamese people.”

—May 2nd Movement - Sept. 8, 1965

This is a typical example of 60’s campus rhetoric. Aid and comfort to the Viet Cong, who, they were assured by faculty, were simply “indigenous freedom fighters” being attacked by American forces, the Big Lie that even today lives on in teaching students about the war, and clearly influenced the thoughts of Kerry when he testified to Congress.

The American soldier, with few exceptions, fought bravely and honorably. He did what the nation asked of him and in no sense was the war lost on the battlefield. Even though American resolve fell short in the end, few nations in history have ever engaged in such sacrifices for others, and no gain, or attempted gain for human freedom can be discounted.Those who fought for freedom for the South Vietnamese not only deserve to be honored, they deserve that the nation start facing the truth.

The aspects of the war that most need clarifying, in TV documentaries, movies, books, debates, courses, etc., are: The idealistic motives for our involvement, the subversive nature of the campus war protests, the true intentions of Communist North Vietnam to conquor all Indochina, the barbaric tactics of the Viet Cong, the Bie Lie of the war protestors about “indigenous freedom fighters,” the use of the media to influence public opinion, the manipulation of American media journalists and intellectuals by Hanoi propaganda, the true bravery and victorious record of our fighting men, the genuine thrust for freedom of the South Vietnamese, and the truth about antiwar members in Congress in their final abandonment of South Vietnam.

No nation can allow a tissue of lies this great to remain in the history of its wars for long. It too easily becomes the basis for a dangerous polarization in time of war.

To tell the truth about the Vietnam War at this time would necessarily involve challenging the reigning leftist philosophy on our campuses. But out of this would come, not only freedom for the Vietnam veteran from an image that is still all too often false, but a strong challenge to the other leftist tyrannies on campus that came out of the 60’s: multiculturalism, political correctness, radical feminism, dormitory re-education, and speech codes. And now two new leftist horrors on campus, a virulent anti-Semitism and sugar-coated nonsense about Islam, are making the campus the weakest link in our war on terrorism.

We can honor Kerry’s service in Vietnam, but his slander of the American soldier in his ’71 testimony must be challenged. Furthermore, bravery shown in war, shown also by tens of thousands of others in Vietnam, is no guarantee of “credibility on national security issues.” No president has to go out with an M-16 and shoot enemies personally. What counts in this area of national security is the method one uses to handle conflict, and Kerry has a long history of favoring negotiation, dialogue, compromise, and even appeasement, the typical tools of a liberal, 20th century diplomat in dealing with reasonably civilized nations, but useless in light of 9/11 and an enemy that has repeatedly said:

“We will offer no chance for America to come to an agreement with the righteous warriors, no possibility for compromise, no hope for a treaty, no attempt for solution. The war will be waged until the United States remains a memory.”

We have a slogan at headquarters, “A vote for Kerry is a vote for national suicide.”

Chuck Lawrence, Vietnam vet and author, recently wrote, “The conduct by Kerry and his friends played a significant part and role in Vietnam veterans being ostracized by our society.” That is what this film, How the Campus Lied About Vietnam, is about, the disgraceful treatment of vets when they returned home, as a result of the lies of antiwar groups, including Kerry’s group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lawrence went on to ask, “Do we really want a president who organized and led anti-war and anti-American protests and demonstrations under the flag of the enemy we were fighting?” Good question.

Right now what the public wants to hear is how the Vietnam veteran community really feels about Kerry as Commander-in-Chief. From all the data I have seen from Vietnam vets all over the country, there appears to be a significant majority opposed to Kerry becoming president. This, however, is not being mentioned by the mainstream media. So if you are among those who want this to be known, How the Campus Lied About Vietnam may be of some use to you in communicating this. But even if you do not wish to use this film in this connection, how the antiwar movement misled the public, and how universities still mislead students about the war are issues in themselves so you could have a discussion about these instead of current political issues. Now is the time to raise any of these issues.

There was time in the 40-minute edition of the film to present the views of ten of those interviewed in response to the question, “How do you feel about the war protestors?” Here are some short excerpts from what each said, although all the rest said essentially the same thing.

Veteran A: Now that hurt me a lot. They yelled at us, “Nixon’s hired guns!” Does one need a college education to do that?

Veteran B: All they cared about was themselves, and those who served in Vietnam they didn’t give jack---- about and that stinks. When a country turns its mind and body against a veteran who fought a war for that country, that stinks.

Veteran C: When I returned I could only keep going if I forgot my Vietnam service, shut it out of my life. But I don’t feel that way any more. I have every reason to be proud of what I did in Vietnam.

Veteran D: Humiliating, insulting, degrading. It hurt, what the protestors did.

Veteran E: They protested the fact that the American soldier was in Vietnam, but when we came back they treated us like dirt. They didn’t care.

Veteran F: When we came home we wanted to fit back into society as soon as possible. But it didn’t work out that way. They kept saying, “You must be one of those baby killers, one of the psychopathic killers of Vietnam.” When you start living with something like that you start telling people you were not over in Vietnam, just out of the country.

Veteran G: They were idots...we came home alone, straight into the jaws of insensitive idiots. The peace movement was very diverse, from Vietnam Veterans Against the War to mother and fathers who couldn’t understand.

Veteran H: Because of them we were portrayed as people that we were not, as “baby killers” and all of that. If they could make those returning feel they had done something wrong it added credibility to their arguments. It was a tack taken so they would not have to go.

Veteran I: Oh boy, do I remember that, spitting at us at the airport and saying we were rapists, that we raped babies, and they left a mark on us making people think that we were no good.

Veteran J: When they got back they were blacklisted as very uncomfortable reminders to those people who opposed the war, and many of them felt the arrogant need to isolate many of those who tried to come home and re-penetrate those peer groups—they were ordered to the closet. It was especially difficult for disabled veterans, who were told their sacrifice was a stupid and unnessary act of patriotism.

UPDATE OF A STORY: A V.V.A.R. SPECIAL

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that selected leaders of Kerry’s Vietnam Veterans Against the War met with representatives of Hanoi who told these leaders which senators they wanted assassinated, and that Kerry participated in a “closed-door discussion” on November of 1971 on whether to do this. Kerry denies this, saying he resigned the organization in July of 1971. But there is a problem. Reporter Thomas H. Lipscomb in an article in The New York Sun wrote:

“A Vietnam veteran who said he remembers John Kerry participating in a November 1971 Kansas City meeting at which an assassination plot was discussed says an official with the Kerry presidential campaign called him this month and pressured him to change his story. The veteran, John Musgrave, says he was called twice by the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, who told him,”Why don’t you refresh your memory and call that reporter back ?” Musgrave said, “I told Hurley it was my first meeting as an state officer of VVAW and I remember Kerry being there. I remember what I remember.”

By then, the recollections of six witnesses, along with minutes and FBI records, placed Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, but the story has since then been sanitized until it simply disappeared. However, John Musgrave is a friend of Mr. Magruder and lives in the same area in Kansas. He was one of 62 Vietnam vets Mr. Magruder interviewed in Houston for this film. He appears in a photo with Mr. Magruder and General William Westmoreland at the end of the film. At that time Musgrave was running for President of Vietnam Veterans of America. Said Mr. Magruder, “Musgrave once autographed a book of his for me, On Snipers, Laughter, and Death:Vietnam Poems, as follows: “To Len - a true friend of the Vietnam veteran and a friend of mine - your buddy- John.” Said Mr. Magruder, “I have great admiration for John Musgrave. He is a man of great integrity and courage. He was very badly wounded in Vietnam and earned three Purple Hearts. He is very highly regarded in this community . He got out of VVAW when he saw how it was being used by the Left. If he says Kerry was at that meeting in Kansas City, then Kerry was at that meeting, period. I think Kerry has a problem here that has been buried by a media that is campaigning for Kerry.”

Vets refuse to forgive Kerry for antiwar acts

Wrong headline. Should be "Vets refuse to forgive Kerry for anti-soldier acts"

Kerry just didn't say that the war was wrong, he said that American soldiers were criminals.

Bump!

Thank you!

I was starting to think I was the only one here :)

Kerry should've been court martialed BUMP

Yes, I'm posting stuff way out of order. But I'm LEARNING this as I go. I never knew half of this history! It is no longer in the school curriculum!

http://www.v-v-a-r.org

KERRY - THEY WERE NOT “STANDING UP FOR YOU.” YOU DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT WAR, AND YOU ARE NAIVE ABOUT THIS ONE.

By Leonard Magruder

2/21/04

There are a great number of organizations that represent Vietnam veterans. To our knowledge, ours is the only organization that still represents those who fought the ‘war on the homefront’ supporting both the soldiers and the cause in Vietnam, going back thirty-five years to Mr. Magruder’s first one-man protests on campuses against the war protestors. We have a huge archive on the activities of the Left, which engineered these protests, up to today when its totalitarian views on reality totally dominate the American campus.To expose the lies of the Movement would end that tyranny. The hugh waves of anti-Semitism and the sugary nonsense about Islam on campus are only the latest atrocities of the Left. Now that the Kerry campaign has raised the issue, we call for a national effort to end the lies the Left told about the Vietnam War once and for all.

We honor Kerry for his courage and service in Vietnam. But there are problems with what he did when he returned. When everyone was searching for Kerry’s 1971 testimony to Congress, we had it, in our archives. We sent it to “Northwest Veterans Newsletter,” which posted it for all to see. Then we sent out an article showing that many of Kerry’s arguments were identical to those of the campus war protestors--“Students Call on Kerry to Disavow 70’s Anti-war Statement or Drop Out.” Today we will show you why he must do that. That was not an honest movement. It was all too often nothing but Leftist propaganda for Hanoi.

We have in our archives a very rare book, containing 118 of the most important pieces of literature handed out by the antiwar movement between the years 1964 and 1974--“Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: the Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War.” Edited by G. Louis Heath, a professor of sociology at Illinois State University, it was published in 1976 in a very limited edition. In his Introduction he writes that the book “consists of flyers, leaflets, letters, reports, manuals, and documents produced by or relating to the antiwar movement in the United States collected from over one hundred groups, many of them organized on university campuses... selected so as to present an accurate cross-section of the American resistance to the Vietnam War during 1964-1974.”

Containing mostly information on Who, What, Where of the various demonstrations and marches, and a lot of antiwar rhetoric that doesn’t explain anything, we are interested in the Why. We carefully went through all 597 pages of this book for all material that focused on the reasons for the protests. Here, greatly reduced to their essence to fit on these 5 pages, are the ONLY such statements we found. And although all of these themes are found at greater lengths in other forms, the essence of what the anti-war movement told others as to what the war was all about, is found here. We will send this book overnight to any Vietnam veteran leader acceptable to both sides of the Kerry issue, because this apparently is what he and Vietnam Veterans Against the War endorsed, to check our work to assure you that all this is true, that we have not let our own biases on this issue distort this study in any way.

And once again, as we did in our recent article,”Students Appeal to World Media as American Media Engages in Cover-Up of Kerry’s Weakness on National Security,” we call on the national media, especially TV news, to stop campaigning for Kerry and start asking him the right questions.

If Edwards was in college he got a deferment, just as Chaney did, just as Kerry did,........

Click the pick to download the complete John Kerry Testimony, 04/22/71