Posted on 09/13/2004 7:53:49 AM PDT by AdrianSpidle
I had just left the Capitol South station on the Metro and was wearing my USS Hunley unit cap, when this guy asked me where I was going. He was about my age and looked fit except for a scar on his face where, I found out later, he had lost his left cheek bone back in ‘Nam. I answered I was looking for the Capitol South American Legion Hall and he said he was going there to and he’d walk along with me.
I’m Dexter Lehtinen and I’ll be speaking a little at the rally. Dexter’s story is riveting and wonderful. Dexter, an Army Ranger, was severely wounded in 1971 when he was a reconnaissance platoon leader in Vietnam. He woke up after three days of unconsciousness in a hospital ship of the coast of Vietnam. He couldn’t see, his jaws were wired shut and he had a gaping hole in his left cheek where his cheekbone had been.
During his eighteen months of hospitalization, yes he got one purple heart, Dexter was chagrined to hear how a young Naval officer was accusing him and his comrades of regularly and purposefully plundering villages, raping, torturing, mutilating and murdering villagers. Dexter found these charges more painful than his extremely serious wounds.
Dexter put his life together and graduated first in his class at Stanford Law School and served as the United States Attorney, Southern District of Florida and a Florida State Senator. His son is a Marine Corps Weapons Officer flying the F/A 18 Hornet. He does not want John F. Kerry to be his Commander-in-Chief.
Like all of us, he found it to be very uncomfortable to wear his uniform when he got home. Like us, he couldn’t believe that serving his country in uniform, attempting to save a people from murderous Communists and, in his case being grievously wounded and permanently disfigured, earned him nothing but scorn from his countrymen.
We got to the hall at five after seven and it was already jammed with hundreds of other old warriors and some wives and a few children. Larry Bailey, Capt, USN (Ret), who had organized this entire event, just announced that the hall was over its limit of 250 and if you weren’t already in, please don’t come in.
I chatted with Ted Sampley, one of the three founders of VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST JOHN KERRY, the organization that had sponsored the two Vietnam Veterans marches at the last two nights of the Democrat National Convention in Boston that Cindy, Barbara and I had marched in.
I told him how his partner, Jerry Kiley, had acknowledged my little nine year old Barbara at the end of the march as a regular member of OUR Band of Brothers because she was so enthusiastically chanting KERY LIED WHILE GOOD MEN DIED. Barbara has said that that march was the most exciting thing she’d ever done in her life and that it was the first action she’d taken in her political career.
Jerry later showed up and bought me a beer. We chatted for a bit with Dr. Jerry Corsi one of the two authors of UNFIT FOR COMMAND. We also listened raptly as B. G. Burkett, author of STOLEN VALOR held forth on Kerry’s perfidy.
I was excitedly anticipating the morrow as I took the Blue Line back to my hotel on McPherson Square.
continued -
http://pep.typepad.com/public_enquiry_project/2004/09/kerry_lied_rall_1.html
Baltimore Sun too... old stomping grounds of the Berrigan brothers.
Love my MSM!
Dexter is super. If his lively wife ever decides to leave office ( she's Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R 18th Fla)he should run. We need him in the House. I was there yesterday and if you missed it, try to catch it on C-SPAN.
The stories were so moving we didn't want it to end.
Dexter is super. If his lively wife ever decides to leave office ( she's Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R 18th Fla)he should run. We need him in the House. I was there yesterday and if you missed it, try to catch it on C-SPAN.
The stories were so moving we didn't want it to end.
One more thing: I was interviewed by a young man from the Baltimore Sun he seemed level headed and from his questions I could tell he was sympathetic to us. I told him he wouldn't last long at the BS. If anyone spots a piece on the rally in the BS please post it.
"... try to catch it on C-SPAN..."
Will it be replayed? I missed it. If so, when? Please freepmail me if you know...have been having trouble catching all my pings.
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