Posted on 11/02/2006 6:12:12 AM PST by kellynla
Sen. John Kerry responded to criticism of his remarks suggesting U.S. troops in Iraq are uneducated and not "smart” by asserting that he would never attack American servicemen.
Perhaps Kerry has forgotten statements he made as a spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against the War more than three decades ago.
Kerry touched off a storm of protest when he told a college audience on Monday that "if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
He tried to deflect outraged calls for an apology to U.S. troops on Tuesday by maintaining that his comments were a "botched joke,” adding: "If anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they’re crazy.”
He said later: "And for them to suggest that somebody who served their country, as I did, and has a record like I have in the United States Congress of standing up and fighting for the troops would ever, ever insult the troops is an insult in and of itself.”
But in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, Kerry referred to soldiers in Vietnam who "told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war.”
Some have sought to defend Kerry by asserting that he was merely quoting reports from other soldiers, but it was Kerry himself who introduced those reports before the Committee.
And Kerry was not quoting other GIs when he testified: "We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong . . .
"We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.”
He also alleged that "the torture of prisoners” was "accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.”
That picture really pisses me off.
Can you do one with Tonk's picture on it?
THIS THREAD SHOULD HANG IN THE SMITHSONIAN, AN AMERICAN MUSEUM.
SHORT, SWEET, AND TO THE POINT.
It gets to the point I get tired of seeing this miserable bastards face. What a frigen goon this guy is. And his insulting boney finger act. Someone should have busted his face a long time ago. And with that I think I will hit the rack, or is it sack. Kerry's pictures are only adding pain to my eyeballs. hahah. Nighty nite.
John Kerry’s statement that only losers join the military aligns precisely with his uncorroborated testimony before Congress about how I, and others of TF116, committed unspeakable atrocities against the South Vietnamese. In my little corner of the war our boats and ships were ordered not to return fire from the village of Nam Can as they transited to and from Seafloat. We were expected to gut it out through the kill zone, because the village was designated by us as a sanctuary from the war for civilians.
Now he regards my son who joined the Marine Corps infantry out of high school as intellectually failed, and never considers the possibility that he may have deferred college to serve his nation. My son had the aptitude scores and security clearance to serve a tour with Marine Presidential Security Forces, before joining Third Battalion Fourth Marines security.
Life has come full circle.
Sweet dreams, visions of sugarplums and all that!!
John Fund made an excellent point on a Bay Area talk show this morning.
John Kerry doesn't tell jokes. At all.
He's so consistently grim and morose that humor is not part of his personality.
And coming to think of it, I don't remember Kerry telling a joke of any sort during the '04 elections.
Not in speeches, interviews. Nowhere was he anything but morose, gloomy, and grim as an undertaker.
Botched joke?
Nah, just another of a string of lies that none of us am smarrte enuf to c throo.
(Note to the troops who sent THE picture from Irak. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery).
.
bttt
Yep, Kerry is just a scumbag liar.
Just wondering: How many Dems. in Congress want to cut off ears, cut off a head, tape wires from portable telephones to genitals, and blow up Kerry's body right about now?
ASA guy here............ appreciate your service, kellynla.
************
FROM A WHILE BACK
The Editor The Wall Street journal
Dear Sir/Madame:
As a graduate of the Yale class of 1966, I resent the self-serving lies and misrepresentations advanced by my classmate John Kerry. Herewith, a few corrections:
John Kerry has been using the Pershing name to dramatize his Vietnam experience, claiming to have been a close friend of Richard Pershing, the grandson of General (Black Jack) Pershing. Richard Pershing was a member of the Yale class of 1966, and he was killed in Vietnam shortly after we graduated. However, Kerry’s constant references to his ‘dearest’ friend are exaggerated and exploitative. In fact, Dick Pershing and I roomed together for all 4 years at Yale. I don’t remember John Kerry ever being in our room or even being a particular favorite of Dick’s.
In this regard, it is particularly revealing that a recent biography of General Pershing, Until The Last Trumpet Sounds (by Gene Smith), includes an entire chapter on Dick, primarily on his years at Yale; the name John Kerry does not appear. The Pershing Family did know Kerry, but they disliked him intensely. This antipathy stemmed primarily from an incident at the Pershing home on Park Avenue not long after Dick’s death: at a gathering of friends and family, Kerry worked the room with his anti-Vietnam message, incurring the undying enmity of Mr. and Mrs. Pershing and Dick’s older brother Jack, a Green Beret. The family was shocked and insulted by Kerry’s insensitivity. Kerry has implied – as recently as the first Presidential debate – that he became disillusioned about Vietnam by his military experience.
However, as early as 1965, in his Junior year at Yale, he was giving anti-war speeches; and his Class Day Oration in 1966 – prior to graduation – criticized American involvement in Vietnam. These sentiments clearly antedated his Vietnam experience. So why did he join the Navy? He told some classmates that it would help his career. The above pattern suggests a callous and opportunistic personality – hardly what I would call Presidential.
David Schlossberg, MD Yale ‘66
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LOVELY!
Tonk has righteously stood a watch of honor over his brothers.
And we all got your back Tonk!
thank you :)
by Mia T, 11.01.06
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