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To: A_Former_Democrat

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit-archive/archives/017246.php

In 1979, Mr. Harkin, then a congressman, participated in a round-table discussion arranged by the Congressional Vietnam Veterans’ Caucus. “I spent five years as a Navy pilot, starting in November of 1962,” Mr. Harkin said at that meeting, in words that were later quoted in a book, Changing of the Guard, by Washington Post political writer David Broder. “One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaisance support missions. I did no bombing.”

That clearly is not an accurate picture of his Navy service. Though Mr. Harkin stresses he is proud of his Navy record — “I put my ass on the line day after day” — he concedes now he never flew combat air patrols in Vietnam. . . .

Mr. Harkin’s Navy record shows his only decoration is the National Defense Service Medal, awarded to everyone on active service during those years. He did not receive either the Vietnam Service medal or the Vietnam Campaign medal, the decorations given to everyone who served in the Southeast Asia theater. “We didn’t get them for what we did,” Mr. Harkin says. “It’s never bothered me.”

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005496

It turned out Mr. Harkin had not seen combat and was stationed in Japan. What’s more, Mr. Cheney isn’t the first Vice President to fall victim to Mr. Harkin’s acid tongue. In an editorial in 1988, we quoted “Senator Tom Harkin who served in Vietnam” (we thought at the time) saying of his Senate colleague Dan Quayle, who did not serve in Vietnam: “It’s so ironic; they get in Congress or the government and become big hawks. Don’t they have any shame at all?”


31 posted on 11/20/2009 6:37:22 PM PST by jessduntno (Obama is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them.)
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To: jessduntno

What a POS . . if I was his opponent I would hammer the crap out of the SOB


34 posted on 11/20/2009 6:42:22 PM PST by A_Former_Democrat
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