To get to know John Kerry the best, you should ask the men who served with him.

[Rugged]

watch the swiftboat veterans for the truth video here, and then we should talk about it.  I have to take Aryanne to the doctor in about an hour though so hurry...

[Rugged]

To get to know John Kerry the best, you should ask the men who served with him.

[BallisticGelatin]

Hey!  That's not fair!  John Kerry should just be able to use HIS vets to say what a great guy he is!!!   Somebody ought to try to sue TV stations to not play that video....so no one hears from these Anti-Kerry vets...Oh wait!  John Kerry's lawyers are already doing that!

[Rugged]

even though is public knowledge that kerry has a penchant for using actors to play vets for him to get what he wants.

[Rocky]

Just to point out.  None of those men in the video were on John Kerrys boat.   The man who John Kerry saved was in the special forces and is a registered republican.  I trust the men on his boat and the man he saved.  I dont trust people on other boats far away

[ScutMonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Rocky
Just to point out.  None of those men in the video were on John Kerrys boat.   The man who John Kerry saved was in the special forces and is a registered republican.  I trust the men on his boat and the man he saved.  I dont trust people on other boats far away

They weren't far away.  In fact, several of the guys against Kerry were along side his boat when he jumped in the water to save that man and they have a different recollection.  They served in the same unit as Kerry in the same ops, just not on the same boat.  It's like saying you can't trust what some other guy said because his cube was a row over from you.  "How would he know?  He's not on the same row man."

That being said, I have real mixed feelings about any of this coming up right now.  While I understand that they've never spoken up before because Kerry's never used his war record for political reasons, it's still seems pointless.  It's just another example of the way really old deeds are being dredged up.  At least they didn't wait until three days before the election to sling these arrows and Kerry has time to defend himself *cough* Bush's DUI during 2000 *cough*.  Both sides are pulling this crap and it's really ugly.  Can't say I'm much of a fan.

[Jasper]

I think it takes a lot of nerve to attack anyone who served time in the armed forces. It doesn't even bother me about GWB time served. It was a different era during a strange war. Regardless if you served 1 week or 30 years, you took time out of YOUR life for the bettering of your country. Lets leave it at that.  

[Tmagic650]

I agree Jasper,
to be anywhere close to harm's way for bettering our country, as you say or in our Nation's defense, leave it be...

[Mefistofeles]

Quote
I think it takes a lot of nerve to attack anyone who served time in the armed forces. It doesn't even bother me about GWB time served. It was a different era during a strange war. Regardless if you served 1 week or 30 years, you took time out of YOUR life for the bettering of your country. Lets leave it at that.

You might be wrong Jasper.  If Kerry's going to brag about his war record then the very nature of his claims will open up to attack.  However if he simply mentions his service then I would interpret things differently.  Kerry also did some very bad things; that have nothing to do with his war record.  He is on record saying that US forces activitly commited atoricities against the Vietnamese people before the United States Senate.  I don't even think the helicopter pilot at the Mai Lai massacre, who ended up saving some civilians and was verge of engaging in a firefight with Lieutenant Calley's men made those sort blanket accusations against US forces.

Here is some of his testimony

Quote
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

Quote
They told the stories 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 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, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

You want this man to be President?

[Rocky]

Mefis-  You mean a man who isnt afraid to stand in front of the world and told the truth?  Yes theres a lot of people that didnt see and hear what Kerry did, but there are a lot of them that did.  Its brave that a 20 year old would go before congress and tell the things Kerry did.  He had nothing to gain from doing it, he did it out of respect for his country to try to salvage ourselves from a horrible war.  I think youve fallen into the propaganda that speaking out against war crimes is somehow unpatriotic.  Thank god someone did in Iraq, immagine the crimes that have been committed that nothing was done about.  Remember the holocaust and how Germans today still dont beleive it happened?  Well I think you've fallen into that group now.

Scut-  They werent along side his boat they were on the opposite side of the river.  The one guys been all over the talk show circuit and thats what his story says.  Theres a difference between other side of river and along side.   Also Bush tried to politicize Kerrys post war record before Kerry decided to use it as much to his gain as he has.  When one said calls another "dishonorable" "traitor" "unpatriotic", you better beleive Kerry will stand up with his veteran buddies and his 3 purple hearts.  You cant call people those names when they have a record like that.  Then when he did Bush backed off and issued his statement "we will never question Kerrys service".   Lol, yet they dont mention this commercial.

[Mefistofeles]

Quote
-You mean a man who isnt afraid to stand in front of the world and told the truth?

How would you know if he was telling the truth?   Do you even know anything about how that war was conducted?  Does it even matter what the truth really is or do you want to see Kerry in office at any price?  

[Rocky]

Well, no ones been able to refute what he said and its been over 30 years.  Thats a good start.  It shows a lot of his character to be able to do that as a young man, and then still want to continue working for the federal govt to make the country a better place.  When you spend your whole life working towards something, thats when you become respected and thats one qualification to be president in my book.  When you compare the lifes work, (and for Tmagic their experience) one clearly has it, the other one doesnt.  Thats why he should be president.

[VorLonUK]

Quote
Originally posted by: Rugged
even though is public knowledge that kerry has a penchant for using actors to play vets for him to get what he wants.

Rather than getting an actor to do the job, period..  

Arnie,
Ronnie,

.......

Anyway what does it matter?

I can't understand why Americans find it so fascinating as to what colour the blokes dump was first thing in the morning!

What does it matter if he was in the military, swept the roads, picked apples or was a lawyer?  What is this fascination with the miltary and war records all about?

Surely with all the hype that your election candidates whip up out there and the huge budgets involved, you'll not really know how could a candidate is to take the role of president until he's In Office!

Some of you guys are so easily impressed! lol

[ScutMonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: VorLonUK

Quote
Originally posted by: Rugged
even though is public knowledge that kerry has a penchant for using actors to play vets for him to get what he wants.

Rather than getting an actor to do the job, period..  

Arnie,
Ronnie,

.......

Anyway what does it matter?

I can't understand why Americans find it so fascinating as to what colour the blokes dump was first thing in the morning!

What does it matter if he was in the military, swept the roads, picked apples or was a lawyer?  What is this fascination with the miltary and war records all about?

Surely with all the hype that your election candidates whip up out there and the huge budgets involved, you'll not really know how could a candidate is to take the role of president until he's In Office!

Some of you guys are so easily impressed! lol

Their military record matters because the central and most important role of President is "Commander in Chief."  The President's job is to enforce legislation on every level and protect the country.  Congress makes laws, the President does not.  This is why military experience is so important to most people.  It's the easiest way to guage whether or not a man or woman is qualified as a leader.

[ScutMonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Rocky
Mefis-  You mean a man who isnt afraid to stand in front of the world and told the truth?  Yes theres a lot of people that didnt see and hear what Kerry did, but there are a lot of them that did.  Its brave that a 20 year old would go before congress and tell the things Kerry did.  He had nothing to gain from doing it, he did it out of respect for his country to try to salvage ourselves from a horrible war.  I think youve fallen into the propaganda that speaking out against war crimes is somehow unpatriotic.  Thank god someone did in Iraq, immagine the crimes that have been committed that nothing was done about.  Remember the holocaust and how Germans today still dont beleive it happened?  Well I think you've fallen into that group now.

I don't think any of us have a problem speaking out against war crimes that happened.  It's slinging accusations about things that didn't happen which is the problem.  Almost everything he said before Congress has been shown to be patently false.  That's perjury and it's wrong.

Quote
Scut-  They werent along side his boat they were on the opposite side of the river.  The one guys been all over the talk show circuit and thats what his story says.  Theres a difference between other side of river and along side.   Also Bush tried to politicize Kerrys post war record before Kerry decided to use it as much to his gain as he has.  When one said calls another "dishonorable" "traitor" "unpatriotic", you better beleive Kerry will stand up with his veteran buddies and his 3 purple hearts.  You cant call people those names when they have a record like that.  Then when he did Bush backed off and issued his statement "we will never question Kerrys service".   Lol, yet they dont mention this commercial.

Where are you getting this?  Bush has NEVER commented on Kerry's war record.  Never.  Other Republicans have and other independent groups have, but Bush has not.  He's released statement after statement saying Kerry served honorably and he has no desire to open up Kerry's war record to public scrutiny.  If you want to try to link those "independent" groups back to Bush, fine.  If you want to link those Republicans back to Bush and call them his attack dogs, fine.  We'll debate all of that.  However, Bush has never said any of those things about Kerry.  Look it up.

I've only seen one interview with one guy from that swift boat campaign against Kerry and when he was asked if he was there he said yes, he was along side Kerry's boat when Kerry was in the water saving that guy.  Also there is one guy that was on Kerry's boat who has a different story.  Moreover, you CAN question Kerry on his war record when he stands up those swift boat guys on the DNC platform next to him and uses them for political advantage.  Dems chose to get into this when they dumped Dean in favor of Kerry because Kerry's military record made him electable.  They knew he'd thrown his purple hearts back.  They knew he'd testified before congress that all of our soldiers were war criminals of the worst caliber.  They knew he'd voted against almost every single military funding issue ever put before him in the Senate (when he actually did vote).  If the Dems didn't know this, they didn't do their homework or they didn't think it mattered.

That being said, I don't care about the swift boat junk.  We're never going to get the truth - and some of those purple hearts aren't being questioned  Let it go.  I can almost excuse the testimony before congress because he was a hotblooded kid getting attention on a national level even if he was selling out every man standing on that platform at the DNC with him.  What I don't like are the votes in Congress against various military expendatures and I don't think it reflects well on his direction as a President.  

[ScutMonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Jasper
I think it takes a lot of nerve to attack anyone who served time in the armed forces. It doesn't even bother me about GWB time served. It was a different era during a strange war. Regardless if you served 1 week or 30 years, you took time out of YOUR life for the bettering of your country. Lets leave it at that.

I agree and I wish both sides would.  I think Republicans are coming out of the woodwork to slam Kerry because Dems came out of the woodwork to slam Bush because Republicans came out of the woodwork to slam Clinton, etc...  It never ends.  It's all petty one-upsmanship.  

That being said, I think the person that infuriates me the most is actually Jimmy Carter.  His speech at the DNC slamming Bush for supposedly dodging his service time is hypocritical and political to the nth degree because he was the President who pardoned all of the draft dodgers who went to Canada.  If draft dodgers are good enough Americans to be allowed back into our country they you need to shut up when some of them run for office under the party label you oppose.  At least Bush served in the guard instead of running to Canda.

It's all just so needless.  The Republicans can bury Kerry on his Congressional voting record.  They don't need the rest of this.

[Rocky]

Quote
Where are you getting this? Bush has NEVER commented on Kerry's war record. Never. Other Republicans have and other independent groups have, but Bush has not. He's released statement after statement saying Kerry served honorably and he has no desire to open up Kerry's war record to public scrutiny. If you want to try to link those "independent" groups back to Bush, fine. If you want to link those Republicans back to Bush and call them his attack dogs, fine. We'll debate all of that. However, Bush has never said any of those things about Kerry. Look it up.

Scut- You let me down here.  Whos the head of the Republican Party?  And whos the head political strategist of the party?  If you think the top two guys dont have anything to do with what the RNC is doing then you are sadly mistaken.  Theres more than soundbits out there, sorry to tell you.

"If draft dodgers are good enough Americans to be allowed back into our country they you need to shut up when some of them run for office under the party label you oppose"

What?  Because they are good enough to be int eh country they are good enough to run and be elected to president?  So you are for non US born citizens for president too?

[Rugged]

I have a few small things to say, take them as you will.

1) michael moore ranted and raved untill bush signed to make his military record public.  When will we see the same "showing of the docs" from Kerry?

2) No one has denied that one of John Kerry's purple hearts came from a piece of rice, propelled by the force of a rocket explosion being embedded in his glute.  No stitches, No surgery.

MY purple heart involved two pieces of steel armor, one a 3" shard and one a 1.5" shard, propelled by the force of a magazine fratricide in a t-80 tank ripping through my chest and stomach.  I lost my right lung, my spleen, and 1.5 feet of small intestine.  I had over 700 stitches and staples and was in the hospital in Rammstein for 3 months and the hospital in georgia for 2 more months.

I know people with no legs, no arms, missing eyes, missing ears, no sight, no hearing, crapping in bags, eating through tubes, riding in wheelchairs, living in hospitals.  REAL Purple Hearts.  Not rice in your ass Purple Hearts.  

Furthermore, A medical Corpsman put me in for the Heart, it was approved by my LT, and sent upstream to be signed off.  Kerry put himself up for all 3 of his "Purple Hearts", and had them reviewed by no-one.

Sure I wasn't there, but i'm smart enough to know that Bush hurt himself more falling of the segway than kerry did in vietnam.  I know there's a world of difference between getting a piece of rice in a muscle, and being disemboweled in the desert.

ROCKY, of the 5 men who served with kerry on his own swiftboat, 2 refuse to comment, 1 was on michael medved show yesterday saying Kerry is full of crap, I forget his name, the one on the Michael Savage show his last name is gardener, he's the red haired one from the multicultural swiftboat pic you see all the time with the black and the red haried guy, and all the .50 cal boxes on the ground.....  he says kerry is full of crap, and there is one more guy who's name I dont know, he was on the boat with kerry and on the hugh hewitt show two days ago, he had just read unfit for command, and the kerry book from the 70's that the democrats had confiscated last year, he says Kerry is full of crap.

Look here at kerry's peer group:





take a look at the names of the guys in the picture, then watch the video again and see their faces.
they served with kerry as much as anyone could serve with a guy who was only in for 4 months.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

[Mefistofeles]

Quote
What does it matter if he was in the military, swept the roads, picked apples or was a lawyer? What is this fascination with the miltary and war records all about?

And a hearty "here , here " to VorlonUK for adding a drop sanity to this debate.

[Rocky]

Rugged-  The only person I need to hear from on Kerrys record is the mans life he saved.  Im guessing everyone was was not as involved as he was.  The man he saved was in the special forces, and is a registerd republican (which proves no bias).  I dont know why anyone elses word matters?

On the issue of purple hearts.  I think youll agree that the magnitude of injuries isnt the main criteria for service.  I dont think anyone risked any less than the people who died when they first went over.  Thats where the heroes are made, not how big your scar is.

[Rugged]

KERRY IS RUNNING ON HIS 4 MONTH RECORD AS A WAR HERO.  have you people been paying attention at all?  Kerry has a terrible 20 year senate record of debacle after disaster, missing votes, delaying votes, voting for more military presence in iraq and then not voting to fund it.

Kerry ONLY has a 4 month war record, a 3 year record as a protester and leader of a group that hatched plots to kill senators, and a 20 year record as ted kennedy's second vote.

It is Kerry who brings his record to the front, not me.

Moore harped for the release of Bush's Air National Guard records, will he do the same to Kerry?

Methinks not.

[Rocky]

Rugged again Ill state, when one side calls the other unpatriotic, unamerican, dishonorable, then the opposite side is going to prove you wrong.  Bush orchestrated the libel assault on Kerry and other democrats, and instead od libeling back we're just going to stand with the friends that prove them wrong

[Rugged]

that makes no sense to me.  wth are you talking about?

Moore initiated the attack on bush's record.  You know moore?  the fat slob who sat next to Jimmy Carter (the Moscow candidate) at the DNC?    Swiftvets are mostly democrats, North eastern Democrats.  You won't find many disabled veteran republicans.  The swiftvets group, Veteran's dispatch, and wintersoldier.com PREDATE the bush presidency.

Veteran's Dispatch has been speaking out against Mccain and Kerry since the late 70s

Bush initiated nothing.

It would be one signature on one piece of paper to prove them wrong.  Just release Kerry's Military service records and the records of his award reccomendations.  Then we'll shut up and let the papers do the talking.

A record of being a top 5% pilot in the national guard, and getting out early LEGALLY once you've already been told your plane is outdated and you don't have enough hours for Vietnam (newsweek june 2003) to work in a senate campaign, will look favorable to what you see in Kerry's record.

The 215 members of VFW post #2018 and I PROMISE you

[Rocky]

"Moore initiated the attack"

Oh, i forgot you started watching the news 6 months ago.  You may have forgot there was an election before Moore.  I dont care about Moore.  Im talking about Bush and Kerry here.

[Rugged]

Moore was whining about this in 99 BEFORE bush/gore.  been more than 6 months.

Do you think If Kerry is gonna run on his war record he should release it?