Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Military Yet another Vet on Kerry

larry,
[" Neither of these subject have a place in deciding who would make a better present these days. That especially holds true post 911 and if some of you guys don't take your head out of your ass , these Third World religious radicals terrorist are going to show you want abortion is all about. "]

BALONEY. The morals of the President are guides that govern his decisions. I want a COMMANDER IN CHIEF who has the proper moral compass, which means those on which this nation was founded. If he has that type of moral courage, then he will do what he can determine is the best for the nation, GWB has that sort of moral courage and compass.

There is probably nothing more to say to you about it. Believe as you will, and vote as you will, but as another RVN Vet I think Kerry is a disgrace to the nation.

Jerry

Jerry,



I'm not sure what your ethnic background is, but with a last name like Martin it very well could be Mennonite. And problem with most Mennonites they try to show their morality down everyone's throat.



All,

As a veteran you're surely entitled to vote however, but to trash another's combat veterans military record in public only goes to show your lack of loyalty. Like anywhere else, Vietnam had its undesirables.

WMacD--don't sugar coat it, son, tell him what you really think <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Probably the best thing to do is let Larry play by himself---if nobody posts replies, maybe he'll go troll somewhere else. Otherwise, he can talk to himself--sounds like a fellow who has some experience listening to the voices, if you know what I mean.

Hey my good friend Steve, are you a veteran or just a free rider?
LOL

" I had my fill of draftees like you when I was in Vietnam. Most of you ass-wipe draftees were [bleep] up when you were drafted and left the military still [bleep] up. In your case, nothing has changed. Were you the centerpiece of the commercial that featured, "This is your brain on drugs?" ?



Does this mean you enlisted and if so what year?





Actually, I didn't realize this form allowed such foul language, but then again what do I know, I'm only draftee. LOL





All,

But the best part is there some other guy here trying to give us lessons on morality,at the same time there's 13-year-olds boys reading these forms. LOL

I was born in 1974, so I was eligible for the draft in 1992. I was never drafted. Does that make me a free rider? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Larry...it's not smart posting your address. Now I already know you have at least two sons, their names, what they look like, what you look like, where you live, your phone number, etc.....I may not agree with you on most things, but I think it would serve your best interest to not post personal information like that. Consider it.

Free-riders, hum?
Look Larry, just because you did one right thing long ago and served your country, doesn't make you any less of an idiotic azzhole now. You keep pizzing everyone off with your bullshit topics, you won't respond to logic, you spout BS, and when you're proven wrong at least twice, you change topic.
Give it a rest.

Matthias,



"Larry...it's not smart posting your address. Now I already know you have at least two sons, their names, what they look like, what you look like, where you live, your phone number, etc.....I may not agree with you on most things, but I think it would serve your best interest to not post personal information like that. Consider it."



One of problem with these forms is the majority of participants are hiding behind a screen name, with no way to verify information they're providing into the discussion. In this discussion because of its nature any veteran that not willing to provide information that can be verified really in all honesty has no place in this discussion.However, it is not unreasonable for some person comes in this discussion to ask relevant questions of that era.





The term "free- rider" in my opinion would apply to anyone that was available are qualified for the draft during Vietnam era, this would not apply to women are those that would not have passed a physical. It also would not apply to homosexuals or a bed wetter. There's several other things also like the last surviving person in one particular family name and so on..



Something everyone should know about the draft during World War II , they actually came into high schools and took students.



The new and improved version of G. W. Junior Bush National Guard military record is like saying I didn't inhale!



During those times for someone to have already used the educational deferment ,then after 68 to be accepted into the National Guard, the odds would have been like a snowball freezing in hell, unless you knew someone in high places.

Everyone needs to ask themselves why this new version is now appearing.

Little bit more personal information about myself, I'm working for a book called (Nowhere to run to be my father's Patriot).and in this book will be relevant copies of my party affiliation, voting record and also a copy of my DD214 for public verification.

Who could possibly care?

Just be careful Larry. Your info is probably in good hands on this board, but please be careful posting personal info on the internet.

You fellows who did your hitches in military service during 'Nam aren't the only vets here. FWIW, I hope that an older vet's opinion is acceptable here.



What length, branch, type, or period of service makes one vet's view acceptable or rejectable here, anyway?



Too young to qualify for service during WW2 and too puny to get anywhere by lying about my age, I had to wait to enlist in the regular Navy, which I did in 1949, at age 18. If we'd been at war at that time, I probably would've enlisted in the Corps. By that time, I was inches taller and worlds tougher than I'd been during The War.



When the Korea flap began almost a year later, I was in photo school. Then I spent the rest of my hitch at the Naval Photographic Center (NPC) in Washington, DC, where (among other things) we produced the TV documentary on The War in the Pacific Theater, Victory at Sea. A number of my later shipmates at NPC were veterans of combat duty with the Pacific Fleet Combat Camera Group, to which I repeatedly and actively sought transfer for a couple of years. Each chit that I submitted came back "approved" but with the condition "qualified replacement required." Given the extraordinarily specialized nature of my work at NPC -- not done anywhere else in the Navy -- there was no such "qualified replacement" in the fleet -- only a few already there at my elbows at NPC.



Others had tried and failed to escape NPC by taking their discharges, then going to the west coast to reenlist. Every one of them got sent right back to NPC, where the usually obligatory sea duty was waived. NPC, dang it, was a life-time assignment. So like many others, I took my DD-214 and went to college.



Now to Kerry.



Everyone who's served any time in any military branch, at any time in history, knows that any unit is dead certain to include men of low character who do their MOSs well. Valor in battle is not a monopoly of enlistees or regulars. Some men enlisted in one branch to avoid being drafted into another branch (Kerry, for example) or to avoid prison. As a voluntarily enlisted peace-time regular on active duty, I found no reason to scorn draftees or reservists because they weren't voluntarily enlisted peace-time regulars too. Neither valor in combat, nor skill at a military MOS. nor reason for being in service is in itself a recommendation for approving my daughters' choices of husbands -- nor for my vote in November.



Now -- who was the first Viet Nam veteran to renounce and denounce John Kerry's service there? John Kerry, whose calumnies about other Viet Nam veterans also discredited his own. I see nothing in Kerry's miltary service that especially qualifies him for anything beyond running a boat, and much that he has done and said since that brief, long-ago stint on the water throws even that into serious question. Yes, it was worthy of praise at the time. Then why did he disown it, so soon, so vociferously, for so long?



In terms of time, effort, initiative, and mission, it's worth noting that Kerry has spent much more time and greater effort, on his own initiative and for his own agenda, throwing his brief term of active military service into disrepute. Now he wants the country whose interests he has so long opposed, to glorify him for that short stint as a small-boat skipper!

Ken,,,,as usual, beautifully put. Nice job sir, my hat is off to you.

Ken, I've finally found something I'm in total agreement with Matthias on , and speaking for myself only your opinion is very well respected. For the most part, I'm in total agreement with your views, however I do have a few exceptions. But first, I think it's important to recognize most VFW did not welcome the returning veterans of Vietnam home with open arms. The fact is it wasn't until after 76 that the VFW (veterans of foreign wars) made any Vietnam veteran comfortable in their clubs. With that said , by the late 60s everyone knew Vietnam was not a patriotic war and Mr. Kerry like him are not had already proven his loyalty to country. That itself is more than Mr. Bush can make claim.

The duty Mr. Kerry performed in Vietnam with boats, I personally have firsthand knowledge of these boats during my tour that was the 70s to control rivers. There was not another group of GI that was anymore committed in these. A lot of these guys would spend weeks at a time with only their surrounding equipment for protection.

Maybe you wouldn't mind elaborating (explaining) on by the VFW originally did not consider Vietnam veterans worthy of membership. Especially, considering everyone else turned their back on them.

I can not answer your question in any way that I think would edify, satisfy, or persuade you of anything. I have never disparaged anyone's honest, honorable service in any military branch during any time of peace or war, and I can't imagine that I ever will. (The aberrations of crimes and atrocities, including but not limited to desertion, suicide, treason, self-imposed wounds, etc, deserve condemnation in their own rights, and I don't consider them "military service," honorable or otherwise.)

I can neither imagine nor explain why so many people have heaped scorn and abuse on military men. I came in for some of it after the Korea war. After more than fifty years since then, I still don't know why honest, logical, honorable men feel compelled to judge military service with malice and hostility. (Maybe the limiting adjectives in my preceding sentence shed some light!)

Even Kerry, whom I regard as anything but honest, logical, or honorable, with his very obvious agenda, had to fabricate a multitude of reasons to denounce and renounce his fellows in Viet Nam to make his betrayal of them seem logical and justified, even "honorable." That, in itself, is a very telling commentary, IMO.

I keep hearing Kerryites citing his Purple Heart as if it's a medal for valor or at least merit.

Since when?

IIRC after more than fifty years, you got a Purple Heart for getting a bullet, a piece of shrapnel, or other foreign object allegedly maliciously inserted into some part of your body against your will -- no matter whether you were charging an enemy machine gun, flopping onto a live grenade to save your buddies, asleep in your bunk, or running the other way in what Patrick McManus called "a full-bore linear panic." Valor? Where?

IIRC, valor (when officially recognized, "by the book") earned other medals.

And during the Viet Nam war, according to several regular Army guys (still in uniform) whom I worked with at the proving ground, it wasn't unusual to get fancy-sounding medals for working on a military newspaper or radio station, for example, far from even friendly rounds fired in practice. Valor? Where?

The Purple Heart is an honorable medal, not to be disparaged or ridiculed. But let's not imply or infer that it's in the same league with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, or even the Combat Infantryman's Badge. It means only that you got your unlucky ol' butt wounded and says nothing about your behavior or bravery at the time.

" Valor? Where? " The fact that like thousands of guys like Mr. Kerry early on got sucked into believing they were fulfilling some kind of patriotic duty by enlisting into the military, pressured in large part by their parents. To fight and die in another man war, those who elected the JFK Johnson administration. Only to be denounced by those who served in prior wars, that helped elect Mr. Do-Good (Jimmy Carter). later on.

Well all-



If I may put in my two cents as a current active duty military member (BTW my father in law was in nam' as a Sea-bee and my late grand father fought in Korea as a Sea-bee so I do have some emotion invested in those conflicts - my other grandfather was in basic when we dropped the bomb on japan so his involvement was not so direct in WWII) . Some points to consider:



1. As any military member can tell you our job can be a thank-less one regardless of your job in the service.



2. The problem I have with Mr. Kerry is that after getting out of Vietnam he turned his efforts to making it difficult for those members of his boat crew still in country.



3. I read a line in a book once- a guy was asked if he thought a squad member was gay- The response was " a man in nam fighting on my side is a man fighting by my side- I don't care what he may be outside of that" May not be exact but close and no I do NOT advocate homosexuals in the military or their lifestyle. The point is when you are in the military the guys next to you are your "brothers" and I can not stand a man who would turn his back on them. Kerry did so by activly working to undermine the efforts of our government to fight in Vietnam- maybe we didn't fight that conflict the correct way but we made a stand.



4. As to Mr. Bush "getting" 550 people killed in Iraq--- hey if you are in the military you know you may be put in a poistion to die it is something we accept and much like vietanm in Iraq it is hard to tell the enemies from the friendlies.



5. We went over there to free a people- we have stopped a ruthless thug who was a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION . Those that say we did it for oil or as a vendetta and then point out how we went for wmd and where are they? I say you think Bush and Blair made all this up and convinced a large multi-national force to go in (just because the french and germans aren't there doesn't mean its unilaterall) would then forget to plant some anthrax or vx gas?





6. Everyone is screaming why we didn't connect the dots on 9/11 to stop it well we had a lot more intell on Iraq and not doing something about it would be reckless, what happens if those wmds would have been used to strike Israel or given to terrorists to use in europe or the US what would you say then? Why didn't we go in? He (Saddamm) said he had them and kicked out the inspectors!!





Sorry for the length but I wanted to say something.



Andrew



Correct me if im wrong but wasn't it JFK who sent the first really early "advisors" to Vietnam? I though my Father-in-law told me that not sure. But if true is really seems to "slip" a lot of minds when the glorifing of JFK goes on.

"3. I read a line in a book once- a guy was asked if he thought a squad member was gay- The response was " a man in nam fighting on my side is a man fighting by my side- I don't care what he may be outside of that" May not be exact but close and no I do NOT advocate homosexuals in the military or their lifestyle. The point is when you are in the military the guys next to you are your "brothers" and I can not stand a man who would turn his back on them. Kerry did so by activly working to undermine the efforts of our government to fight in Vietnam- maybe we didn't fight that conflict the correct way but we made a stand."





I think this paragraph or statement says a lot about your knowledge of Vietnam. The fact is, there's probably not a veteran that ever served there that wouldn't say the same thing, based on the amount of military manpower I personally witnessed that war if run right could have been over in two weeks. So to say we made a stand, that could be but both hands were tied behind our backs.



As to your assertion Mr. Kerry turned his back on his fellow veterans , I totally disagree. Actually, based on the facts and time of his testimony, he was trying to shed light on some of the atrocities (horrors) taking place. That doesn't mean I totally agree with his testimony and open protest, quite the opposite. However, if Mr. Kerry turned his back on his fellow veterans it was nowhere near the level of disloyalty this country display towards those who served there not only during the conflict but after returning home , and many years that followed.