Another excerpt from the American Thinker article, in Wright’s words - “When he got his third Purple Heart, three of us told him to leave. We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11. Kerry didn’t manipulate the system, we did.”

Enough said.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 15, 2004 08:38 AM

Damn, so that’s where those stories came from. There was an article by an ex-CIA guy which quoted Zumwalt, posthumously, that Kerry caused problems by killing too many civilians. I wrote it off at the time because A) Zumwalt was kind of high up the chain of command to be worrying about a lieutenant B) Zumwalt was dead when it was published and C) the author was obscure and D) the whole CIA thing.

Is Wright part of that vets group that’s been yelling at Kerry?

Posted by: Mitch H. at May 15, 2004 09:21 AM

Mitch I don’t belong to any organized group of Vets. My voice has been consistent for over thirty years, and the voices that I listen to have been dead for the same length of time or longer.

If Mr. Wright is part of any group that’s been ‘yelling at Kerry’, it is his ‘right’ to do that. Some of the pictures that have been posted by some of these groups have been altered. I don’t like that because it diminishes argument, and fingers can be pointed that divert attention away from the issue at hand. The altered photos are no longer part of the web sites where they were originally posted, but the messages remain the same as do the issues.

Maybe Senator Kerry was being truthful when he accused HIMSELF of committing atrocities. If that were really the case, maybe an investigation ought to be started into his conduct during the war, as in “Conduct unbecoming an Officer”. Could he defend himself?

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 15, 2004 09:36 AM

To me, the key words in the article are “I believed” and “In Wright’s view”. This guy is expressing his opinion and he’s certainly entitled to it. But, as with any opinion, there must be a grain of salt with it.

I’ve read statements from other ‘nam vets whose operations in “free-fire” zones meant shooting anything that moved, which would jive with Kerry’s actions (if indeed he was a loose cannon).

This article seems to contradict other recent gambits where Kerry is portrayed as a wimp, grabbing purple hearts as fast as he could to get a ticket home. Here it’s implied Kerry was sent home because he was a danger or insubordinate. So which is it?

ok, ep2k

Posted by: elvispresley2k at May 15, 2004 10:55 AM

epk2 I don’t care which it is or was.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 15, 2004 12:37 PM

Shooting civilians is compatible with cowardice. It takes courage (or, at least. military discipline) to hold your fire and make sure of your target. It takes the opposite to spray return fire at every potential threat. That said, there are certainly situations where this sort of behavior should simply be chalked up to the heat of battle. If a commander were in a situation where it would represent a clear danger to his command and mission, I would expect that he would return fire into, say, an enemy position surrounded by human shields.

Nevertheless, it is possible to be too loose on the trigger, and it is a legitimate question on Kerry’s past. The reason is that Kerry’s campaign, insofar as national defense and foreign policy goes, runs entirely on his record in Vietnam. We are to ignore his post-Vietnam activities, his record in Congress, and so on, and instead concentrate on the fact that he served four months in combat. I disagree with that, and think his “solution” to Vietnam is relevant to what sort of solution he might propose for Iraq, but if we are going to take his combat record into account then this, too, is part of it.

-BF

Posted by: BacksightForethought at May 15, 2004 01:03 PM

I think that this quote points to what is really pertinent here:

“Those of us with direct experience working with Kerry found him difficult and oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives. “

I mean, sure, he was be opposed to the Vietnam war, but he went anyway. And while he was there, he killed yellow people with such abandon, that his fellow officers thought it somewhat remarkable. Then, when he came back, he accused all of his “Band of Brothers” of commiting atrocities. And all this merely for his personal political advancement, his quest the be the next JFK.

Nobody doubts that politicians are prone to ignore principle for self-aggrandizement, but there is a degree at which it has to be seen as an unacceptable character flaw.

Posted by: markwark at May 15, 2004 02:37 PM

Personally, I wouldn’t really care what Kerry did or didn’t do in Vietnam; he was after all, in his early 20’s, and I’m sure like most of us when in our early 20’s couldn’t find his ass with both hands, a map and a carrot.

But God, when he goes around the country campaigning, he wears Vietnam as if it were some kind of hat or something. I’d be perfectly happy to forget Kerry’s Vietnam era experience if he weren’t constantly invoking it, jumping into GWB’s stuff with both boots over his Vietnam era experience, and essentially overtly predicating every lick of leadership and judgement he may have on his experience as a Navy Lieutenent in Vietnam. So when news pieces like this come out, it’s difficult not to feel like Kerry knows he is asking for it, which is just inexplicable to me.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at May 15, 2004 11:04 PM

I find it hard to believe the ‘Boston Strangler’ here didn’t realize other people could speak to his Vietnam experiences, both in-country and afterwards, as when he met with the North Vietnamese delegation in Paris while still a commissioned officer (treason).

I understand it takes a considerable ego to believe you’re capable of being the President, but all of snippets of the Kerry experience, when taken together, reflect nothing more than a ruthless egomaniacal individual who has aimed for this spot, and consciously laid the groundwork for it for over 30 years.

Say what you will about Bush, he doesn’t appear to be 1/100th the head case Kerry projects on the world stage.

If Kerry, in fact, killed civilians in a free-fire zone to embellish his ‘war record’ - to the point his fellow officers conspired to eject him from his Swift and send him home, and THEN he had the temerity to come home and point the finger at every other soldier in Vietnam - he’s a dangerously unbalanced psycho.

This is beyond the Ross Perot “Bush intentionally ruined my daughter’s wedding” babblings - this is a guy who’s killed people to be President.

No wonder he looked up to the Boston Strangler.

Posted by: torpedo_eight at May 16, 2004 12:03 AM

For those who think this forgivable as youthful indiscretion I flew with officers who had nuclear release authority that were younger than Kerry. Kerry was in his mid-twenties. By the time I was 21, I had already done my service.

He was supposed to be mature enough to be given command of a combat vessel and crew, and he had a nuclear weapons clearance, so he should have damned well been mature enough to be responsible for what he did.

By the way, as a Vietnam Vet, my beef with Kerry is what he did after he got out. I can’t speak to his actions in country - I was aircrew, not a boat person. Ironically, I joined the Navy 1 or 2 days after Kerry (depends on which biography you read).

But his actions after he got out, and his recent attempts to cover up his service status while an anti-war activist show a person with no character, somebody I wouldn’t trust with a mop and bucket.

Here is an example of what Kerry did that is unforgivable (along with meeting with the enemy while a sworn officer).

Posted by: John Moore at May 16, 2004 12:51 AM

John Moore God, I wish I could write like you.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 16, 2004 09:14 AM

If Kerry is so bab, why did the folks saying things about him do something about it then?

Posted by: mick lucore at May 16, 2004 08:26 PM

If Kerry is so bab, why did the folks saying things about him do something about it then?

Posted by: mick lucore at May 16, 2004 08:26 PM

Mick:
He wasn’t running for president, then.
But he sure is asking for it, now.

Posted by: GWM at May 17, 2004 01:57 AM

GWM: If you believe Trudeau, Kerry sure as hell acted like he was running for President in those days.

Cap’n: don’t take me the wrong way. “Yelling” is a content-neutral term where I come from. I wasn’t casting aspersions.

Posted by: Mitch H. at May 17, 2004 09:13 AM

Interesting, all the focus by his cohorts and by
many ‘responding’ to it here on the bad he did
over there. Ignore the lives he saved, including
one situation where he was wounded by shrapnel
and bleeding and being shot at - when he could
have sent an un-injured person who answered to
him out to do it, HE took it upon himself.

Saving lives, uh-hum. I can hear it now, he did
it with running for president in mind, right. How
far WILL you go to support Bush? Remeber the
guy he saved sought HIM out, and volunteered
to campaign for him, despite being a life-long
Republican. You don’t want to talk about that.

It wouldn’t surprise me, in fact, I expect every
‘officer’ we hear - post war - crybabying about
how awful they think he was, is Republican.

D

Posted by: Mr. D at May 17, 2004 01:45 PM

Mr. D You are correct sir, I don’t want to talk about that. Would you rather I talked about the FACT that HE LIED UNDER OATH?

How about the fact that he’s horribly conflicted over the atrocities that he (supposedly) personally committed, but he doesn’t mind at all that we’ve dispatched 43,000,000 innocents since 1973 with no conflict of conscience whatsoever? Do you want to discuss that?

Oh yah - BTW. I ain’t a Republican, so you can stash your preconceptions somewhere else. I’ll discuss any issue regarding Senator Kerry. I’m well aware of his misdeeds and his stellar performance in Vietnam. Were that my voice and those of my dead brothers had been heard over thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 17, 2004 02:37 PM

For Mitch,
I don’t know if Adm. Zumwalt was personally involved with Kerry or not as I left his staff about the time Kerry rotated in country. However, I can attest to the fact that he did, on more than one occasion, bring junior officers in from the field and either praise them, or chew them out; depending on what they had done.

Posted by: Bill at May 17, 2004 04:18 PM

It seems to me that the real problem with Mr Kerry is his testimony to U.S. Senators. Forget the rest. Focus on the then Senate testimony and admissions of improper conduct.

If such testimony and admissions that Mr Kerry represented are indeed true, there is a real problem. Fairly and simply stated, Mr John Kerry commited acts that are under the military code of justice deemed to be unaceptable and absolutely merit a trial in order to get to the real truth. Age cannot be used as an excuse for war crimes.

I have not one single problem with Mr Kerry and the issue of medals. The issue should have then been and should today be the honesty of Mr Kerry. He stated some strong words in 1971 when speaking befor U.S. Senators under oath. Did he speak truthfully?

I do not believe that there will ever be an answer untill this 30 year plus matter is reopened and fully investigated by appropriate U.S. Officials. Neither will there be any justice for Mr John Kerry, the accused, and the hapless victims, untill such action is taken. Its that very simple.

Is a man who spoke untruthfully (if so) and may have indeed killed innocent men, women, and children a better choice for a president that (if so) may have spoke untruthfully in 2000? Mr Kerry either told the truth in 1971 or Mr Kerry fabricated his entire testimony to U.S. Senators.

I do not absolutely know the entire truth. I do know that a dark cloud shall forever linger over the head of Mr John Kerry untill the truth is known of his real acts in Viet Nam. Many people shall wonder exactly who is their Commander-In Chief should Mr John Kerry win the 2004 presidental election.

I even suspect that a few will labor to search for any dark secrets hidden in Mr John Kerry’s past life. Mr Kerry may have some great ideas of govering America. I have my personal opinion which I shall not evoke. I remain neutral so as no one can attack me for preferring a democrat or a republican as President.

Neither man in my sincere opinion deserves the highest office of a nation should he have indeed lied, cheated, or murdered. Of all three words, the most troublesome, is “murdered”.

Posted by: Eugene at May 17, 2004 06:38 PM

i wonder if kerry ran into the “frag police” in vietnam?

Posted by: hound at May 17, 2004 10:46 PM

I wish i had served under him.

Can you say “accidental discharge”?

And no im not talking about Lewenski’s dress….

Posted by: Al at May 18, 2004 12:10 AM

The kerry free fire massacre was told before. kerry has a different version, saying he fired on a boat, and mistakenly killed a boy.

The real story is that he opened fire on a on shore position, killing a mother, her baby, and an old man, all unarmed.

It was said that kerry had to be straight jacketed.
this was before he got command of his swift aparently.

Posted by: Just me at May 18, 2004 12:55 AM

I agree with that as well Eugene.
the guy is an admitted war criminal, yet never investigated and charged.
then he ends up in senate.

We all know he hobbed knobbed with the kennedy’s.
How many strings did the Kennedy’s pull for him?

this is an injustice to fair and free elections, it looks more like rich people, one way or another, get who they want in government.

This is a glaring example of privilege.

Posted by: Fat Guy at May 18, 2004 01:00 AM

I’ve been investigating Kerry as best I could since I discovered his Senate testimony. As a Vietnam Veteran and an American, it was his anti-war activity, especially meeting with the enemy representatives in Paris and then feeding their propaganda line to the whole nation in his Senate testimony and other appearances that tells me what I need to know about him.

I posted the information above, because it came from a reasonably credible source - a known military historian interviewing a person who was on the scene. Taken by itself, it is interesting. If you add to that the press conference (nicely misinterpreted by the press that brought you Tet ‘68 - The Fiction) by his entire chain of command (except the now deceased Admiral Zumwalt, who was represented by his son), in which all of those individuals proclaimed Kerry unfit to be Commander-in-Chief, it gets worse. Then there is Admiral, former POW and former Senator Denton who essentially called Kerry a traitor in a letter he sent out, and former POW Joe Crescke has asked all Vietnam Veterans to refrain from voting for Kerry.

The following was said by Kerry and played to the POWs in the Hanoi Hilton in order to break their will. Imagine yourself in that hell-hole, having been there for years, with no idea if you will ever get home or when, and you hear Kerry, testifying to a friendly Senate committee, say:

I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.

I think this negates very clearly the argument of the President that we have to maintain a presence in Vietnam, to use as a negotiating block for the return of those prisoners. The setting of a date will accomplish that.

I would hear this and think: He’s asking us to trust the North Vietnamese to return the prisoners - based on their word, at the same time that we are reducing our ability to back our negotiations with force.

Vietnam Veterans heard ourselves and our commanders characterized as:

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape 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 country side 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.

Serious attempts to sustain these charges failed. But a number of those who made these reports were found to be liars - some had never been to Vietnam, others were using the names of real veterans instead of their own, others could not possibly have been at the time and place they claimed.

We really appreciated this lie also:

The country doesn’t know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

These lies made national and international news and were widely believed, especially by our press corps. To this day, many foreigners believe this story of the Vietnam War, as Americans the monsters, not the truth.

To this day, many if not most Americans view Vietnam Veterans as damaged, psychologically disturbed, ready to have a “flashback” at any moment and kill people.

Thank you, John Kerry, for painting us this way.

By the way, if you are a Vietnam Veteran, there will be a demonstration in Washington on September 12th on the Capitol Steps where you can show how much you oppose the lies told about you. See here for details - Kerry Lied while Good Men Died!

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at May 18, 2004 02:42 AM

Thanks for the link, John. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it but I’ll make the effort. I’ve never been to the Wall either so maybe it’s time for that, too.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at May 18, 2004 07:36 AM

Yes. It does indeed look more and more as if money is the factor to winning an election. Irregardless of the party and the big wigs who finance the parties.

Posted by: Eugene at May 18, 2004 01:00 PM

The sad thing is, after reading the comments you guys have posted, not a single piece of this information has entered the mainstream news. You’re all wasting your breath. Kerry has money, and he’s using it to run for President. Everything else is irrelevent.

The charges against him are not sticking. In the eyes of the mainstream liberal press, he’s a war hero, and anyone who says otherwise is a narrow minded idiot. Even the real war heroes taking place in this march are being criticised by the press because of their stance.

I can’t stand Kerry, but it bothers me that the only place where you can find a decent discussion of his track record is on blogs like this. Why is the media not investigating? Why is Bush not raising the issue?

I don’t trust Kerry. There’s something about him that makes me think he’s a creep.

And I’m a pretty good judge of character.

Posted by: Daniel Polwarth at May 18, 2004 07:41 PM

Kerry has certainly been a post war criminal.

He has never apologized for selling out the Vietnamese people. And the two million deaths that caused.

Plenty of talk about American atrocities. No talk about communist atrocities.

Posted by: M. Simon at May 18, 2004 08:24 PM

AT LEAST KERRY WENT TO VIETNAM AND NOT TO THE GUARD OR CANADA TO AVOID DRAFT. AND I AM QUITE CERTAIN HE HAD NO PROBLEM PASSING DRUG TEST. AFTER ALL HE HAS SILVER STAR - “NOT A SILVER SPOON” AROUND HIS NECK. TRASH HIM ALL YOU WANT - YOU DID IT TO CLINTON AND GUESS WHAT - HE WON..AND PEOPLE ARE STILL TRASHING HIM ON TALK RADIO. THEY CAN‘T STAND THE FACT THAT UNDER HIS WATCH WE HAD LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT IN HISTORY, LEFT OFFICE WITH HUGE RESERVE AND THE COUNTRY AT PEACE. NOW WE HAVE HIGH GAS PRICES, MORE UNEMPLOYMENT, THE STASH IS GONE, AND WE ARE LOSING IN IRAQ. REMEMBER BUSH’S COMMENTS AS HE TOOK OFFICE - WE WERE NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF NATION BUILDING……

Posted by: J.WHALEY at May 19, 2004 07:30 PM

J WHALEY. We aren’t “trashing Keryy” - we are bringing out the truth that the main stream media (MSM) are unwilling to touch.

Daniel Polwarth

This isn’t the only place you can find this sort of stuff, but don’t expect it in your newspaper, network TV or CNN. The MSM is operating as an arm of the Kerry Campaign this year. They have an Anybody But Bush attitude so obvious that I saw a posting from a media figure worrying that they were losing all credibility with the American public.

Do not expect to find the truth about Kerry’s misdeeds in the MSM. Even when it is brought out, for example when his chain of command gave their press conference, it was just a story, not an “above the fold” story, but just a few column inches. And in most places, the Democratic politics of personal destruction spin was at work. I think it was the LA Times that had more words on the fact that they used a PR firm that (gasp) worked with Republicans and that one of the people was a “Nixon shill.” The “Nixon shill” was the guy who had to take over Kerry’s boat and dodge rockets for a year that Kerry had ducked out of.

But that was a little bitty story. Nothing like Bush was AWOL (he wasn’t, as those of us who actually served understood) or Bush was a coward (my best friend died flying an Air National Guard jet in New Mexico about the Time bush was flying). And if there is a negative story about Kerry, it will be about something relatively trivial (how many stories were there about whether he threw medals or ribbons or did it make any difference or how many he threw or whatever). Don’t expect 60 Minutes to give a good presentation of what he really said to the United States Senate in 1971 when he slandered American and all Vietnam Veterans, when he gave the enemy propaganda line - not hard to do since in his own words he describes meeting with them in Paris.

Or there is the cover-up of the fact that he was in the service during his anti-war years, including on active duty while he was flying an anti-war speaker from rally to rally. Have you heard that anywhere? It’s a fact - you can verify it from his service record on his home page.

So the reason you only hear it here is because the MSM doesn’t want anything to get in the way of their trash Bush campaign, their building narrative that the Iraq war (it’s actually a theatre in a larger war) was a bad idea, sold on the basis of lies, and Bush lied and people died… ad nauseum.

The big media is this year signing its death warrant. With the rise of the internet, the rise of FOX news and the continuing success of conservative talk radio, more and more people are realizing that not only are they not getting the whole story, but what they are getting has been carefully structured to do minimum damage to the left.

A comment… Keep an eye on the opinion section of this blog. The main blog is for straight reporting. Opinion and political campaigning are not its purpose. Hence if I dig up more unreported stuff, it may appear only in the Opinion Section only,

If you are interested in information on Kerry, you can go to my blog (click on my name) and browse around. If you put “Kerry” in the search section, it will show all the articles. Also, wintersoldier.com is a good site for Kerry info, as they have made it their mission to dig up information and post it there. THere are also editorials and commentary.

But do stay tuned to command-post.org, because we try to keep you updated, as close to real time as possible, on what’s going on.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at May 20, 2004 01:24 AM

you are so good i just hope that you aband the FCAT for the students in Florida . Only for the dumb students.

Posted by: shawn smith at May 24, 2004 02:24 PM

This string of b-s just shows how much hatred exists in the Republican right wing. You guys really seem to be really brave about the ‘Nam experience now, but I wonder where all of you were back then.

Posted by: Robert Wright at May 24, 2004 06:15 PM

Mr. Wright.

The only hatred I see is from people like yourself.

BTW, part of the time, I was in Vietnam. Yourself?

I was at Cam Rahn just 2 months before Kerry wounded himself by misusing an M-79, “earning” his first purple heart.

Isn’t it fun when you throw out a stupid “checkenhawk” challenge and it is thrown back in your face?

Where were you then?

Have you ever done anything to serve your country?

We call folks like you chickendoves.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at May 25, 2004 01:42 AM