If you have read the entire book "Unfit for Command" you will see that the charges that John Kerry trumped up his war record are rather meticulously documented.

Let's take that rescue of Jim Rassman, for instance. Kerry's story is that a mine blew up very close to his boat. Rassman was thrown in the water. There was withering fire from both banks of the river. As the boats in Kerry's group fled down the river Kerry noticed Rassman in the river. He turned around and went back to rescue him. That's Kerry's story. Now for the events as seen by the men who were in the other boats in Kerry's group. The men quoted in the book say that the mine explosion disabled another boat (not Kerry;s) in the group. All of the boats except one converged on the disabled boat to rescue the crew. The remaining boat, Kerry's, fled down the river. There was no fire from either bank of the river. When Kerry realized that nobody was shooting he turned his boat around, came back, and pulled Rassman out of the water.

OK .. you have two significantly different scenarios here. Both can't be true. If Kerry's war record is legitimate then he is due all of the accolades he has received. If not .... well, let's just say that in wartime this country doesn't need a president who campaigned on a trumped-up war record, and nothing else.

So .. how about an investigation? The media was quick to demand an investigation into Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Where are the demands for investigations into Kerry's war record? The winner of this election is going to command our armed forces as we fight Islamic terrorism over the next four years. Don't we want to know if John Kerry is at least being honest about the wars he's already fought?

No investigation? OK .. how about some interviews? How many of these Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have you seen on the morning shows?

May I be so bold as to suggest that one possible reason for the media's silence on this issue is that they suspect that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth might actually be telling the truth? Call for an investigation? Are you kidding? Why promote a story that would defeat your candidate?

Shame on you for perpetuating this bullshit. Haven't we ALL been hurt enough by war? Haven't we ALL lost so much? Why do you hateful people keep perpetuating this? Can't you discuss REAL issues that truly matter to the American people? Doesn't look like it. I will be the first to say that I disagree with Kerry's vote on Iraq, and will even go as far as to say that I respect him more for what he did when he came home from Vietnam. However, ANY group that sets out to demonize Americans on either side of the aisle who serve this country are just bitter, jealous, disrespectful hacks who want attention. Did you see any group out to slur Bob Dole when he ran? It only shows what utter CLASSLESS people on the other side would stoop to. I may not have agreed with the Vietnam War, and think it was one of the most horrible mistakes this country ever made, but Kerry, Gore, and all who served there in whatever capacity regardless of politics, AT LEAST SERVED. That fraud that occupies the WH wouldn't even do that much for his country. Yet, you find him strong and capable? Again, SHAME ON YOU.
Jan


The Ghosts of War
By John Cory
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 12 August 2004

"They say, the first casualty of war is truth. They are wrong. The first casualty of war is reality. In war, the unreal becomes real, and truth becomes a lie." -- 'The Ville,' John Cory


It haunts us still. Three-and-a-half decades later, America cannot stop picking the scab of Vietnam. The wound has never healed and has now grown infected and poisoned. Plato said: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

The White House could stop this Swift Boat slander, but won't. George Bush needs the venomous attacks on John Kerry to distract the media and public from the failures of his leadership, and from the growing stench of Iraq.

There are veterans of all conflicts, who fall in love with the terrible sweet beauty of war. Men who polish their armor long after the parades have faded. Their glory is not in duty, honor, and country; but in the carnival mirrors of their own warped reflections. These are veterans who march with swagger and blaring brass, like small boys struggling to be seen and heard.

There are veterans who have paid passage through the heart of darkness; who dedicate their lives to eliminating the horrors that hide behind their eyes at night, when they dream. These veterans testify to the unreal and repulsive acts of war that forever wound the soul.

And there are veterans who let it go and never look back again. Not that they forget, they simply choose not to dwell in those memories. They seek peace of mind and hope.

But war is a ghost that haunts the living. Like guilt, war is the gift that keeps on giving, to paraphrase a song.

This GOP-funded anti-Kerry veterans group is getting lots of free publicity by major networks and cable shows, and lots of discussion about "truth" and "facts" and all the focus-group tested words. This is a group that prefers to tongue-polish the buttons of a war dodger and champagne National Guard frat boy in an effort to restore their battle honor by tarnishing a fellow veteran.

There were stories of Vietnam veterans returning to America, only to be spat upon by people who viewed them as an evil extension of a dishonest and war-mongering government.

Now fellow veterans spit upon one another.

America - love it or leave it - is back with a vengeance. Body counts are once again the measurement of successful warfare. Restricted VA benefits for the wounded, bodies returned in the dead of night and shielded from American eyes, a false and misleading premise for war, that daily, kills America's youth; John Wayne-patriotism is glorified and peaceniks are vilified: all of the old ghosts are back.

If Swift Boat veterans are truly concerned with truth and honor, perhaps they should focus on the numerous articles about Iraq veterans being billed for their hospital stays and having their disabilities downgraded so the government won't have to pay as much as they should; of veterans having to fight the VA system for benefits; of troops being short of bullets; of families having to take up collections for the purchase of body armor for their loved-ones, because the government fails to supply them; of Humvees poorly armored to protect our soldiers; and of course, the stories of high ranking officers who live well and distant from the grunts who bleed and die in America's name.

No, these men care not for the present, only their past. They have no concern for the living, only the fading of their glory days. They remember Vietnam through the prism of their own partisan patriotism, not the painful lessons learned by all who served.

My Lai was the result of a few bad apples. Abu Ghraib is not the same. Zippo raids are not the same as Iraqi civilians watching their homes destroyed by American forces. Innocent Iraqi civilian deaths are not the same as innocent Vietnamese deaths. The dishonest and misleading policies of LBJ and McNamara are not the same as Bush and Cheney and Wolfowitz.

Nothing is the same, even as nothing changes.

The ghosts of war are chained to America's ankles, as it marches onward.

I have a poster from the days of Vietnam. I have kept it all these years as a reminder of the politics behind war. It is a photograph of Arlington Cemetery, neat orderly rows of white headstones, on green grass, below a sunny sky. The caption reads: "We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary, for the ungrateful."

We were a divided military, in Vietnam-lifers and draftees. We chewed the mud together when mortars fell, and clawed our way to each other through bullets and bullnuts. No one questioned the other's patriotism. We were grunts, doing our duty, and politics be-d**ned on the battlefield.

The ghosts of war never need resurrection because they never die.

The poison of this Swift Boat organization does not hide the political puppetry behind their appalling deeds. Nor does it hide the sad and shameful embrace they and the White House have chosen.

As I said, the first casualty of war is not truth-it is reality. The unreal becomes real, and the truth becomes a lie.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081304X.shtml