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Back To Vietnam By Jeff Jackson (08/03/04)

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Before John Kerry’s speech at the convention he was introduced by Senator and Vietnam Vet Max Cleland backed by the veteran “supporters” of the would-be President. Senator Kerry is still fighting against his Vietnam demons. The very fact that he continues to feel the need to let us know he was “in Vietnam” speaks volumes as to where he thinks he needs to go in order to win this election and that is back to Vietnam. Strange however that during the war he tried to get the heck out of Vietnam as quickly as possible.

Kerry has attempted to be portrayed and reinvent himself as a war hero and I will not disparage him for the service he gave to this country. Any man that will set himself up to take a bullet for this country deserves respect for that. I will however disparage him for the actions he took upon returning from Vietnam. They are two separate incidents and issues.

Kerry is a self-professed war criminal. His speeches are all the evidence we need for that. After all, Kerry is a man of his word one would expect and if he says that he “committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousand of other soldiers have committed” and “took part in shooting in free fire zones” and also “took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages” then we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he in fact did these things. I don’t have any evidence to the contrary.

However when Kerry accuses the whole of the U.S. Armed Services that is a whole other can of worms. What is worse than the war criminal aspect of this candidate’s past is that he accused his fellow soldiers of being equally insidious and fellow participants in these war crimes. Were there other “war criminals” besides John Kerry during Vietnam? I am sure there were. There are always stories in every war about individuals on all sides becoming a little too zealous and doing bad things. I am sure that there were other dishonorable soldiers who did things that they should not have done. But I will not disparage the whole Armed Forces because of the acts of this small minority.

Going back to the fact that none of Kerry’s accusations about the whole of the U.S. Armed Services being corrupted were ever found to be true that is really a startling contradiction to his claim.

Max Cleland said that Kerry “put everything I was feeling into words” upon returning from Vietnam. Really? When Kerry said that our troops “personally raped, cut off ears, cut of heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power” and that soldiers had relived the “horror of what this country in a sense made them do” that was what you were thinking? If it was, no wonder you support the man. If you were thinking that the U.S. Armed Forces are war criminals then I can see why you would support a war criminal.

I noticed in John Kerry’s resume that he threw out there to the people at the conveniently left off that after returning from Vietnam he was a leader in the anti-war movement and a denigrator of the Armed Services. I notice that he left out that he accused his fellow soldiers of war crimes. Is the “Vietnam” experience of John Kerry that much of a monkey on his back? Is it that large of a burden of guilt that he feels the need to try and hide from what he thought and said post service and did while in Vietnam?

Why can’t John Kerry just come out and say that he was wrong to criticize his fellow bothers in arms and our fellow citizens and patriots by calling them war criminals? Why can’t John Kerry just come clean about what he did post his service in Vietnam to help bolster the position of the North Vietnamese, destroy the moral of our troops still serving overseas and in POW camps, and destroy what little conviction the American people had left to fight back against the evil of communist empire ready to expand at the first sign of weakness?

Why indeed? John Kerry is still hiding his post war actions behind the fact that he served in Vietnam.

Max Cleland said that John Kerry was a true “American hero” because he willfully served his country yet that doesn’t jive with his 3 Purple Hearts and out tactic to get the heck out of Dodge. It doesn’t jive when we have seen REAL patriots and REAL heroes turn down Purple Hearts and other commendations and even refrain from reporting injuries that would mean their removal from the front lines so that they can remain there and lead the charge for freedom. It doesn’t jive when we have seen REAL patriots with scratches like those that John Kerry received not even think about leaving the field of battle to keep up the fight against evil.

A true “hero” uses three superficial wounds to leave the war zone and cause another able bodied soldier to take his place and be put in harms way? “Hero” is not the word that comes to my mind.

John Kerry served in Vietnam. We all know that. He went when more cowardly people fled to Canada or to Europe. God Bless him for that because he very well could have been killed. But we also know that what he did post service placed a stain on any claim he might have to being a war “hero”.

Kerry needs to stop hiding behind his service as a crutch to deflect criticism from his other actions. He needs to be a man and fess up to his misdeeds and apologize to all the men and women of our Armed Services who’s reputation he tarnished.

(This article was written originally as a broadcast for the Conservacast Network and can be heard there. Click on FluffyDoomBunny under presenters and then click "The Vietnam Excuse")