posted
The only part of this whole thing that could possibly matter to me is whether the "disclosures" were handled in appropriately. The rest of it, I just don't care.
I know so many people who refused to go to Vietnam for very good reasons, that I can't possibly fault someone for finding a way not to go over there.
I don't see the reprimand or absence from National Guard duty as all that unusual. Things are much looser in the Guard than in the regular forces. Or have been in the past and certainly may well have been back in the 60's. Service was required, but if it wasn't all contiguous, I don't think it really mattered all that much. Someone correct me on this, but if the guy was away from TX on leave it's not that big a deal. If he was TRULY AWOL, there would be trouble, I suppose, but even that would be "in the past." I don't recall hearing of a court-martial over it.
Far more serious to me is the drunk driving offense and a few other things that I think speak to a character "issue." Perhaps resolved. Perhaps not.
I also don't care about Kerry's war record. I admire what I know of his efforts after he returned from the war. I note that some people don't like that he tore down the institution that he is now using to prove HIS own fitness for leadership. But that really doesn't bother me either. He served honorably in a leadership position and then came home and criticized the things that he saw wrong. It was a different time and I think that it was important to oppose the war in Vietnam -- and even to air dirty laundry.
I don't think those things are less important now, but it was extremely important then.
If someone can catch him in a lie, that might change my opinion, somewhat. But I don't necessarily look to the "swift boat" community for the source of the truth there. I guess I just know that there are too many "patriots" who aren't going to accept ANY criticism of the US military and who would lie to protect the image of our military. I can't say specifically in this case.
Interestingly, there are many Vietnamese still alive who lived in that area and remember the swift boats and even many who fought them. NPR had a great segment on it not long ago.
posted
I think that these things are only an issue because the candidates have made it so. Come on, does any service as a grunt (or in their cases as jr. officers) really prepare them at all to be the commander in chief? The focus is so completely different as to be absurd that they try to use the one as a qualification for the other. The only real applicability that I see is that they know how it is to serve in the military, but of course times have changed since their service as well.
What really irritates me is the amount of coverage that these things get over the real issues.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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Why do they have to have a service record anyway? Are the Armed Forces the only way to show loyalty for your country?
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I guess it's the hypocrasy of it. Suck as, how dare you send young people off to war when you yourself didn't serve nobly. Something to that effect.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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It is no more important in 2004 than it was in 1992 and 1996 when we had a vet against a "draft dodger" (not my words -- those were the words used back then).
To those that it was important to back then, it should be important now.
To those that it wasn't all that important to, it shouldn't be important now.
edit: to be more clear -- if it's important enough that you will vote for Kerry because of his armed forces service, then it should have been important enough to vote for Bush Sr. and Dole. But I can't imagine that more than a handful of people feel that way in the entire country.
posted
Part of it to ME (and this is personal opinion mind you) is Bush styles himself as the War President (his words) yet he has no background to qualify himself as such. He has no problem with sending our soldiers out when he himself had cushy duty back here in the states during an armed conflict we were engaged in. While Kerry did a short stint, he at least has faced a battlefield and understands what he would be sending our forces into. Again, this is my opinion only. And I do not fault Bush about Afghaistan. But I do find fault in him starting a conflict (Iraq) that diverted us from the focus of the 'war on terror'.
Sorry if I'm rambling. I've had a migraine for the last 2 days and it makes it hard to coherently express my thoughts.
Posts: 986 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
My own service record isn't particularly outstanding. Somebody threatened to write me up an FTR once, I don't remember if it actually got written down.
I thought, when I signed up, that my country might need my mad L337 skillz. Turns out my military service didn't contribute a hell of a lot in the way of national defense. I gained an appreciation of the difficulties of a standing army...namely, it is mostly designed for the purpose of sitting on its butt and doing as little as possible.
We wanted to serve (well, not all of us, I actually met an E-4 older than I am now, she'd been in the military for over 15 years, a survival from the "join the army or go to jail" days of our criminal justice system--she would make rank regularly and just as regularly get busted back down, I was kinda surprised by how much I respected her for that), but in those days it didn't seem like the military was the best way to contribute.
Us young people...well, back then we would go on FTX and dream. Then we'd go back to wax our barracks and play video games. Doesn't take long to figure you can do this on your own time at home, without the stupid $#!7.
Kerry did lie about the war crimes, and it was an important lie. But like Bob says, it was a lie that many people wanted to believe. Bush...he belonged to the "I'm young and stupid" club. Most young people sign up for that at some point or other.
Both belong to the "old guys that are out of touch with reality" club these days. I can't really make out why either would want to be President if they understood the situation.
But at least one of them understands why people join the military.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Re: Kerry lying about the war crimes: do you have some back up for that or are you saying that you believe he lied about it?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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It's been conclusively demonstrated that the charges presented by Kerry were based on false testimony, and that he was in a position of oversight over the collection of that testimony. Further, he asserted that he personally witnessed pervasive warcrimes as well.
Though this is still popularly believed, all scholarship that looks at the actual evidence concludes that warcrimes were not widespread. Further, Kerry's personal journals contain no verifiable accounts of warcrimes he personally witnessed. He also was in a position to know that the warcrimes testimony he collected to put before the public was not reliable.
Lying may be a harsh word to use. Perhaps you would rather that I said he was willfully blind to the falsity of what he presented as proven fact. I care not one way or the other. A lot of people wanted those lies told, a lot of people were eager to believe them. Kerry was just going with the flow.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Sep 2004
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"But at least one of them understands why people join the military."
Would that be the one who joined the National Guard to avoid getting shot at, or the one who signed up for the Navy to avoid getting shot at?
I would argue that neither man exactly epitomizes the concept of noble, selfless service. Then again, neither do most soldiers I know.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Neither party can take the high ground on this, but for me I would "nya nya" to the Republicans for starting this whole mess with Clinton. As noted above, Clinton was the creative draft dodger running against veterans. This was a HUGE deal in the 90's...I don't think it was a handful of people that worried about it, either. I still remember the reporting on it, so it wasn't a side-lined issue. It was front and center in the smear campaigns. Bush and his people did this during the Primaries with McCain, trying to bring to light his time in Vietnam and to cast him as a potential traitor, not heroic survivor. And then the Swiftboat guys came out and brought this front and center with Kerry. Today, I saw a Rep saying Bush doesn't want to talk Vietnam, he wants to talk issues...of course he does. It had to backfire on him when the Swiftboat guys came out. This alone gives credence to his saying he had nothing to do with the ads. Because when the Swiftboat guys made Kerry's service front page news again, that meant comparisons were going to come out with George's service...or lack thereof.
The fact is, Democrats are now starting to slowly realize that the Republican play book works, for good or ill. Clinton was brought to task for a lot of his behavior in the 60's and 70's during the campaign. He would at times respond that he was young and carefree then and so on. But the Right would shoot back with a "well, character is the issue so it does matter."
Which is fine, as long as that viewfinder doesn't point back at their own candidate, a guy with a spotty and suspicious wartime military record, drug and alcohol abuse, involvement with the law, and so on. He claims he was a different man that he was reckless in his youth so we should forgive it. The knife cuts both ways, though, and the Right was too relaxed into assuming the Democrats wouldn't stoop that low. They did and now the Bush folks are trying to turn this BACK into something about the issues. Right.
So yes, it is important because the issue was brought up so now all should be revealed. I think Kerry would love nothing more than to deal with issues because Bush really has nothing to stand on with them and he knows it. This back and forth over Vietnam is exactly what the Bush campaign needs to keep up the numbers. I hate it and wish they would leave it behind but they won't and that is what we get for rewarding this behavior.
posted
Tom - yeah, but if the boat you happen to be serving on goes down, getting shot at is the least of your worries.
Although the weapons used against ships are just as likely to kill sailors as battleships.
And while I can't comment on the willingness of noble self-sacrifice as it pertains to military personnel, these people are still volunteering for hazardous duty.
Are we really going to go around the "systematic pattern of warcrimes in Vietnam" wagon over this?
Frankly, I don't have the energy for that debate. Either you believe the evidence or you believe the endlessly repeated lies. The lies were and remain very popular, both with "scholars" and with the public. The fond idea that those who kill are naturally vicious and criminal is deeply ingrained in our modern society. I'm not about to challenge the entire belief system of almost everyone here. I'll just mock it.
But remember what I am, after all. I'm just here because I'm a bit crazy right now.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Sep 2004
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WraithSword: repeating something won't make it true. What do you base your beliefs on? I'm interested.
Also, read the transcript of Kerry's testimony. I did recently, and it cleared up the issue a great deal for me.
P.S. Perhaps you should read up on incidents such as Mai Lai. Attrocities were comitted. This is not a condemnation of the troops, but rather of the attitude taken by the ones overseeing the war. Milgrams experiment was conducted around the same time and lends an interesting perspective to the issue of these crimes.
Posts: 1769 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
The question as to whether the service records matter is merely a matter of character.
Should our Command-in-Chief be someone who has been shot at, who has seen friends or at least fellow service people die in front of him? This might make him more careful about sending troops into harm's way. For example, Secretary Colin Powell, who was in Vietnam, urged President Bush(43) not to go to war with Iraq because then we would "own" the country (source: Woodward's book) and the occupation would take it's toll on American troops.
Then again, President Clinton didn't have a service record. And he lied and cheated on his wife in the White House with someone who worked for him. Yet the country didn't crumble. In fact it thrived (note: this was not necessarily because he was president at the time).
President Bush (43) also has character issues on the influence his family had on where he got stationed and what duty post he got. This lends itself to elitism, and certainly not even merited elitism because he's not the the brightest man in the world. I would not put this in the same category as kids who ran to Canada to escape the draft. Those kids certainly weren't elitist. Lt. Bush's daddy or one of his family's friends more than likely made the call that got him a nice spot in the Guard. The elitism of the current president worries me because that makes him much less likely to care about the plight of the poor and about the troops, most of whom come from poor families.
And the whole political Bush dynasty thing. I don't like it. I don't like it in the Kennedys and I don't like it in the Bushs. It stinks of cronyism and the "old boy" network.
Not that the Democrats are much better. And one can argue that Kerry is at least somewhat elitist, being married to an incredibly rich wife and having been a senator for such a long time.
Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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What Kerry Said in regards to Vietnam era war crimes is in the Congressional Report Here is one copy
If nothing else, the bravery Kerry showed in standing up against the war in Vietnam, when it would have been easier to forget it, to be done and over with it, to run from it, is a reason he is getting my vote.
The speech listed here is better than many he's given on the campaign trail.
The specifics:
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.
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
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.
So, Senator Kerry did not say these things happened, or say that he witnessed them happening, but said that other Veterans told him they happened, and that he believed them.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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As to whether there were any War Crimes committed in Vietnam by Americans, that has been fairly well documented though they were probably not as prevelant as Kerry believed.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Well, actually, I have nothing more to say on this topic than I've said, if you'll read my previous posts. Which is just as well, because my existence in this iteration is coming to an end. I've been sent to you out of the forgotten past, and I'll be returning to my self very soon. Just a few details to look up so as to round things out.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Acctually war crimes were so prevalent that it is not posible that they have all been documented. Vietnam vets from all different walks of life will tell you. Many of the things that happend were so desterbing that vets did not report them because they did not want to have to relieve the memories. Now of course, there are some that will say nothing happend in order to preserve the "image" of the military, and ones who really never saw anything happen, although they may have heard stories.
Wrathsord, you make it out to sound like we are attacking the vets. I for one dont blame the average solder even if he was involved. When you are in a total institution like the army, it almost imposible not to do as others do. The whole point of things like bootcamp is to form individuals in to a single, mobile, group and to follow what others are doing. The solders there could hardly help themselves.
As to wether military records matter, i dont think they do, for eather side. Although, military awareness is at a high point in the public now, because of the war. So to have an unclear record is not to ones best advantage. If someone did not want to participate there was the choice of consience objection or getting an educational deferment etc. Ill stop there.
Posts: 264 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Wraith, if you think what I said is against the soldiers then you are wrong. If you think what John Kerry said was against the soldiers, I suggest you read his whole testimony. He was fighting a system that forced people into the service, stripped them of their humanity, forced them to survive in terrible conditions, taught them to devalue human life, especially if it looked different than themselves, and then brought them home unsupported by a working VA system.
Now, and then, people who were responsible for the lack of VA funds and the lack of support in Vietnam, the people he was trying to confront for their errors against the common soldier, called Kerry a traitor and claimed he was devalueing those same soldiers.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
And once again, for the god-who-knows-how-many-times-in-this-incarnation, saying so doesn't make it so.
There WERE substantiated proof of some war crimes...and those were only the people who came out against them, like Kerry. How many more war crimes went unreported, because soldiers were afraid of the same sort of character assignation Kerry is going through right now? Or worse?
I don't like all the things Kerry said, but I wasn't there so don't presume to judge him.
As far as this question goes...:
quote: Why do they have to have a service record anyway? Are the Armed Forces the only way to show loyalty for your country?
Because their record is proof that they served, either Honorably or not, and were properly discharged.
There are plenty of ways to show loyalty to your country, but you shouldn't begrudge those who have served in the service their due respect. Not for them, individually, but as a group.
And claiming to be a part of that group when you didn't even show up for the half-assed, stateside duties your daddy got you does matter.
While the Guard has more relaxed standards than the rest of the service (particularly in those days) they still have standards that have to be met....and Bush didn't meet them.
I said in an earlier thread that i wasn't a very good soldier...too independent, too opinionated....but I served Honorably, and was properly discharged. I also said that I would not be a good President, and neither would most of the vets I knew. But that doesn't mean it has no importance at all.
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