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<p>Especially a candidate who, upon his return from service, goes in front of Congress and lied to them about what he saw and the actions of his fellow service members in theater. Thank you, John Kerry, for adding to the American public’s misconception of the Vietnam Vet: a brute, liar, and murderer with no morality, a deranged outcast just a spilt cup of coffee from “snapping” and eating the neighbors kids. Exactly what kind of signal was Kerry (someone who was there and knew exactly waht he was doing) sending to the servicemen who honorably served in Vietnam when he lableled them the way he did, dragging the entire generation of men who served there through the worst kind of mud?
I salute Kerry’s choice to go and serve his country, and I respect his actions while he was there. I will not go down the path of questioning his time there; in my eyes he get a pass for that short period in his life. But he loses all credit with me (and a lot of other servicemen I know) for the actions he took upon his return. Don’t renounce your service by theatrically and symbollically throwing away your medals, don’t throw your brother servicemen under the bus with deceitful and disengenous testimony to the civilian leaders of this country, and then expect your fellow servicemen to accept you as a geniune “war hero” when everything you stood for upon your return was a slap to the face of your fellow servicemen.</p>
<p>The true story here was the Democratic Party’s attempt to hold Kerry up as their “war hero” as part of his run for the Presidency (something they thought, IMO correctly, that the American public thought they were weak on). In my opinion (emphasis on opinion), he gets a pass from me for his service, and I really don’t need to scrutinize his war achievements. There is no need because his actionsAFTER the war erased all the good he did over there in my book (and in the same book of most of the veterans, from numerous conflicts, I know).<br>
The actions by the Swift Boat Veterans were an attempt on their part to ensure he didn’t get away for HIS truly despicable attempts to pass himself off as someone honored by his service, rather than the someone he became who DISHONORED it. </p>
<p>69, as a Vietnam vet yourself, I’d be surprised if you don’t have similar feelings about what Kerry did afterwards. Can you at least understand that the Swifties held such disgust for him that they would question everything? Maybe wrong, I’ll grant you, to question his achievements, but I hope you can understand their motives.</p>