The following in italics was excerpted from the piece you posted:
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Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.
During my 1971 televised debate with John Kerry, I accused him of lying. I urged him to come forth with affidavits from the soldiers who had claimed to have committed or witnessed atrocities. To date no such affidavits have been filed. Recently, Sen. Kerry has attempted to reframe his comments as youthful or "over the top." Yet always there has been a calculated coolness to the way he has sought to destroy the record of our honorable service in the interest of promoting his political ambitions of the moment.
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John O'Neill was being untruthful, imho. He was probably jealous of Kerry who has become a political star and is married to an heiress. O'Neill was himself passed up for appointments several times to some prestigious position such as a judgeship. But, despite all the letdown, he has not deserted the GOP and, right now, it is quite obvious he has been trying to score political credits that might serve him well later on. (Ditto for old man Dole who criticized Kerry on CNN.)
A lot of the young voters here (born ca.1961 and later) most probably have very little or no knowledge of the Vietnam War and are now naively accepting as the truth the anti-Kerry crapola the Smear Vets and O'Neill are serving up to them. They are parroting it for no other reason than to have Bush get re-elected. The smear tactics of the Smear Vets and O'Neill are highly despicable, to say the least. That they would resort to them betray their desperation which is quite understandable in view of Bush's poor performance ratings in regard to the economy, job creation, education, the Iraq War and much much more.
As one who was close to the scene of the fighting in Vietnam I can tell you that American GIs and Marines often had a very hard time distinguishing friend from foe amongst the Vietnamese. Very often, they suffered unnecessary losses due to Vietnamese who turned out to have been two-timers (double agents) who betrayed them and/or led them into ambushes etc & etc. An example of this was the total destruction of a fleet of jetfighters by mortar fire at Tan Son Nhut airbase after some barmaids had relayed to saboteurs info finessed from horny and tipsy airforce personnel who had spent the night with them.
Repeated betrayals caused many US units/platoons on village/ricefield/jungle patrols to have no qualms about blazing their weapons away at anything that moved in their field of view (be it livestock, men, women or little children) that came into view. The reasoning was "it's me or them." This is reminiscent of the behaviour of most of the trigger-happy cowboys and bounty-hunters of the Wild West days who often fired first, then talked later.
Some of my ex-GI friends told me way back in the early 1970s that, most young GIs and Marines who were used to a soft cushy and comfy lifestyle in the US found life to be highly enervating, tortuous, nerve-racking, and generally nightmarish in the mosquitoes- and poisonous snakes-infested and hot-and-humid tropical jungles and tough terrain. Very often at night, a bunch of fireflies or villagers' torches in the distance were mistaken for the enemy: so they opened up and blazed their guns away. Then later in the morning light, they sometimes found they had unwittingly killed men, women and children. At other times, wanton killing occurred out of revenge for fallen comrades and personal wounds sustained, anger, sheer stress, frustration and fear or for no rhyme or reason at all.
A few of them told me their commanders ordered them to shoot, even at women and children. They did, albeit reluctantly. They had no choice but to obey in strict military fashion.
Today, it is not surprising that many of those who served in Vietnam are tortured souls racked by guilt, remorse and shame and a sense of utter worthlessness.
In light of the above, one can easily see that what John Kerry said about the atrocities was most probably neither exaggeration nor lies.
But, folks who had never been in wartime Vietnam, or had never heard from those who were there, or who were not close to the scene of action have not got the foggiest idea about wartime Vietnam was like, what happened, and what the war did to the men who served there. It is ironic that today, there are many of these folks who mindlessly mouth the lies-laden mantras of the opportunistic anti-Kerry forces as if they are gospel truths.
I see on this thread and elsewhere that many posters see things only in black and white, seemingly unaware of an infinite spectrum of gray shades in between. If only they are just a tad discerning they would have seen through all the skullduggery that is being perpetrated on John Kerry. But then again, they might still turn a blind eye to the truth because of their preoccupation with wanting Bush returned for another four years. |
