Kerry Blamed for Viet Vets Being Dubbed 'Atrocity Committing Monsters' POW Says
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 10, 2004
Washington (CNSNews.com) - <font size=4>A coalition of former Vietnam prisoners of war gathered in Washington on Thursday to denounce John Kerry's anti-war activism, which, they said, labeled an entire generation of veterans as <font color=blue>"atrocity-committing monsters."<font color=black>
A new documentary called <font color=blue>"Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,"<font color=black> featurs POWs explaining how Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971 was used against them in interrogations by North Vietnamese communists.
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"When these people came back from the war and were vilified, spit upon and so forth, that was largely due to the efforts of this man [Kerry],"<font color=black> said former POW, Col. George "Bud" Day, who was on hand to promote the documentary detailing how Kerry's claims of daily war atrocities affected POWs.
Day, who was held in captivity by North Vietnam for over five-and-a-half years, said Kerry came back from Vietnam masquerading as a war hero <font color=purple>"and told the country that we were a bunch of atrocity committing monsters and that these monsters were coming home."
"[Kerry] cast the longest shadow of possibly any person over the performance of soldiers, sailors, marines, air force in Vietnam,"<font color=black> said Day.
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"They [Kerry's comments] were precisely the kind of thing that a propaganda expert and the news media were looking for,"<font color=black> Day explained in the film.
Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Detroit <font color=blue>"Winter Soldier"<font color=black> investigations in which he claimed more than 150 Vietnam veterans <font color=blue>"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...."<font color=black>
According to Kerry, some of the 150 veterans admitted they <font color=blue>"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..."<font color=black>
Day has not forgiven Kerry for his testimony.
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"[Kerry] has destroyed the good name of all Vietnam veterans. This man committed an act of treason. He lied. He besmirched our name, and he did it for his own self-interest, and now he wants us to forget? I can never forget,"<font color=black> Day said.
The new documentary also features clips of anti-war former Vietnam veterans apparently making up and embellishing testimony for the 1971 anti-war <font color=blue>"Winter Soldier"<font color=black> investigations in Detroit that alleged many of the war atrocities on which Kerry based his Senate testimony in April of 1971.
Paul Galanti, who was held in captivity for over six-and-a-half years in Vietnam, rejects Kerry's claims of atrocities outright.
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"He never saw anybody's ears getting cut off. He knew or should have known those guys he was with were frauds. They were just outright frauds,"<font color=black> Galanti said in the documentary.
Jack Van Loan, a former POW who was held for nearly six years in Vietnam prison camps, also rejects all of Kerry's allegations.
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"To say we were rapists, we were murders, we were pillagers, is absolutely a lie. There is just no two ways about it,"<font color=black> Van Loan said in the film.
Leo Thorsness, a POW who was held in captivity for over five years, recalled how Kerry's allegations of war crimes by U.S. soldiers were used as a tool to interrogate POWs.
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"The [North Vietnamese] interrogator went through all of the statements of John Kerry. He started pounding on the table - 'See here this naval officer [Kerry]. He admits you're a criminal and you deserve punishment,'"<font color=black> Thorsness said.
Thorsness said Kerry's atrocity claims mirrored those of his North Vietnamese captors.
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"As a prisoner of war, we were being told that we were war criminals and we were being tried for war crimes and unless we confess and ask forgiveness and bad mouth the war ---take their side [North Vietnam's] in the war, we'd never go home,"<font color=black> Thorsness explained.
According to Thorsness, Kerry said <font color=purple>"the same things that we were being tortured to say. That was a very difficult time."<font color=black>
The movie alleges that <font color=green>"Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam Veterans, literally creating the image of those who served in combat as deranged drug addicted psychopaths, baby killers,"<font color=black> an image the former POWs say still haunts them.
Jim Warner, who spent nearly five-and-a-half years as a Vietnam POW, told CNSNews.com that he was interrogated by the North Vietnamese prison guards using Kerry's claims of U.S. war crimes.
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"[The testimony] was [from] John Kerry. [The North Vietnamese interrogator] told me it was a naval officer. I couldn't believe this could possibly be true. He spent a long time just berating me, telling me 'Here this officer proves that you deserve to be punished,'"<font color=black> Warner said.
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"I was feeling very uneasy as he went over this. We spent about an hour or two talking about this naval Lieutenant John Kerry and his admission that I deserved to be punished,"<font color=black> Warner added.
Jack Fellowes, a former POW who spent more than six years in captivity, said that Kerry <font color=purple>"should be accountable" and "we are asking him to be accountable."<font color=black>
Fellowes believes that the anti-war activists prolonged the war. <font color=purple>"[Kerry] owes me two years, as does Jane Fonda and that crowd,"<font color=black> he said.
Kevin McManus, a POW for over five-and-a-half years, told CNSNews.com his thoughts about Kerry possibly becoming commander in chief in January.
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"Revulsion - I can't imagine it. I can't imagine anybody in their right mind who had done any work studying the candidates would vote for him,"<font color=black> McManus said.
Fellowes told CNSNews.com , <font color=purple>"I don't think [Kerry] should accept that role [commander in chief], because he betrayed all of us. He betrayed all the military. So it kind of bothers me."
"We just don't do that. We are Americans,"<font color=black> he added.<font size=3>
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