Kerry Ejects Special Forces Veterans from Town Hall Meeting
Kerry Throws Three Special Forces Officers Overboard
Senator slams Vietnam Veterans at HCC forum
By Stephen Sherman
A minor incident occurred at the Kerry “Town Hall Meeting” in Houston on March 6th. The Houston Chronicle reported it as follows: “Promised protests failed to materialize, although three demonstrators were ejected from the event after unfurling a banner that read, "Vietnam Veterans Are Not Fonda Kerry," a reference to conservative attempts to link Kerry's opposition to the war to actress Jane Fonda.”
There is no reason to expect accuracy or veracity from an information source that turned the Tet Offensive from a Communist disaster to a Communist victory, but the truth should be worth the extra effort. What should have been reported was: “Three Vietnam Veterans, all former Army Special Forces Officers, were ejected from the event [a town hall meeting] because they were wearing buttons that read “Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry.” As the vets were leaving, they unfurled a banner that read “Vietnam Veterans Are Not Fonda Kerry,” after which they joined their former South Vietnamese allies who were protesting Kerry’s single-handed blockage of a human rights amendment against the Communist Government of Vietnam. After the audience was rid of any potential dissenters, Candidate Kerry entered, to convene his scripted event.”
Despite the liberal media “attempt to link” the veterans with the “Right wing Republican Attack Machine,” they were not. I should know because I was one of the Houston Three.
A week short of thirty five years before this event, LT jg John Kerry pulled a Special Forces Officer back into his boat after the officer fell overboard in a mine explosion. That Officer, 1LT Jim Rassman, surfaced during the Iowa Caucus and the coverage of his hugging his purported savior seemed to propel Kerry’s campaign out of its doldrums.
I was at my computer adding to my files on Special Forces history when SOG veteran and author, John Plaster, phoned me, told me to turn on the TV and asked if this guy was for real. According to my records, he was. In the next few days as the Kerry momentum soared, I was inundated with calls with the same question from people who were upset that the media was assigning Kerry as their spokesperson. I recorded my concerns in a Wall Street Journal article (“Conduct Unbecoming,” WSJ 1/26/04) and got even more calls from fellow vets who had serious objections to the Kerry candidacy.
When it was announced on the news that Kerry was coming to Houston, I called two of my friends and asked them if they would join me. I stood in line for several hours and, with my friends, we were allowed into the rented Community College auditorium. We wore a button that I had made up “Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry” and I had in my pocket the banner noted above. While waiting for Kerry’s arrival, we stood against the back wall of the auditorium, so as to not block anyone’s view of the proceedings and we were interviewed by various members of the media to whom we told that we were there to disabuse the media of the notion that all veterans supported Kerry. Kerry’s arrival time came and went. We were approached by several uniformed security officers, who asked us to leave. We asked them if the Kerry campaign really wished to throw Vietnam Veterans out of his town hall meeting. They responded that the hall was rented and the campaign staff wanted us to leave. We departed, unfurling a 2’x3’ banner on the way out.
But the story doesn’t end there. A Houston Chronicle reporter followed us out of the building and interviewed us extensively. If I must say so, we represent a quite interesting bit of local color. The irony of the Kerry camp throwing 3 Special Forces overboard after they had used the recovery of one Special Forces Officer to such great effect, should have been a side-bar too great for a local paper to resist, but, in the interests of their own partisan politics, they did.
John Kerry and I have a history together, though we have never met. I spent my formative years in Lexington, Massachusetts. My home town prides itself as the birthplace of Liberty. (A very nice couple (Democrats) in line behind me was from Acton. I reminded them that “the Battle of Lexington was fought in Concord by men from Acton.”) While I was in Vietnam on a second, civilian, tour, John Kerry was arrested in my home town. I wrote a letter that was published in the Lexington Minuteman chiding the protestors for their misinformed opinions. Lexington is also governed, as is much of Massachusetts, through Town Hall Meetings. John Kerry and I know Town Hall Meetings and this was a Town Hall Meeting only in a spin doctor’s eyes. I also voted for and later mourned for John Fitzgerald Kennedy and John Forbes Kerry may have the initials, but he is no JFK.
I hope the ironies continue; Kerry gained national prominence protesting the “establishment” as head of an organization that did little to check its members’ bonafides. He won his first election with a band of ostensible Vet supporters called “Dog Hunters” harassing his opponent. Kerry kept office in Massachusetts, by out-liberaling the most Liberal Massachusan. Kerry climbed to the top of the Bush-hating Pack of Nine with the help of a Special Forces LT who couldn’t read the map.
Later in its story, the Houston Chronicle reports that in “San Antonio, several protesters gathered at Kerry's rally site with signs proclaiming, ‘Red, White and Bush’ and ‘Vietnam Vets Against Kerry.’” Perhaps a new band of Dog Hunters will confront Kerry as he campaigns. Perhaps throwing three Special Forces Officers overboard will create a ripple that slowly will spread around the Nation. Maybe I will evolve into the new label the Kerry camp is trying to pin on me – “Right Wing Attack Machine.” Perhaps the Democrats who now support him will ask themselves “If the Vietnam Veterans are as bad as John F[onda] Kerry said we veterans were, why should the voters want a ticking time-bomb like John F’n Kerry in the White House?
I’m certain that the SF Officers with me at the Kerry Town Hall Meeting and many other Veterans would be happy to expound on the propriety of letting Kerry out of Massachusetts. Let me know if you would like to talk with someone who is not a liberal stooge. There is also some footage of the interviews conducted at the event.
Stephen Sherman served as a Lieutenant with 5th Special Forces Group (Abn) in Vietnam, 1967-1968. He maintains a database and publishes archival information on Special Forces in SE Asia.
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