To: one_less who wrote (87 ) 8/5/2004 7:53:34 PM From: American Spirit Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 383 Atrocities in Nam were very real, both inside and outside the everywhere else around the Swift Boats Mekong world. PLATOON is very realistic. APOCALYPSE NOW minus Brando and a few other things is also realistic. In fact, Kerry told me personally that his experiences were alot like APOCALYPSE NOW. They even water-skied. They also got ambushed, were on constant alert, got in many fire fights and a few times killed civilians. These type of atrocities are normal in war. Soldiers are just as scared as the cilians are and they'd sometimes rather shoot first and ask questions later. It's a judgement call. Entire programs which could be called atrocities were the CIA's Phoenix Program (behind enemy lines assassinations caried by SEALS and others), Agent Orange, napalm runs and much of the carpet bombing. Kerry didn't go into that war being against the policies, but seeing what he saw, he knew on a deep level that something was very-very wrong. So why should the government ask all those soldiers to die for a lie or a mistake or just piss-poor policy and planning? Kerry was right about it all then, and that's something the far right will never forgive him for. I guess some of the far right loved that war despite all its ugly horrors. Heros are not just war-makers, they're also peace-makers. The US would have been far better off never to have escalated that war to begin with. That question gets into the possible corrupt of LBJ and even who killed JFK? History now shows JFK wanted to end the war before it got too big. There were some powerful special interests who wanted to escalate. for some it may have just been about money. Enter the Halliburtons of the world.