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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (68268)	10/11/2005 4:53:39 PM
From: Land Shark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

The only thing Kerry dodged was bullets.

To: American Spirit who wrote (68268)	10/11/2005 5:04:22 PM
From: tonto	Respond to of 81568

John Kerry may have more explaining to do if he continues with his “Vietnam Offensive” (i.e. placing every issue he addresses in the context of his service in Vietnam): He didn’t reach draft age in total ignorance of world affairs. He was educated in an upscale prep school and attended college. His father was in the foreign service. He was therefore well-informed of the problems with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam by 1968. Indeed, two things stand out from testimonials from numerous friends and classmates of Kerry’s before he enlisted in the Navy: John Kerry opposed the Vietnam War, and he unequivocally desired a career in politics and public service. Some of his peers even said that Kerry thought that the efficacy of joining the Navy was that it followed in President Kennedy’s career path. The only involvement with Vietnam that Kerry wanted was to report on it. That’s why he brought an expensive movie camera with him to Vietnam. Moreover, despite ill-informed statements by Kerry surrogates, Kerry never actually volunteered for service in Vietnam. Indeed, he made no less an effort to avoid action in Vietnam than George Bush. For while Bush was flying an F-104 interceptor jet fighter in the Texas Air National Guard—and his unit could have been called up for active duty—Kerry’s actions can be arguably be seen as a draft avoider: Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserves on February 16, 1966, only after his fifth and final college deferment (to study in Paris) was denied. He chose the Naval Reserves to avoid being drafted into the army and shipped off to Vietnam. His status remained “inactive” until December 16 when the NAVY—and NOT KERRY—changed his status to “active”. Kerry’s first tour of duty wasn’t in Vietnam as his supporters keep repeating: From June 1967 to June 1968, Kerry was assigned to the USS Gridley, a “blue-water” vessel cruising the Pacific from California to Australia with a brief 5 weeks stop off the coast of Vietnam. On November 17 1968, the NAVY—and NOT KERRY—then decided to ship John Kerry off to Vietnam. When Kerry chose to sign on to serve on Swift Boats, their duty was fairly safe work at the time. But that changed by the time Kerry completed his 3 month training on them. On August 21, the Washington Post wrote: “The role of the Swift boats changed dramatically toward the end of 1968, when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of U.S. naval forces in South Vietnam, decided to use them to block Vietcong supply routes through the Mekong Delta. Hundreds of young men such as Kerry, with little combat experience, suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy.” “When Kerry signed up to command a Swift boat in the summer of 1968, he was inspired by the example of his hero, John F. Kennedy, who had commanded the PT-109 patrol boat in the Pacific in World War II. But Kerry had little expectation of seeing serious action. At the time the Swift boats—or PCFs (patrol craft fast), in Navy jargon—were largely restricted to coastal patrols. “I didn’t really want to get involved in the war,” Kerry wrote in a book of war reminiscences published in 1986.” Thus, Kerry states straight out, “I didn’t really want to get involved in the war”, yet he and his supporters constantly claim he volunteered to fight in Vietnam. One wonders where the press and media are when it comes to conflicting statements by Democrats running for President?! The additional irony to all this was that Kerry is the one—not Bush—who’s made his service in Vietnam a central theme of his campaign, yet he’s the one who refuses to sign the Pentagon’s Standard Form 180 that would authorize the Pentagon to release ALL his military service files to anyone who requests them. Bush has already done so for his service in the Texas Air National Guard (TANG). And in August, National Review columnist Byron York documented how Bush had met and exceeded his commitment to TANG.