VIETNAM VETERANS REACT TO JOHN KERRY LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
WASHINGTON,D.C., March 27, 2005 -- "Vietnam veterans will not be intimidated by the likes of John Kerry," retired Air Force Col. George "Bud" Day said today, responding to news the Massachusetts Senator had created a legal defense trust fund to pay his on-going court battles against a group of highly decorated Vietnam veterans. "No matter how much money Kerry raises he can't buy his way out or hide his disgraceful betrayal of those brave veterans who gave their all in the service of America."
Col. Day added: "I'm sure he (Sen. Kerry) has many rich, veteran-hating friends. Maybe Hanoi Jane (Fonda) will pick up his legal bills. But, he's not exactly penniless. Why one of the wealthiest men in the Senate would expect others to pay his lawyers and use questionable Senate privileges against veterans he's wronged is shameful. Like everything about this character, it's phony, deceitful, and a sham."
Col. Day is the Chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation (VVLF), a group of Vietnam combat veterans, primarily former POWs, who sued Sen. Kerry last year for "conspiracy and defamation" in Philadelphia Federal Court. Col. Day is the most decorated Air Force veteran alive, a Medal of Honor recipient, a veteran of three wars and a former POW held captive by Vietnamese Communists for over five years.
Sen. Kerry recently filed formal papers with the U.S. Senate creating a "legal expense trust fund" specifically to handle costs associated with his defense of a lawsuit brought by the POWs and other Vietnam veterans. Ironically, the account is named "Fund for Truth and Honor."
"That's his way of mocking us and all Vietnam veterans," Col. Day remarked. "The concepts of truth and honor are utterly foreign to him. He's forced to plagiarize our words."
The veteran's lawsuit against Sen. Kerry stems from his failed 2004 presidential bid when the Kerry/Edwards campaign tried to prevent a documentary about Kerry's 1971 anti-war activities, including his collaboration with the Vietnamese Communists, from being broadcast or even shown in theaters.
That film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal," included interviews with Col. Day and several other Vietnam POWs held in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison camp in 1971. That is when then Lt. Kerry publicly denounced Vietnam veterans as "war criminals" before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Those accusations, the POWs said, were not only false but threatened their survival and lengthened their captivity in the hands of the Communists who had already beaten, tortured and even murdered many American POWs.
Shortly after the documentary's release in September 2004, Kerry campaign aides sued the producer of "Stolen Honor," Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award-winning journalist and a thrice-wounded, decorated, Marine Vietnam veteran. The Kerry/Edwards campaign followed the lawsuits with an all-out assault on the Sinclair Broadcasting Company which had announced plans to air the documentary. Sinclair quickly became the target of Kerry campaign-inspired ad boycotts, stockholder's rebellions and calls for FCC and FEC investigations by Kerry and 18 other liberal Democrat Senators. Under mounting political and financial pressures, Sinclair eventually dropped it's planned airing.
In August, 2005 another Kerry campaign supporter filed a similar lawsuit against Carlton Sherwood, Producer of “Stolen Honor”. At that same time, the VVLF POWs and one of their wives were also sued by the two Kerry campaign workers. Both lawsuits claim that Sherwood and the POWs "libeled" Kerry and other unnamed Vietnam veterans by questioning whether they witnessed or participated in "war crimes and atrocities" in Vietnam.
In response to the new lawsuits, the VVLF POWs and Sherwood filed a "conspiracy defamation" lawsuit against Sen. Kerry and one of his top campaign aides, Anthony Podesta, last October. That suit charges Kerry and his campaign with scheming to censor "Stolen Honor," attempting to cover up and prevent the American public from hearing Kerry's true anti-war history and the consequences his actions had on POWs and other Vietnam veterans.
"We could not stand by while John Kerry used his underlings to sue us into silence," Col Day explained. "We could not allow this man to keep his hands clean while his surrogates did the dirty work for him, suing me and my fellow POWs and even their wives, because we dared speak the truth about him."
Col. Day continued, "We didn't ask for this fight any more than we wanted to be drawn into the 2004 presidential election. John Kerry brought it on himself then, and, now, he forces us to fight back again. Our (the VVLF's) sole mission is to set the record straight about Vietnam, factually, and to preserve the honor and integrity of those who served there. Kerry's life-long goal has been to belittle and disgrace the sacrifices of Vietnam veterans and, now, he's at it again, calling our men and women in uniform 'terrorists'."
"It's time he is held accountable for his smears. It's time he is forced to stand in the dock and made to face those who he has accused, falsely, of the most vile acts. It's time America sees this little man for who he really is, and the great harm he has done to so many brave soldiers."
"We look forward to the day when we can finally put an end to John Kerry's four decade war on veterans."
For more information on Col. Day, the VVLF and the Kerry lawsuits, please go to www.vvlf.org.
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