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A Veterans letter to John Kerry
TrinityScrimshaw
Member Posts: 9,350 ✭✭✭
An open letter to Senator John F. Kerry
My wife had rotator cuff surgery earlier this year, and the
recovery is terribly painful. Then, she developed a staph-
epi infection, and they had to cut the same scar open and
operate on her again. Just thinking about the pain and
anxiety of facing that painful surgery a second time in the
same wound, makes me cringe. That experience, however
pales in comparison to what I am going through right
now, in my heart.
The old hurts are surfacing and the feelings of betrayal by
fellow citizens, and their leader stirring them up, are
breaking my heart again. I am being cut in the same scar.
How did we who served in Vietnam suddenly become cold-
blooded killers, torturers, and rapists, of the ilk of the Nazi
SS or the Taliban? Most of us were American soldiers who
grew up idolizing John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and all the
other heroes. That was why I volunteered. But for
political expediency, John Kerry has rewritten history,
again. After spending only four months in the country of
Vietnam, John Kerry testified before Congress in 1971
with these exact words about incidents he supposedly
witnessed or heard about from other vets: They
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, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the
countryside of South Vietnam."
I was a green beret officer who volunteered for duty in
Vietnam and fought in the thick of it in 1968 and 1969 on
a Special Forces A-team on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just for
starters. We were the elite. We saw the most action.
Everybody in the world knows that. But we did not just kill
people, we built a church, a school, treated illnesses,
passed out soap, food, and clothing, and had fun and
loving interaction with the indigenous people of Vietnam,
just like our boys did in Normandy, Baghdad, Saigon, and
everywhere American soldiers ever served. We all gave
away our candy bars and rations to kids. Our hearts to
oppressed people all over the globe.
My children and grandchildren could read your words, and
think those horrendous things about me, Mr. Kerry. You
are a bold-faced, unprincipled liar, and a disgrace, and you
have dishonored me and all my fellow Vietnam veterans.
Sure, there were a couple bad-apples, but I saw none, and
I saw it all, and if I did, as an army officer, it was my
obligation to stop it, or at the very least report it. Why is
there not a single record anywhere of you ever reporting
any incidents like this or having the perpetrators arrested?
The answer is simple. You are a liar. Your medals and mine
are not a free pass for lifetime, Senator Kerry, to bypass
character, integrity, and morality. I earn my green beret
over and over daily in all aspects of my life.
Eight National Guard green berets, and other National
Guard soldiers, have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and you totally dishonored their widows and families by
lumping National Guard service in with being a draft-
dodger, conscientious objector, and deserter, just so you
can try to sabotage the patriotism of our President who
proudly served as an Air National Guard jet pilot. I have a
son earning his green beret at Fort Bragg right now, and
his wife serves honorably in the Air National Guard, just like
President Bush did, and I am as proud of her as I am my
son. I volunteered for Vietnam and have no problem
whatsoever with President Bush being our Commander-In-
Chief. In fact, I am proud of him as our leader.
John Kerry, you personally derailed the Vietnam Human
Rights Bill, HR2883, in 2001, after it had passed the House
by a 411 to 1 vote, and thousands of pro-American
Montagnard tribespeople in Vietnam died since then who
could have been saved, by you. Earlier, as Chair of the
Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs, you
personally quashed the efforts of any and all veterans
to report sightings of living POW's, when you held those
reins in Congress. You have fought tooth and nail to push
for the US to normalize relations with Vietnam for years.
Why, Mr. Kerry? Simple, your first cousin C. Stewart
Forbes, CEO, of Colliers International, recently signed a
contract with Hanoi, worth BILLIONS of dollars for Collier's
International to become the exclusive real estate
representative for the country of Vietnam.
"Hanoi John," now that it works for you, you beat your
chest about your Vietnam service, but to me, you are a
phony, opportunistic, hypocrite. You are one of those
politicians that is like a fertilizer machine: all that comes out
of you is horse manure, and you are spreading it
everywhere.
Medals do not make a man. Morals do.
Don Bendell
Canon City, Colorado
"Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."(Proverbs 22:6)
My wife had rotator cuff surgery earlier this year, and the
recovery is terribly painful. Then, she developed a staph-
epi infection, and they had to cut the same scar open and
operate on her again. Just thinking about the pain and
anxiety of facing that painful surgery a second time in the
same wound, makes me cringe. That experience, however
pales in comparison to what I am going through right
now, in my heart.
The old hurts are surfacing and the feelings of betrayal by
fellow citizens, and their leader stirring them up, are
breaking my heart again. I am being cut in the same scar.
How did we who served in Vietnam suddenly become cold-
blooded killers, torturers, and rapists, of the ilk of the Nazi
SS or the Taliban? Most of us were American soldiers who
grew up idolizing John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and all the
other heroes. That was why I volunteered. But for
political expediency, John Kerry has rewritten history,
again. After spending only four months in the country of
Vietnam, John Kerry testified before Congress in 1971
with these exact words about incidents he supposedly
witnessed or heard about from other vets: They
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, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the
countryside of South Vietnam."
I was a green beret officer who volunteered for duty in
Vietnam and fought in the thick of it in 1968 and 1969 on
a Special Forces A-team on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just for
starters. We were the elite. We saw the most action.
Everybody in the world knows that. But we did not just kill
people, we built a church, a school, treated illnesses,
passed out soap, food, and clothing, and had fun and
loving interaction with the indigenous people of Vietnam,
just like our boys did in Normandy, Baghdad, Saigon, and
everywhere American soldiers ever served. We all gave
away our candy bars and rations to kids. Our hearts to
oppressed people all over the globe.
My children and grandchildren could read your words, and
think those horrendous things about me, Mr. Kerry. You
are a bold-faced, unprincipled liar, and a disgrace, and you
have dishonored me and all my fellow Vietnam veterans.
Sure, there were a couple bad-apples, but I saw none, and
I saw it all, and if I did, as an army officer, it was my
obligation to stop it, or at the very least report it. Why is
there not a single record anywhere of you ever reporting
any incidents like this or having the perpetrators arrested?
The answer is simple. You are a liar. Your medals and mine
are not a free pass for lifetime, Senator Kerry, to bypass
character, integrity, and morality. I earn my green beret
over and over daily in all aspects of my life.
Eight National Guard green berets, and other National
Guard soldiers, have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and you totally dishonored their widows and families by
lumping National Guard service in with being a draft-
dodger, conscientious objector, and deserter, just so you
can try to sabotage the patriotism of our President who
proudly served as an Air National Guard jet pilot. I have a
son earning his green beret at Fort Bragg right now, and
his wife serves honorably in the Air National Guard, just like
President Bush did, and I am as proud of her as I am my
son. I volunteered for Vietnam and have no problem
whatsoever with President Bush being our Commander-In-
Chief. In fact, I am proud of him as our leader.
John Kerry, you personally derailed the Vietnam Human
Rights Bill, HR2883, in 2001, after it had passed the House
by a 411 to 1 vote, and thousands of pro-American
Montagnard tribespeople in Vietnam died since then who
could have been saved, by you. Earlier, as Chair of the
Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs, you
personally quashed the efforts of any and all veterans
to report sightings of living POW's, when you held those
reins in Congress. You have fought tooth and nail to push
for the US to normalize relations with Vietnam for years.
Why, Mr. Kerry? Simple, your first cousin C. Stewart
Forbes, CEO, of Colliers International, recently signed a
contract with Hanoi, worth BILLIONS of dollars for Collier's
International to become the exclusive real estate
representative for the country of Vietnam.
"Hanoi John," now that it works for you, you beat your
chest about your Vietnam service, but to me, you are a
phony, opportunistic, hypocrite. You are one of those
politicians that is like a fertilizer machine: all that comes out
of you is horse manure, and you are spreading it
everywhere.
Medals do not make a man. Morals do.
Don Bendell
Canon City, Colorado
"Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."(Proverbs 22:6)
Comments
Greg
Former
USMC
ANGLICO
would talk to some of the surviving members of the 36 Inf Div in WW 2.
This Division was composed of the Texas National Guard and sent to the
ETO and fought well. One example is the Rapido River crossing in Jan?
'44 where the casualties on this crossing alone was in the thousands.
And they continued fighting till wars end. Hardly Draft Dogers. Although not a member of the 36th Div. (I was in the 3rd Inf Div)
they certainly had our respect as fighters, and not draft dodgers.
As far as Kerry critizing the Nam troops, he talks in far out myths
and roumers of brutality without one name, one outfit, one recorded
date. In otherwords, "general newspaper type B.S. from a unspecified
source." I wish someone would pin him down on FACTS. And, no, I was
not National Guard. Enlisted in May 43.