Well, I am going to take just one shot. Right at the beginning, and it has less to do with the elections, and a lot to do with process. I have mourned the loss of a forum which I inhabited in the past. It has been resurrected, given new life, by the same small group in a new guise. I have lurked but so far the desire to join the fray has not grabbed me at all.
One of the topics currently under debate is (as anyone could guess) the suitability, the qualification, of the Democrat candidate for the office of President. It appears under a topic heading of "JFK Quotes" but has taken up the "call" describing Kerry as a "war criminal" being promoted in the more right-wing media.
Now that brings to the surface all manner of opinion and emotion to which American politics is welcome - but which in the long term adds nothing to the actual debate on the relative merit of the candidates. I will not follow that path any further as it is not where I want this post to go.
One of the recent posts to the thread is from a gent who I know only by his 'Net handle of "GrnBrt". I have no reason to doubt his qualification to make the following comment, and I think that no reasoning person will doubt his sincerity.
Ok, the 2 things in life I have learned not to debate is politics and religion but I do need to say my piece here as my name was mentioned a couple of times. I do not like Bush and never have and he scares the hell out of me big time but do I like Kerry? Well not to sure of that yet but rest assured I will not vote for Bush.
Now onto the other subject of astrocities in viet-Nam.
Did they ever happen? Yes!
Did I ever participate? No!
Did I see them first hand? Yes!
Did I report them? No!
Why? because I didn't want to get fragged and I really didn't care. I also have 3 purple hearts and could have come home but said no, why? I had no desire to come home as I had received a Dear John from my wife and she was pregnant by someone else so life for me came to a halt and I really didn't care if I got home or not, there you have the reason.
Let me give you an example of one atrocities commited by the other side and beleive me there were 100's more!
We got word of 3 POW's being held in this village so we very quietly went in to get them but were to late. the enemy had dug a pit 12"X10'X6' and filled it with hungry rats and then tied the prisoners up in barbed wire and threw them in the pit, do I need to paint a picture of what we found? So a few days later we have some POW's from that same area and we have them on a Huey and were interrogatting them and this one filthy and stinking Viet cong looked up at the Sgt and said, "Geneva convention, Geneva Convention". the Sgt hit him so hard he went out the side door and the Sgt yelled out to him, "there's your Geneva convention!" We were only human and after awhile you turn cold inside and just don't care anymore. Now in the early 70's the writing was on the wall and it wasn't good. We knew that we would never win and the guys dying over there was for nothing and most of them were more concerned about getting their dope so they could numb out what was going on around them. Now Mr Republican would you send Joe off to war that was only producing a body count and nothing more? I saw the wall (the wandering one) a week ago and got to say goodbye to my bro's and say how sorry that their dying was for nothing and was politically motivated and I feel that's what Kerry was trying to convey back in '71 I believe, he saw the fruitality of it all and knew that it just wasn't right and didn't want to see more good people die for nothing. I don't feel in my heart that he turned against us, he was just trying to wake people up to what was going by that time. Now if you'll excuse me I am going to go sit on my front porch, have a smoke that I shouldn't and shed some more tears for my lost friends and for my country that I feel is lost right now with the current man in the White House!
The full thread can be found at -
What more can I say?
1 comment:
I can say that Bush isn't Nixon, who was trying to get out of Vietnam "honorably" and not win. Soldiers who aren't fighting to win, are indeed dying for nothing. His bad intelligence didn't tell him that he had in fact won already if he'd only pushed his advantage.
You know me as Old Whig.
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