RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Pardon me DoorGunner, I just dont get it. Why were we in Viet-nam? Because of some half baked Domino theory?- if a small nation of which the majority of the population were farmers went commie all hell would break loose and civilazation would fall. That about right?- The Viet-nam war was political as much as it was economic. What people dont see, and they seem to miss it this time around, is the tremendous amount of money that flow into the the coffers of millitary contractors everytime America goes out to save the world from itself.
My guess is that I will be labeled a traitor as well, and hear about not knowing was it was like, or what it means to serve. Its sad to think that many good men died so that some unammed partner in a multi billion dollar deal could make out clean.
Man I wish we could have a house cleaning in DC.
We need a more transparent government, camera in all the congressional offices as well as subcommittees....

Not a traitor, but he did get his three purple hearts, two under very questionable circumstances, and bail out before anything worse could happen. I wouldn't feel right for taking a medal for giving myself a flesh wound while blasting around with a grenade launcher at point blank range.

John Kerry and Hanoi Jane Fonda were both traitors. Some of you that have posted here have no idea why people enlist and serve in the military. Hating a president is no reason not to serve. I loathed Lyndon Baines Johnson, but I did serve. One doesn't serve because one agrees with the cause, or because one thinks the president is a good guy. One serves because his fellow countrymen are serving, and while he is serving, it is demoralizing and outrageous when the likes of Kerry and his ilk visit the enemy, raise Viet Cong flags, and call you and your brothers war criminals. As one who was there, all I can say is that Kerry was an opportunistic liar. The only people I despise more than him and Hanoi Jane are the college pukes that demonstrated against the war while I was over there. These college pukes couldn't have cared less about the atrocities committed by the Viet Cong and NVA. They quit their demonstrating once Nixon ended the draft, and when Pol Pot went to work eliminating 2.5 million Cambodians, not a one of them made a peep. The anti-war movement of the 60's was an exercise in self-aggrandizement, self-congratulation, and self-absorption. The best men of my generation served when they were called upon. And when they returned home, they were spat upon and reviled partly because of the trash spewed forth by traitors like Fonda and Kerry. In a just world, both of them would have been shot a long time ago.

John Forbes Kerry (Why did he change the Forbes to F?) was a member, fund-raiser, and spokesman for the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War). He attended a meeting in which they formally considered assassinating prominent supporters of the Vietnam war including Senators John Tower, John Stennis, and Strom Thurmond. Kerry denied this then flip-flopped when an FBI report showed that he was at the meeting. There is no evidence that he ever informed authorities about the conspiracy. Is this someone you want as your President? All of the President's military records were released showing that he was not awol. This was a complete lie from the beginning and shows the despicable depths that Kerry will stoop to in order to get himself elected. He is promising things he can never deliver such as being able to say some magic words that will suddenly convince the axis of weenie (France, Germany, and Russia) to contribute forces to bring democracy to Iraq. As we are now seeing, the axis of weenie were making billions of dollars from the status quo of the oil for food program. This is why they did not want saddam out of power. John Forbes Kerry was injured by his own stupidity. He threw a grenade too close to the boat he was in and caught some shrapnel in his rear end. He applied to come home early by using the medals that he received. He recreated events in Vietnam in order to film them for later use in a political campaign. He admitted to several people he served with that he wanted to run for office one day. The Communist Vietnamese honored John Kerry. Only a traitor would be honored by the enemy: http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=20040604194804799 The site at this link defines why he is a traitor in great detail: http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/

Kerry is a hero for what he did in the 70s.

A traitor keeps quiet about injustice. A hero speaks out when people are lied to and sent to die for no reason. When did America become a land of sheep so eager to send their kids to a meat grinder to further a lie?

Lots of people came back disillusioned with the war. Kerry was against it because he didn't want to see his comrades killed anymore, how is that a traitor? I love how the right defines being against war as being against the troops. It would seem intuitive that those of us who want to keep the troops out of harms way are really for the troops and the right-wingers who want to march them off to die their enemies. hermangwynn2, what side are you on do you want the troops to die or live? Kerry wanted them to live, so where does that leave you? Anyway, the person who protests the war and the person that supports it are equally traitors in so far as neither of them truly are beyond there own inability to transcend their egomania.

I think traitor is a bit over the top. Protesting Viet Nam was a common pasttime back in the late 60's and early 70's - if everyone who did so was a traitor then we are a land of Benedict Arnolds - instead of a land of people with a whole lot of loud and varying opinions. My conclusion, based on some of the dingy remarks he has made over the years and during the 2004 campaign, is that Kerry is either confused, a liar or a confused liar. Only God knows for sure. Whatever the case, I'm glad and even a bit relieved that he's not in the White House. But, if he were I don't think he would make or break the country - we've survived worse.

Not only is he a traitor, he should have been shot as one for meeting with the enemy while serving(?) his(?) country. Funny How the left cannot defend there own without either bringing up Bush or making personal attack on those they disagree with.

To me, it seems totally natural that John Kerry would return from Vietnam bitter and disillusioned; a lot of Vietnam veterans did. He testified in Congressional hearings about Vietnam and he was noted for being a very rational and intelligent young man. He is not a traitor and many Vietnam vets support him. Yet I do admit actually fighting in the Vietnam jungles and receiving awards for valor is not as hip as getting a plum assignment with the National Guard (thanks, Dad!)and going AWOL when something more interesting comes up. UPDATE: I just love it when hermangwyn posts. You can tell he puts so much thought into things.

One of the things that make me hate him so much. John Kerry spent four months piddling on a boat, then came home and stabbed his brothers in arms in the back. Mt cousin spent a YEAR crawling around in the jungle (you know, a year, an actual tour of duty), then came home to be spit on because of what John Kerry did. John Kerry is a worthless piece of garbage and doesn't even deserve to have the title senator much less president.

It was hardly traitorous for Kerry to point out that something was wrong when he returned from Vietnam. Would it somehow have been morally better to know that troops were dying hopelessly and say nothing for fear of rocking the boat? The veterans interviewed in the anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor were all pilots who were shot down early in the war and held for years before Kerry got to Vietnam. They would not have seen how things were going on the ground as the war progressed. Therefore they had a limited viewpoint.

John Kerry should of been executed for treason after what he done not only to betray his brothers in Vietnam, but also how he aided the enemy by spewing his lies in front a Congressional committee after he returned from Vietnam and how he secretly met enemy leaders in Paris around the same time!

He went.He fought.He saw what he saw and has a right to his opinions.The biggest traitors are the many Republicans who sent our Troops off to Iraq without adequate equipment but DID NOT SERVE in Vietnam themselves!

Forget about the SwiftVets for a moment.It is a fact that he was a sell-out before the congressional panel.While his brothers were being killed by the thousands in Nam' Kerry was selling them out and admitted to committing war crimes!!!He can be seen in photos with the North Vietnam flag.I put Kerry below Hanoi Jane.At least she apoligized!The idea of an International Court that Kerry/Edwards support is another way that John will sell out American soldiers and civilians alike.

John Kerry's mugshot is perched in several pro-communist museums in North Vietnam. Would you like to know why? Then, naturally, I shall tell you! After Kerry's four months in Vietnam, he testified before congress. There, he falsely accused numerous officers of some of the most horrific of Geneva-Convention breaking crimes. Thousands of miles away, in a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam, this testimony was being played over a speaker to several American prisoners-of-war. This testimony led to the torture of several officers in an effort to get him to them to testify to Kerry's false claims. These officers were tortured for over 2000 days before they were liberated from the camp.

obviously we have two groups of people who see this issue quite differently. although there is no way in hell i would vote for him, i will accept senator kerry's version of what happened in vietnam until there is solid evidence contradicting his story. in a way the senator did bring this on himself by making his service in vietnam such a major theme of his campaign and the democratic convention. personally i wish this issue would go away, it isn't going to change my vote. i am more interested in what he would do as president than what he did in a foreign land almost 35 years ago.

It seems that this issue gets more emotional by the day. I have tried to do some research to find out just what Kerry said (as opposed to alleged to have said), but still feel that I may have only half the picture. I don't intend to get into his service itself per se - he was there, he pulled Rassman out of the drink, and undoubtedly he was shot at from time to time. As an aside, I tend to not believe that any of his wounds were self-inflicted, because if they were, he would have been up for a court martial instead of getting a Purple Heart. If the account I have heard about his being wounded from a weapon he himself fired (an M-79 grenade launcher, I believe, which misfired) is accurate, then it was an equipment malfunction, and does not qualify as a self-inflicted wouund. As far as the question as to whether he was a traitor to his brothers in Vietnam, I believe that traitor is too strong a word. I think he exercised unbelievably poor judgement in accepting the stories told by the 150 or so vets at face value. We all know how war stories tend to get exaggerated, or at times just plain fabricated. I have no idea as to whether or not Kerry tried to verify any of he stories before going before the congressional committee to denounce the government about them. Did all of the atrocities he mentioned happen in Vietnam? Almost certainly - they have happened in virtually every other war in the past, so it would be unreasonable to maintain that they didn't happen there as well. Apparently many vets have taken Kerry's denunciations personally, feeling that he painted all veterans with the same brush. I can't say that, from what I have seen, he does that in his testimony - he pretty much unequivocally states that his comments are based on what he heard from the 150 or so vets in Detroit (I think that's where it was). As for him saying that he himself committed atrocities, I believe that he stated that in his book, Tour of Duty, but I haven't read it yet so can't comment. Let's say for the sake of argument that the vets whose actions he referenced were all telling the truth (I find that unlikely, but let's accept it anyway). What I object to strongly is that Kerry lays all of the blame on the government, claiming that it was government (or military) policy to either condone or order those actions - to paraphrase him, The government made those guys do it. I think that that is just a lot of crap - what those guys did was based on individual decisions. Does anyone really believe that the government, or the military, actually issued orders to go out and rape, or cut off ears? Does anyone have any proof of it, in writing? It's easy to say Some officer told me to do it - it's also easy to say no (if it were true), because it's an illegal order. I believe that, in Kerry's mind, he was doing something noble in bringing the atrocities (real, imagined, or exaggerated)to light, while accusing the government of ingnoble motives. I was there, and I can state that there were plenty of regulations that were designed to avoid collateral damage (i.e., injuries to innocent civilians). The night that I got mortared, a nearby US artillery unit had located the place the mortars were located, but could not fire counter-battery because the VC, who knew full well what our rules of engagement were, had set up their tubes in a village, and we couldn't fire back. That brings up the issue of free-fire zones, which it seems that Kerry intimated were zones in which it was OK to shoot at anything that moved at will, without bothering to find out if it was enemy or friendly. My understanding (while in RVN) of a free-fire zone was that you could fire back, if fired upon, without having to go up the chain for authorization to fire. For example, when I got mortared, because the VC were not in a free-fire zone, our 105 battery had to request permission to engage, but was denied. If it had been a free-fire zone, they could have fired counter-battery immediately, with no further authorization. All in all, I do think that Kerry did his fellow veterans a disservice - my understanding is that the NVA actually used his testimony as part of their own propaganda. I heard one former POW state that the NVA played a tape of Kerry's comments to the POWs to prove that they were war criminals. His comments and actions following his service cast a pall over his service itself, however honorable it may have been. Even though he did not directly attack the vets (his beef was, somewhat illogically to my mind, with the government itself), it's a fact that he really alienated a sizeable number of them. I've only seen pictures on TV of the book that Kerry authored (or co-authored) whose cover had a bunch of scruffy guys holding the flag upside down - things like that don't help convince veterans that he's not attacking them. So, a traitor to his brothers in Vietnam - maybe not. Ill-advised in his actions? You bet.

My distinction for Senator Kerry is this: he served honorably in Vietnam (for 4 months) and was decorated (maybe excessively, maybe appropriately) for his service. How he earned or didn't earn his medals is not fair game because they were conveyed and many, many soldiers who fought and served bravely were not bestowed such honors = War hero. Turn the page: Joining the V. V. A. W., participating in war protests, desecrating his medals, testifying (I hope, falsely) before Congress against the Vietnam War(and his Band of Brothers), claiming that he (himself) participated in and witnessed war crimes, that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1968 and accusing President Nixon (not even the sitting president then) of lying to the American people about it, indicates that he runs fast and loose with the truth, not typically a revered trait in the Oval Office. He earned the accusation of traitorous behavior by what he did stateside, after his honorable discharge. That is fair game and was recorded for all to see and judge. You decide, or don't, as you see fit.

Smearing a soldier's sacrifices to his country is shameful tactic that was also used successfully against war hero John McCain during the US campaign races four years ago. McCain, always the champion of integrity, is someone I've grown to admire more than both Kerry or Bush. With hindsight's benefit, my instincts tell me McCain would have been a better post 9-11 leader than either Bush or Gore. To be fair, I will also point out that Bush received a degree of unfair press over his record with the Texas National Guard. However, painting a Vietnam soldier with schrapnel under his skin as a traitor whose past experiences weren't real is the stronger example of dishonorable campaigning in this election.

Well, at least he HAS brothers in Vietnam, unlike his opponent.

I gues Kerry's a traitor because he saved someone's life while serving in Vietnam and took advantage of his Constitutional right to free speech. I mean, come on, do you think he got injured on purpose? John Kerry's been praised by his officers. He had the courage to fight in Vietnam then, and he has the courage now to lead our country.

What TBoneya said.

You can't have it both ways. He wants to project an image that he was proud of his service and those he served with. The first thing he did when he arrived home is stabbed his fellow soldiers/sailors in the back during his testimony before Congress. He wouldnt throw his medals over the fence at the White House, so he threw the medals that someone else had earned. He is a disgrace to the country and to the uniform.