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.