Why I Believe the Swift boat Veterans for Truth and I don’t Believe John Kerry
An Editorial by Larry Bernard
I want to start this editorial out first by saying I believe the Swift boat veterans, but if something were to come out that would mitigate or in some way lessen the serious charges they made I would not be utterly surprised. I am saying when I first saw their story, and as more of their story has come to my attention, I found them more and more believable and John Kerry less and less believable. Now then, just cause something feels right, or looks better doesn’t mean it is. If you saw the movie Quiz show it wasn’t the pure intellectual professor you should have believed, but the slimy guy from Brooklyn. With that in mind I am going to start out first with why I believe them.
The first major reason I believe the Swift Vets over John Kerry is that there are simply more of them signing on to this project. The fact that so many officers who served with him, and may have had a better vantage point on John Kerry the officer then his crew did, are all standing up against him to me ads to their credibility. This goes to an early lesson of my childhood. When everyone else says something opposed to you, while you may be right as rain its less likely. Now if John Kerry was the man he and his campaign said he was, would a handful of the officers he served with making partisan attacks based on his record be possible, oh certainly, but this large a number of people who served with him in that unit (though not on his boat) I do not feel could all be “making it up”. It seems far more likely that Kerry and the smaller group is.
Now this is combat, in combat reasonable people can have entirely different views of situations at the time, and as the parade of years has come on. So is it possible that John Kerry the Anti-Warrior helped breed into their mind different vies of events? Is it possible that this combined with John Kerry the man who supported major leftist guerilla groups as a senator, could have also started to ferment these thoughts in their mind? Or John Kerry the man who with John McCain is viewed as white washing the whole POW-MIA issue. Could all of these things in their mind made them remember a much more sinister shadow to John Kerry’s actions foreshadowing those later events. Oh absolutely 100% possible. And that when John Kerry started saluting his “band of brothers’ the bile they felt for so long exploded out and that’s why they are on the national stage. It is highly possible.
The second major reason I view them is credible is the issue of “Medal Inflation”. If I had a dollar for every Vietnam Vet I know who tells a story of some officer they served under getting undeserved Medals or of a Grunt soldier with good political connections getting the same I could pay off all my credit card bills. And I would imagine if the World War II Generation was as communicative as the Vietnam Generation similar stories would occur. Now, since this is possible and Kerry is from a well to do background it does not surprise me one Iota that this happened. It was an open secret Kerry had presidential ambitions, so his being highly self motivated to get commendations isn’t shocking or even bad.
Where the issue of Medal inflation becomes a problem is how John Kerry left the field of combat in Vietnam. If as was alleged, and as I have heard from many people who served and were there Kerry got purple hearts pushed through on an inflated basis-then used that inflation to get out of Vietnam- it does present a major problem to his character. Add this to John Kerry, for part of the time on the Payroll of the navy, protesting the war and saying some of the foulest things imaginable about our servicemen and women this is why a negligible issue –the purple heart inflation- is a serious issue that should be thoughtfully examined by the American electorate, and at least given a cursory investigation by the media.
On the issue of his Bronze Star and Silver Star, reasonable people can often (and do often) disagree about what they saw on the field of battle. How these things get sorted out and citations awarded by a panel of officers reviewing all the facts. Now, there can be influence at the top (we need more hero’s in this war so we look better) and influence at the bottom (if we play along we all look better with the brass). So I do not find these issues significant, and while one citation (the silver star) was allegedly awarded for chasing after a wounded VC officer and shooting at him (something according to some Kerry biographies he doesn’t essentially deny) may have been a criminal action in a time of war, but as a student of history criminal actions occur all the time during times of war. And sadly these actions sometimes do receive a commendation. This is a much less serious issue then his inflation of the purple hearts (which is only serious because he used it as an escape ticket from Vietnam to go out and slander the people still fighting there).
The third factor I believe them on is Kerry being referred to by his superiors as a sub-par or below average naval officer. I showed several people who served in the military their documents on Kerry’s performance evaluations with their “context” data and was told that what they were saying was true. That the US military uses an almost Orwellian double speak in how they evaluate officers. The fact that people who had served –some of whom even wrote in such an Orwellian review themselves- confirm that their interpretations of these public documents is an accurate one ads a further buttress to their credibility.
The fourth factor is the Kerry response. Calling these people “Liars” and spinning vitriol at them through proxies. Compare that reaction to the bush response to claims that he did not show up for his national guard service, turning over papers and whatever witness he could get to speak for him, and you see a telling dichotomy. The evidence, to the best of the DOD’s ability to produce it shows that bush did his time and was discharged honorably. Bush did not, nor did his administration, attack these people. John Kerry challenged Bush to turn over all his records and he turned over every relevant record they could find. Does Kerry sign waivers to get this information out there to assert his claims of valor? He attacks the people, calls it a republican smear, he sends lawyers out and threatens TV stations if they show it they will be sued, and allegedly is turning out every item of dirt on his accusers. If John Kerry is as innocent of these charges as he claims, why doesn’t he turn over the records like president Bush did? This to me makes him much less credible.
Now to some critiques
No, this is not “Just coming out” in the 70s when the issue was still hot these things were being talked about in some quarters, in 1996 a challenge to his silver star was made during his senate campaign. So these allegations have been out there for a while. They however have not been discussed or given a serious investigation. And if John Kerry is running on his Valor as a Vietnam Vet he puts this into play. Instead of politicians like McGovern, Dole, Bush, McCain, and the host of ordinary politicians who ad their military service as a “Bullet point” in their biography the Kerry campaign is making it almost a Raison D’etre for his campaign.
Yes this is financed by old republican dirty tricks operatives and big GOP donors; did you expect George Soros to pay for it? Did you expect the US news media to say “well golly gee you’re right we should look into this” when your going to take some plutonium level charges against a guy, you need to find people who like to handle that kind of stuff.
Now, so many men have come forward and put their personal reputation at risk, and if they get savaged in the media in the days –and weeks- to come we as Americans lose out on something important.
We loose out on a honest debate about Vietnam, we loose out on the nature of what is patriotism and so many other vital questions. Democrats in power and those I know in my life say you can’t question Kerry’s patriotism or his service. Well for god sakes why not? If we can’t ask hard questions about political candidates why don’t we just have a dictatorship and be done with it, I am sure that would make those people feel better.
The Purple heart issue, combined with the issues of Vietnam Veterans against the war ( an issue I will cover in my why I am 75% likely to vote for bush) are serious issues that need to be discussed publicly about John Kerry because he is not laying out a compelling vision.
On the War in Iraq
On the War on Terror
On the Economy
He seems almost to be running a parody of what the far left of the Democratic Party believes of republican planks on national security and the standard democratic social-economic policies
But if any of these things grabbed the American people we wouldn’t be hearing from the Swift Vets. And we wouldn’t have a chance to ask if they are really for Truth
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