A short summary of Senator Kerry's military experience: he commanded a vessel in Vietnam, and was decorated for valor. He received three non-life-threatening wounds during his four months in Vietnam. Because of these wounds, he abandoned his comrades by petitioning the Navy to let him leave a combat zone (there was a rule allowing three-times-wounded servicemen to leave).
That landed him in a cushy desk job working for an admiral. Then he got the Navy to release him before his committment was over, in order to run for Congress. He then testified before Congress about war crimes he never saw, committed by men he never knew (and who were later proven liars.)
Sen. Kerry is the kind of officer that enlisted men loathe -- working the system for his own benefit instead of theirs, advancing his own interests with no loyalty to those underneath him. His haughty demeanor would have only exacerbated their dislike. Maybe he was a different man back then, but I doubt it. I'd be curious to see what his former subordinates really think of him. They're probably too classy to denounce their former commanding officer in public, but it would be great to get them into a bar and see what they say after a few drinks.
Men are willing to fight and die for a flawed, arrogant, and even cruel leader if they sense he shares their struggles and believes in their cause. They despise self-serving careerists, because they know that selfish men will often endanger their lives for no good reason, and think of the people around them as merely means to an end.
So true!
God knows Bush was a much better soldier and far more selfless.
He's worked so hard to get where he is today. George W. Bush: a true self-made man of the people.
John Kerry, on the other hand, is just a self-serving political wannabe.
The above was sarcastic. Eric, when you attack someone, you should make sure that it's a valid one first.
That John Kerry perjury accusation is a flat out lie, by the way. (So I guess you're worse than he is, allegedly).
Also, Bush lied about WMD.
I guess all this makes you stupid.
Love,
Dave
Is this what we've descended to? Saying "you're stupid" when you can't think of an appropriate rebuttal?
If you want to see the falsity of the Winter Soldiers Investigation, on which Kerry based his congressional testimony about wartime atrocities, go here:
http://nationalreview.com/owens/owens200401270825.asp. I didn't say he perjured himself, because he wasn't under oath. Lying to Congress might be wrong, but it's not a crime.
I do think Bush is more a "man of the people" than Kerry. I've been enlisted for the last 13 years and I know why kind of officers enlisted men like, and I know that in particular they generally like Bush. Servicemen and veterans voted overwhelmingly for him in the last election, and will do the same this November, in all likelihood.
If you'd like to address the main point, Dave, that Kerry is a self-serving careerist, then please do so. Nobody minds a good, strong argument, but try to keep the tone civil.
Never served under Kerry, but I'll agree about serving under a good officer. I would've gone to hell and back twice with some of the men and women I served under. They were selfless, heroic people who were true leaders. OTOH, I would've told a couple to go to hell without me.
I'm getting sick of the 'Bush like about WMD' line.
1. We're still looking, we may still find some
2. They may have been sent to another country right before the war (like Syria)
3. If Iraq didn't have WMDs, Bush thought he did (as did France, England, Russia, China, and just about everyone). This would make Bush (and just about everyone) wrong, not a lier. There is a big difference.
JohnH,
1. If we haven't found any in a year, in which we've had many top-level officials to interegate, then they probably aren't there.
2. If the WMDs are in Syria, then the war made the world more dangerous. Do you really think that the weapons would be less likely to fall into terrorist hands in Syria, aka terrorist central, than in Baathist Iraq?
3. There you have an excellent point, which is my position. Everyone thought that Iraq still possessed WMDs and everyone was wrong. Bush might have overstated the certainty of the intelligence, but he didn't say WMDs were there knowing that they weren't (i.e., he didn't lie).
There are no WMD ask Colin Powell or Hans Blix who all have said there are none. In response to the original topic, neither one of the candidates is a "man of the people" they both grew up well off. They are upper class ivy league graduates.
Chris, Colin Powell has said repeatedly that we are trying to figure out how Iraq's WMDs disappeared. He's never said they certainly didn't have them.
Powell: "I think we based everything we did on sound intelligence," he said. "And that intelligence said you have a regime that has the intent, you have a regime with the capability, we believe they have stocks on hand. Everything's been proven except we don't see the stocks on hand. We don't know how that was missed, and if it was missed. We're still looking."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040309/pl_afp/us_vote_iraq_powell_040309160615
Sorry about that. I misread some other quotes as a move towards admitting there are no WMD's (damn that wishful thinking!). However this is mostly a moot point as we can't quite just get up and leave Iraq now if we weren't justified in going to war. We must remember our responsibility to the people of the country even if we were against the war in the first place.
there WERE atrocities in Vietnam.
Do you remember the "outing" of Senator Bob Kerrey? and the atrocities and murders his band committed? More and more vets with post-traumatic syndrome are coming out, telling about their guilt and secret of over 35 years: the killing of women and children. Please read about Kerrey, about Tiger Force, for example.
Hibbard was known as the "body count" commander. He wanted kills whether they were VC or civilians. Kerrey's C.O. was Hibbard. Hibbard's command included the swift boats. So John Kerry must have been aware of atrocities when he served under Hibbard since he was surrounded by that "kill, kill" atmosphere.
So he got out as soon as he could. Wouldn't anyone with morals do that? ANd if you had any morals, you would do something about the carnage - go to the leaders to bring back his fellow servicemen from the unjust war that was Vietnam.
If I had any morals, I would have reported the atrocities if I saw them or had evidence they occured. Not reporting a crime is itself a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
As for the slander of Admiral Hibbard: it's despicable, and it's more proof of why Kerry's former "brothers" hate him so much.