Kerry and Vietnamese language teacher

[sandnsea]

This is awesome. Yeah, I'm sure it's a photo-op, but this is the kind of photo-ops we need, where our President shows how to make a few friends on the planet.

"John Kerry meets his former Vietnamese language teacher
Van Pham for the first time since 1969. Pham flew to Iowa
to meet her student at the Romance Cafe in Des Moines
on January 14."

[Name removed]

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[JI7]

2. i saw the pics

i saw this and other pics at this event. they were all nice. and kerry did a great job in pushing to open relations with vietnam again. it was kerry who got clinton to do it, and i seriously believe without kerry backing him up, clinton might not have been able to do it alone.

[seventhson]

4. Kerry's Forbes cousin got a HUGE real estate development

deal in the Hanoi harbor due to the "certification" that Vietnam was okay by Kerry. Worth boocoup millions

Some feel he was a sellout to human rights and to the rights of the Vietnamese who had helped the US (Montagnards?).

This has been discussed at some length in the past so I do not have a handy link.

But his deal was not pure as the driven snow, IMHO.

[sandnsea]

6. Well that's it for you

Bye!!

[Fleshdancer]

7. completely off topic but....

Clinton looks sunburned in that photo. Someone needs to tell him to use more sunscreen. lol

[Name removed]

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Reality check time, folks

It was 1969. What was happening in 1969? That's right, the Vietnam War!

The U.S. Army was sending hundreds of soldiers through crash courses in Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. The DLI uses teams of American and native speaker teachers for each language.

My guess was that she was the native speaker half of his class's team of Vietnamese language teachers.

If one of my former students ran for president (although I can't think of any who would), I'd go see him or her.

[hellhathnofury]

8. Why did Kerry, a navy guy, get training while so many didn't?

[blm]

11. Ability. Kerry speaks four languages.

Some people have a gift for it, most don't.

[JohnKleeb]

13. What languages are those

I am sorry to see Kerry being attacked over this. Its really not a big deal, and as someone says he was a head of a boat so knowing the language would be vital for him to know. Its understandable.

[JI7]

17. i didn' tknow that

nice to hear though. no wonder he has such a great understanding of different cultures.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. and from what friends told me

I know that new recruits were given a series of aptitude tests, including aptitude for learning a foreign language.

One of my friends enlisted to avoid going to Vietnam after someone told him that his local draft board was about to tap him. He took the aptitude tests and was careful to do well on the language test, because he was already interested in Russian studies and hoped that he could spend his time monitoring Soviet communications.

However, when the recruiter called him in to give him the results of his tests, he found that he had indeed gotten a very good score on the language test, but the recruiter asked him if he'd like to go to Monterey and learn Vietnamese.

Since he had enlisted with the express purpose of avoiding Vietnam, he asked what other tests he'd done well on. His second best score was in clerical skills, so he spent his enlistment period Stateside doing clerical work.

[democracyindanger]

12. Hmm, maybe because

he was a 'swift boat' commander, whose missions entailed leading a small unit into hostile territory, so if any soldiers got Vietnamese language training it would be those involved in duty that involved a high risk of capture?

Nah, couldn't be. Makes too much sense.

[blm]

10. That's a disgusting innuendo.

The guy was going to Vietnam unlike other young men of privilege.

Your slur against his tutor is typical macho trashtalk.

[hellhathnofury]

14. I apologize, it was crude, but ment in humor.

I'm just playin' the game.

[democracyindanger]

9. How low will they go?

Now they're attacking people who just take a picture with a candidate that's not theirs. And making nasty inferences about her, to boot. Grade school politics.

[KittyWampus]

15. That's Great!

verrrrry cool!

[JohnKleeb]

16. nice story thanks

[Feanorcurufinwe]

18. Kerry's favorite Vietnamese phrases

Kerry then courted women's votes at a child care facility in Coralville and reunited with Van Pham, the Senator's Vietnamese language instructor prior to deployment in Vietnam.

Pham and Kerry had not seen one another in 35 years, although Pham's husband has worked with the Massachusetts Senator during that time. Pham must have been proud when the Senator greeted gathered group of 50 saying, "Welcome ladies and Gentlemen" in Vietnamese. It was, as the Senator would later profess, only one of a few phrases he still knows. The second most prominent phrase in Kerry's repertoire? "Please don't shoot me."

Thus far this final week before the Iowa caucuses, it appears Kerry will take few risks, looking instead to maintain a positive image of himself and the campaign, baiting an appealing lure for "undecideds." Niche groups, undecided or otherwise, including women, veterans, and, to a lesser extent, ethnic minorities, will be key.

Kerry has begun his most exhaustive single state campaign travel and media availability to-date. As of Wednesday night, the candidate had logged nearly 600 road miles in the Hawkeye State and on Thursday he will take to the sky. Adding to events to an already stacked day, Kerry will helicopter to Carroll and Adel, Iowa, sandwiched in between 5 previously scheduled events.

Teresa Heinz Kerry has also landed in state and will make a final campaign push in the opposite direction of the Senator's bus, plane, or helicopter. And Heinz's son Chris will tour Iowa with Conan drummer and E Streeter Max Weinburg in a winnebago.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html

[molly]

19. This is the warm - kind candidate that I support

the friends he makes last a lifetime.....