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Sorry if someone has already posted this.
CJ
John Kerry has been running on his war record in a vastly more blatant
>way than previous candidates have done (George Bush the Elder, for
>example, or Bob Dole), he has opened the door for those who are qualified
>to express their views on his Vietnam record – both while he was there and
>after he returned. One man with exceptional qualifications in that regard
>is retired Army Col. Glenn Lackey, who also knows something about life in
>the verbal combat zone known as Capitol Hill, where he served a stint as
>Chief of Staff for a Member of Congress. Before that Lackey not only
>spent combat time in Vietnam, but also in Somalia and the Gulf War.
>Recently, Lackey decided to express his thoughts on Kerry's public record,
>and being a very direct kind of guy, did it directly, by writing the
>following letter to Kerry, which I thought might interest readers of this
>space: Dear Mr. Kerry; After spending only four months in the country of
>Vietnam, you testified before Congress in 1971 with these exact words
>about incidents you say you witnessed: "They personally raped, cut off
>ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
>genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly
>shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
>food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Viet Nam."
>Spread that on a farmer's field where it will do some good. I spent a year
>there in 1968-69 in a combat arms unit. I was a Field Artillery Forward
>Observer in an Infantry company and I saw combat every day until I was
>wounded. When I returned from the hospital, I was assigned to an artillery
>battery. I saw brave men fight and die; I saw brave, good men pass out all
>their rations to hungry kids, build churches and schools, donate to
>orphanages, cry silently at the sight of villagers slaughtered by North
>Vietnamese, but I never saw anything approaching the war crimes that you
>happened to witness as your boat sped by villages on the river bank. If
>you witnessed atrocities and did not report them, you are guilty of aiding
>and abetting. If you lied, you are simply unfit for leadership at any
>level. The most serious incident I witnessed was a young sergeant who
>grabbed the arm of a Vietnamese woman during a village search. An older,
>more experienced noncommissioned officer knocked the sergeant to the
>ground and told him, somewhat forcefully, that that woman was someone's
>mother and would be treated with respect. That's it, Kerry, that's my
>confession - I didn't report the incident. I have children, and my
>children have children. They will, perhaps, stumble upon your words, much
>as one might stumble upon a pile of dog droppings. I do not relish the
>thought of having to explain that your "experiences" are either a
>bald-faced lie, or you belong to that less-than-1% of Viet Nam veterans
>who committed war crimes/atrocities. Either way, your words do great harm
>to the institution of the Senate, my home state of Massachusetts, the
>Armed Services in which I proudly served for 27 years, and the very
>country that you aspire to lead. Is it true that you single-handedly
>prevented a vote on a Senate version of H.R. 2833, the Viet Nam Human
>Rights Act of 2001 - a bill that passed the House by a vote of 410-1?
>There are many who believe that our failure to speak decisively on that
>issue cost the lives of thousands of Montagnard tribesman in Viet Nam.
>Where do you stand on H.R. 1587, the Viet Nam Human Rights Act of 2003?
>Will you support a parallel bill in the Senate? Is it true that you served
>as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs and in that
>role you fought hard to limit the expenditure of funds to investigate
>sightings or search for remains? You have, I believe, been a steadfast,
>staunch and vocal advocate for normalizing relations with Viet Nam. Could
>it be that your beloved first cousin, Mr. Forbes, CEO of Colliers
>International, recently signed a contract with Hanoi worth billions of
>dollars? Any truth to the rumor that you didn't really fling your
>"hard-earned" military medals over the White House fence in a juvenile fit
>of pique as you say you did, but rather, you threw your roommate's medals
>instead? I know dozens of retired military professionals. None of them
>support you - there is a reason for that. They all served honorably and
>well, and they all believe that you did not. I know war heroes, and your,
>sir, are no war hero. -- Glenn Lackey
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