Has this site been mentioned for pics

[TayTay]

Lots of yummy Navy pics. (Ahm, I like Navy pics, so sue me, okay?)

http://www.vietnamwar.com/JohnKerryMilitary.htm

Oh yeah, in addition to yummy nayv pics, there is the full military record, the address on the 20th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial and other stuff.

And yummy navy pics, especially in summer dress whites.

Hey, I can't have multiple sides to my personality?

(I am not a tool of the military-industrial-complex, I just have a thing for Navy summer mmmmmm, dress, mmmmmmm whites. Damn!)

[vinessa4freedom]

1. My Daddy was a Navy man...

I like the whites, too. Great photos in there, Tay Tay. Jane Fonda--OMG I don't remember her ever looking that young! I also loved the one of him getting arrested. Don't ask me why, just makes me feel like he's a kindred spirit. He's one of us.

[TayTay]

2. Okay, I'm much better now

Ah, I don't often go to that site. I just go to look at the speeches. Whew! Really! My Dad was also in the Navy, but strictly enlisted man, a swabbie. My borther had 26 years in the Navy and rose from enlisted man to Chief Petty Officer. He retired (Fair Winds and Following Seas) in Dec. 2001.

[elshiva]

12. My Daddy was a Naval C.O.,

so yeah Kerry's really one of us.

[vinessa4freedom]

15. My Dad would have had to salute

your Dad, I think. :) I wish he were around now. He would have really dug John Kerry. He died during Clinton's 2nd term. He didn't have to witness the bushwacking.

[elshiva]

18. Thanks!

My dad is always a yellow dog democrat and he still digs Kerry.

[whometense]

3. This one's the John Kerry

I always see in my mind. Nice pictures!!!

Guess he was imprinted on me at a very early age. ;-)

[vinessa4freedom]

4. If I had known who he was when I was younger

the posters of my celebs would surely have taken a distant back seat. Except for Shaun Cassidy. (He would still be on my wall, except Matt has a problem with that:D).

The more I know of the man, and his history, the more I am endeared to him. Not many people have radiated such consistant goodness. Hell, I wish I could undo a few of my past mistakes. John has had integrity his whole life.

[whometense]

6. gorgeous, isn't he?

Sigh.

[vinessa4freedom]

8. now you've gone and done it

i'm all gushy now.

[whometense]

10. well, at

least you're in good company ;-)

[vinessa4freedom]

16. the very best

I've discovered that as JK is a cut above the rest, so are his supporters. :)

[TayTay]

5. That is a great pic!

What a head of hair! I think he looked like that up through the '96 debates. Dark wavy hair. Gets in your eyes. Facilitates the shy routine.

This was, of course, the pivotal time that Kerry was with the VVAW. Very courageous man. I bet this was taken during the Washington March. Dewey Canyon III.

Nice pic indeed.

[whometense]

7. Yeah, absolutely.

He looks impassioned in that picture, I remember seeing him speak and getting swept away by his intensity.

No I don't believe he would ever have been at a loss for female companionship...(though he was a young married at the time of this picture.)

[TayTay]

9. I know. I remember that famous pic...

of him, after he threw the medals away, just overcome with emotion and weeping and his wife comforting him. So poignant and intense. That is one of the hardest pics to look at because it is so private but one of the best.

[ginnyinWI]

21. whome,

did you see him in person back in those days? Or did you mean on tv?

Being there in Washington and seeing him speak would be such a cool memory.

If so, tell us! ;) ;)

(hey tell us even if it was only tv!)

[whometense]

22. I wasn't in Washington,

but remember seeing him speak at some local antiwar thing - Cambridge Common, maybe, or Boston Common. That was where a lot of the local action took place. You know, be-ins, hippies,etc. God - I sound so DATED!!! :hippie:

Edited to add: he was quite the local hero among the young'uns. And just another longhair to the elders. :-)

[ginnyinWI]

24. wow I wish I had seen him then

He'd have been MY type in those days, for sure! Compared to some he was very clean-cut, though.

Yeah I also remember the "happenings", "sit-ins", "be-ins", and all of those. I wanted to go to Woodstock but was a bit young to run away from home and hitch-hike to get there!

[whometense]

26. He seemed way too old and WAY out of my league

back then. Now that I think of it, my high school boyfriend resembled him more than a little. And my husband does too...hmmm....sensing a pattern here...

I was too young for the whole Haight-Ashbury summer of love thing, but my boyfriend and I used to go down to the Cambridge Common and hang out on Saturdays. It was packed with young folk, music, speakers, and so forth.

The first time I met Kerry up close was when he was running for Lt. Governor - it was at a house "party" late one afternoon, only about 9 or 10 people there, as I recall.

[GRLMGC]

27. Crazy

I've never met anyone cool. I'm just uncool like that

[whometense]

32. I wasn't all that cool.

The thing is, you're so young, you don't know yet! You may know people now who will turn out to be amazing later. Funny how that works ;-)

[GRLMGC]

33. That's cool to think about

Thanks :)

[ginnyinWI]

29. lol

I remember being 18, and my best friend had a new boyfriend who was 24--and it seemed like he was so old!! So yeah, Kerry at 27 must have seemed like the next generation. I was a George Harrison fan back in my Beatle days--so tall dark and handsome it was. Then I married a 5'10" blonde--LOL!

[whometense]

31. Hah!!!

I was a George Harrison fan too!!! None of my friends understood it.

It's hilarious now - he's not that much older than me, really. But he never seemed really young, even when he was. All that gravitas weighs a guy down! Here's some floaty hearts for young, serious John. :loveya:

[ginnyinWI]

37. great minds think alike!

:pals:

[elshiva]

11. Beautiful, where was it taken

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

13. Love these pics.

[angrydemocrat]

14. Those Are Good

I have always loved John F. Kennedey. He was my other favorite besides my hero the current JFK - John Forbes Kerry.

[whometense]

17. The caption

says:

John Kerry Speaking at a Rally
In the spring of 1971, John Kerry, who had served in Vietnam, was a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and spoke at an antiwar rally in Washington, D.C.

Not the sad eyes - same then as now.

[elshiva]

19. Thanks, Interesting story....

When I was going to Washington Theological Union, I met a woman in her fifties named Mildred (can't remember the last name, sorry). She had been a civil lawyer in DC and was now studying to become a canon lawyer. Anyways, she told us that she helped defended the VVAW during the seventies. Mildred thought Kerry's campaign "brought out what was best in us."

[TayTay]

20. That was such an interesting time

Maybe it's the sadness in a coronation without the right king, but I am a bit wsitful. Sometimes people fall into a movement because they have no place else to go. But Kerry had everything to gain by not doing this. He could have had the easy political career. He could have gone the Congressman/Governor/President route. That was what he wanted even way back when. To go and join the VVAW and then be such a wonderful and heartfelt spokesman for them and know that he risked everything else he wanted in life was such a courageous decision.

Damn the *. He is such a fraud. I haven't seen a single courageous moment in his whole life. Born in priviledge, but determined to shut everyone else out. He believed in the Vietnam War, but not enough to go. And all the rest.

Damn it. Sometimes the voters are idiots. (Fraud excepted, of course.)

[whometense]

25. I know exactly what you mean.

All campaign, but especially now, it's like I've been reliving my past. I think it's the confluence of so much Kerry, the Iraq war and its similarities to Vietnam, and the national blindness about the war that reminds me so much of the way things were before the antiwar movement really picked up steam.

It's hardly like I'd want to bring those days back. But even with Watergate and all that I feel nostalgic for a time when the idea of a stolen election wasn't even on our radar screen. Of all the terrible things inflicted on us by *, I think the deadening cynicism is the worst.

[ginnyinWI]

28. and I know exactly what you mean

It was the war--it was like, oh no, not again. Not a second time in one person's living memory. It was just unbelieveable that we would get our country into a war like that again, so soon. But I understand that * and all of them were pro-Vietnam war (although chicken hawks) so they probably were sad when it ended. Once again, 180 degrees from Kerry's position on it!

So yeah, the war, and then an ex-anti-war activist who wants to be the next president--and I thought, yes. I could trust him because of what he had done in his past. I could trust him not to be a phoney, because he was willing to stand up like that and protest.

It's funny--some say that he did that for political reasons??? That he had so much political ambition that he did it to make a name for himself? More likely his name would be "mud", right? I know he felt he was throwing his political ambitions away by joining the VVAW. Those nay-sayers didn't understand the times. Not at all.

I'm guessing that a lot of people our age are re-activated troops from the Peace Movement of the Vietnam war era. :hippie: Peace!

[whometense]

30. You are so right.

There was such a HUGE generational divide. Kerry was adored by all but the most radical young people. He was generally mistrusted and feared by the older ones. I keep talking about it, but people don't want to hear about how brave his antiwar activism was.

So my thinking on his candidacy was a lot like yours - only I didn't even need to think. It was like, OK! Someone I trust! Someone who is moral. Not a moment's hesitation for me. I expected the repukes to try to make him look like a coward, like a hippie freak, like a commie traitor, any or all of those things. But what really surprised me was the distrust that greeted him from the left. I mean, I understand exactly what he meant with his stand on the Iraq war resolution. I wrote to him and asked him to vote against it, but I understood his position.

But what's more important is that he doesn't need to prove anything to me. He earned my trust 35 years ago, and every year since then. And I feel like I've been screaming at the top of my lungs for the past 18 months, "Don't you people understand how lucky we are to be able to vote for someone as intelligent, as caring, as thoughtful, as passionate as JK?" I guess everyone on this forum probably feels pretty much the same way.

[TayTay]

34. deja vu all over again

I feel the same way. I am collecting a stack of brochures from the military that are being sent to my kids. Every so often I take them out and look at 'em and just want to cry. My kids will go to college and can avoid this war. I know of other kids who need the money, or didn't have after high plans and so forth. It's so wrenching inside to think of the ones who are going to Iraq, as it was wrenching back then to see the 'kids' come home.

The politics part is interesting. MA was different. We had a very liberal govt and a liberal Repub Gov. There was this:

From: http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/Adobefiles/A70c-Mass.pdf

One of the most singular pieces of legislation in American constitutional history passed both
houses of the Massachusetts legislature on April 1st, 1970, and was signed into law on the
following day by Governor Francis W. Sargent. It provides that, except for an emergency, no
inhabitant of Massachusetts inducted into or serving in the armed forces "shall be required to
serve" abroad in an armed hostility that has not been declared a war by Congress under Article I,
Section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution. The bill further directs the state's attorney
general to bring a suit testing the legality of the war in the Supreme Court as a matter of original
jurisdiction.

The Massachusetts legislature, in passing the bill, created a conflict between state law and
national policy. It, thereby, hoped to place before the Supreme Court the question of the bill's
constitutionality, and, derivatively, the constitutionality of the Vietnam War. The bill asserts the
legislators' belief that both the state of Massachusetts and its citizens are denied their
constitutional rights when the President of this country forces those citizens to fight in an
undeclared, and thereby unconstitutional, war.

Well, MA is a little different I guess.

[whometense]

35. WOW...

Is that law still on the books? Is it actually enforceable? I don't remember hearing anything about it at the time. Was it ever challenged? Did it ever get to the Supreme Court?

[TayTay]

38. Yeah, That was cool

Not constitutional, but it's nice to see every so often. MA really, really hated Nixon. Hehehehehehe!

And we really disdain the chimp as well.

So proud of Ma today

[whometense]

39. Yeah,

I wrote Kerry an email practically before he was finished talking. I'm always proud he's my senator, but today especially so.

Is it just me, by the way, or do the dems appear to have their shit toghether? It was kind of like watching a ballet, to see them all doing their parts. I couldn't stop thinking it was all prearranged. And that they were watching out for each other.

There were a couple of comments that brought tears to my eyes - did you hear Dodd say he wished the chair next to his was empty? I hope some day I'll be able to be a calm, rational adult again. But Condi, frankly, is just a lying, obfuscating, misleading sack of shit.

[whometense]

23. I hate typos.

I meant to say, NOTE the sad eyes. Sheesh.

[elshiva]

36. Sad Eyes, JK is a haunted man...

haunted by Vietnam, scrapnel haunted by the truth about War. Very brave of him to go to Iraq after everything. Pray that all people return safely from Iraq soon.
War is such a waste.

[whometense]

40. Could not agree more.

There's something about him that brings out my protective side - the lioness side that's usually reserved to look out for my husband and kids. Part of it is his eyes, to be sure.