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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:52 pm Post subject: "What the media didn’t tell you about John Kerry" |
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I was Google-News alerted for Part 3 in this series of commentaries by Terry Garlock. While I might take issue with a few bits of analysis by Mr. Garlock (for example, it was the media, not the Swiftvets, who focused upon the medal controversy), I think this is just a taste of what would-be candidate Kerry can expect should he dare throw his hat in the ring again.
Links to Parts 2 and 3 may be found at the end of Part 1.
My compliments to Terry for keeping the ball rolling on the monumental fraud...and thanks for your service to our country...
| Quote: | What the media didn’t tell you about John Kerry — part 1
The Citizen.com
Terry Garlock's Blog
by Terry Garlock
Maybe now that the 2004 presidential election is far behind us, and the next presidential election is over two years away, maybe at last we can talk rationally and calmly about John Kerry.
It matters now because Kerry is running for president again, and I fear as the election draws near the noise will once again dominate.
We couldn’t talk about Kerry’s history rationally in 2004 amidst all the media hyperventilating. Every time the discussion began on TV, the talking heads diverted the conversation to the politics of the Vietnam veterans who were warning that Kerry is not what he seems. The same surfaces were scratched repeatedly without sufficient depth to inform the public.
In 2004 the Swiftboat veterans made a mistake, I believe, in starting their campaign by going after the validity of Kerry’s medals. I think they were right factually, but it was not a winning strategy. Voters and reporters who had not served in a war would never understand, would not be able to deal with one war veteran pointing a finger at the other over the legitimacy of medals. If the military awarded medals, aren’t they deserved?
The truth is sometimes medals tell the real story, and sometimes they do not. Let me give you a few examples.
In 1969 when I was a brand new helicopter pilot in Vietnam attending my first awards ceremony, I asked a buddy why a certain captain had a Purple Heart pinned on his chest since I knew he didn’t fly. How could he have been wounded? It turned out he had been walking across the flight line at night without a flashlight, was hit by a forklift transporting cases of ammo, and had to be bandaged up by medics. The injured captain twisted the arm of the awards officer, who used flowery words to get him a Purple Heart.
A friend who lives in Woodstock named Skip Davis flew helicopters in Vietnam. Skip was grazed by a bullet in a tender spot one day, but refused to accept an offered Purple Heart because he felt the wound was not sufficiently serious.
Another friend who lives right here in Peachtree City named Tony Armstrong flew Cobra helicopters in Vietnam as I did. Tony was badly burned when his aircraft caught fire during a hot refuel – he was pumping fuel while the aircraft was running. Tony spent months in hospitals going through painful and massive skin grafts. While Tony would never let you call him a hero, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism two times before he was burned and medevaced home.
In 2004 during the media furor over Swiftboat guys criticizing Kerry’s medals, I asked Tony one day:
“Did you get a Purple Heart?”
Tony looked at me like I was crazy and said “NO! And I would have refused if it had been offered!”
I knew the answer but asked him why anyway because I wanted to hear him say it.
Tony said, “Because the Purple Heart is for wounds inflicted by the enemy in combat! My burns were from an accident.” Tony didn’t call me a dumb-ass for asking, but it was implied.
Grant Hibbard, a retired U.S. Navy Commander who lives in Gulf Breeze, Fla., was Kerry’s commanding officer in Vietnam when Kerry asked the CO to approve his first Purple Heart for a small scratch he had received from an M-79 grenade he had fired himself. Hibbard threw Kerry out of his office after telling him he had worse wounds from a rosebush.
When Hibbard later moved on and was replaced, Kerry petitioned the new CO for a Purple Heart for the very same incident, and the new CO signed off. Kerry went on to score two more Purple Hearts under dubious circumstances and was awarded the Silver Star.
Now, if you mentally group Kerry and the forklift captain on one side, and Skip and Tony on the other, can you see the difference between them? All of them served in the same war, but the difference is an elusive thing called “honor.”
All these things happened long ago, so what do they have to do with current events? Kerry wraps himself in his Vietnam war hero’s mantle to attract votes, and he played the media and the public like a fiddle in 2004.
How? Please recall the short film footage played again and again showing Kerry with helmet and an M-16 rifle tromping through a little jungle. That footage was taken by Kerry’s boat crew, when they returned to the site where Kerry earned his Silver Star by chasing down and shooting an enemy sniper. Kerry took them back the next day with a movie camera to film re-enactments of his adventure, and he posed while they filmed several takes to get it just right.
What kind of man petitions for his own medals, calls himself a hero, films re-enactments of his heroics, and then uses the film in future political campaigns?
A man who has no idea of the meaning of “honor.”
I’ll tell you more next week why I would vote for any Democrat or Republican candidate before I would vote for John Kerry.
Terry L. Garlock of Peachtree City, Ga., is a certified financial planner and investment advisor. As a helicopter gunship pilot in Vietnam he received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Distinguished Flying Cross. E-mail him at tgarlock@mindspring.com.
TheCitizen.com |
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kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:37 am Post subject: |
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that was an excellent read ( all 3 parts)
thinking we should preserve this one
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Navy wife
Research Director
Joined: 09 Aug 2004
Posts: 353
Location: Arlington, VA & Ft. Worth, TX
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:42 am Post subject: |
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Kate et al! You bet this is a keeper--I made a pdf file of it to add to my John Kerry file  It's never too late to be prepared, right? |
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1991932
Lance Corporal
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 381
Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:29 am Post subject: |
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Navy wife, Kate at al ---
Yes, that is a great 3-part read on John Kerry's shortcomings. And it is worth saving, because sKerry will try to run again. But he's jumped the shark and this time the Democrats will realize what an insufferable bore he is and not even advance him past the primaries.
Part 3 of Terry Garlock's series contains a minor error that I'm certain he would want to correct. After all, isn't that what the Swift Boat vets did, a thousand times over, for Monsieur Kerry? This time, however, the person mischaracterized never made the claim himself, he would correct it if he knew about it, and he's not running a phoney baloney campaign to become Commander in Chief.
Jim Warner was not a jet pilot. He was a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO). That's the guy in the back seat of the F-4. Calling him a pilot is somewhat akin to elevating a Swift Boat commander to being the captain of a Navy destroyer . It's something a proud mother would do, and most civilians would never know the difference. Come to think of it, it's sort of what John Kerry tried to do with HIS military record, and most of the civilians didn't care on that one either. But 3 million veterans smelled the difference, and that's about how many votes our "war hero" lost by.
I'm certain that Jim would want the record corrected. We spoke at length at the DC rally back in September, 2004. Jim was proud of his service with the Marines, he was proud to ride around in the back seat of a Phantom II, and he was most proud of his resistance against his captors in North Viet Nam. He wasn't too proud of the jet pilot driving the plane that day, but that's a whole other story!
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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| 1991932 wrote: | | Calling him a pilot is somewhat akin to elevating a Swift Boat commander to being the captain of a Navy destroyer. |
I think a Swift Boat commander has a more difficult and demanding job than the captain of a Navy destroyer." He has to plan missions far from his base of operations. Coordinate the activities, needs and problems of multiple boats and crews and he doesn't get to sleep in a nice clean and cozy stateroom. And besides all else, this is a SWIFTY site and Swifties are the greatest.
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tip toe
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 6
Location: sunshine state
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| Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject: kerry |
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interesting read thanks TipToe
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