SwiftVets.com

[Jeff Carrington]

THE EXPOSE OF THE CAMBODIA WHOPPER WAS TACTICALLY HUGE. Tantamount to bagging Al Capone for tax evasion maybe but unquestionably the net effect was to cast some real doubt: "I wonder if this guy actually MAY BE lying about those other things that group of Navy guys claim he is?". The media sure picked it up and the Kerry spear carriers are now starting to really look and sound queasy when they try to do the usual sophistry. The tap dance has lost a bunch of its rhythym and I think the "fencesitter" public can sense that. Maybe even some now in the Kerry camp with an ordinary sense of decency. We can hope.

Anyway, my point: NOTE THE COMEBACK the defenders seem to be employing: "55 miles from Cambodia is 10,000 miles closer than Texas" etc. etc. attempting once again to portray GWB as seeking a safe military REMF assignment as a means of avoiding combat while ostensibly fulfilling his military obligation.

OK, HERE IS A QUOTE I found over a year ago when I was reading up on Kerry's "Vietnam War Hero" background 'cause as a vet myself I just got this notion there might possibly be a gold watch swinging in front of my nose. . . .

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."

And here's another good one, a bit ironic I think you'll agree in light of all the flak GWB has taken about being an ANG F-102 pilot. . . .

"Kerry initially thought about enlisting as a pilot. But his father, Richard Kerry - a test pilot who served in the Army Air Corps - warned him that if he flew in combat, he might lose his love of flying. So Kerry, who sought in so many ways to emulate John Fitzgerald Kennedy, took to the water, just as his idol served on a World War II patrol boat, the 109. "

The source? (You'll love this) None other than Michael Kranish, the Boston Globe reporter who did the bogus piece last week on Lcdr Elliott's "recant". The original article is: "HEROISM, AND GROWING CONCERN ABOUT WAR"; Boston Globe, June 16, 2003. This was part of an "up close and personal" series on Kerry which ran in several installments. May be old news to you Swiftvets, but I tried to find a thread on this before posting, and didn't see anything. If I missed it I apologize. Also, this may be detailed in "Unfit for Command" but I have not received my copy yet so can't say.

Makes all that "Send ME!" stuff from the DNC look pretty hilarious. Or it would be funny if the stakes weren't so high and there weren't so many out there who have swallowed the kool aid.

Swiftvets, you are flat terrific. My recently discovered link to sanity in the reeking swamp of Kerry fiction. Semper Fi from the jarhead cheering section.

P.S. a suggestion if I may. . . .the media always seems to want to attribute your motives to payback for Kerry's post-Vietnam VVAW activities. Every time they throw you that lure you seem to bite. I think the average ciitizen may be reading that as "aha, there is a hidden agenda here". No doubt the Kerry postwar antics go on the lengthy dossier of his disqualifications, but you should make it crystal clear to those "undecideds" out there that the crux of the matter is Kerry's fallacious Vietnam Hero status and that is by far your primary concern.