SwiftVets.com

[AZVet61]

This is what I sent to everyone on my email roster:

STOLEN HONOR—WOUNDS THAT NEVER HEAL--What we must do.

Even before Sinclair Broadcasting Co. announced, under duress, its decision to not broadcast the film, "Stolen Honor--Wounds That Never Heal", I had ordered the DVD, knowing that I was not in an area in which the film would be shown. Last night, I viewed the film, and I can see why the Kerry people pulled all stops to prevent its being shown. While the film might not move the myopic, hard-core Kerry supporter, it certainly would and should create doubt in the minds of those who are not. It is a film that should have been aired in its entirety, not as part of a circumscribed program on the effect of the media on political campaigns--something even which the Kerry folks also want to prevent from being shown.
The film was produced by Carlton Sherwood, who provides narration. Sherwood is a well-respected newspaper and TV investigative reporter and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award. He has investigated John Kerry's behavior during the Vietnam War era and how Kerry's actions, as a leader of the anti-war movement, impacted American POW's.
Because many younger voters don't understand what our country went through in the mid 1960's and early '70's, when American soldiers were returning home, not to parades and expressions of thanks from a grateful nation but to physical and verbal assaults by anti-war protesters, including John Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, this film is of special significance and importance.
When someone close to you tells you, "I could care less about a war that happened 30 years ago", you begin to understand the disconnection with our youth on the significance of John Kerry's actions. We ourselves for many years hid from the realities of the Vietnam War, believing as we wanted to that it should remain an ugly memory--a wound that, while it might never heal, should be left untouched. Instead, along comes John Kerry, self-proclaimed war hero and makes the War the centerpiece of his campaign for President and Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces. Now, thousands of those veterans, whom John Kerry testified were war criminals--men who, according to Kerry, acted, "with the approval of all levels of command" to "cut off ears, cut off heads, burned bodies" and "ravaged the countryside of Vietnam in a manner reminisecent of Genghis Khan", are crying out for justice. They have asked John Kerry to do two things--to authorize the release of his military records by signing Standard Form 180 and to apologize to the veterans whose honor and reputations he blackened with his false accusations. Last night, I also watched a televised debate in Houston between John O'Neill, author of "Unfit For Command", a Naval Vietnam War veteran and member of Kerry's own swift boat unit and a founding member of the group, "Swift Vets and POW's For Truth", and Glenn Smith, founder of Texans for Truth, an anti-Bush group, and author of his own book, "Unfit Commander"-- the cover of which parodies O'Neill's. Smith was no match for O'Neill [neither were the people in the audience who were clearly anti-O'Neill plants], who had put Kerry to shame in a 1971 debate on the Dick Cavett show. O'Neill repeated the pledge of the SwiftVets that they would terminate their advertising, which most commentators, even those who are anti-Bush, believe have been the most effective against Kerry--including those of the Bush campaign--if John Kerry would do those two things: release his records and apologize for his lies. Of course, that won't happen. Neither, it appears, will the true impact of John Kerry's lies and accusations and his treasonous visits to North Vietnam and to Paris, where he twice met with North Vietnam's negotiator, Madame Binh, upon the American POW's in North Vietnam prisons become known to the American people--at least not to the extent it should.
As it is, most Americans, particularly younger voters, won't get to see the poignant statements of 6 highly decorated American POW's, men who spent upwards of 5, 6 and even 7 years in prison in North Vietnam. They won't see the story these men have to tell--horrifying days of darkness, starvation and torture made worse by the actions of a young American officer, John Kerry. They won't see the moving testimony of Colonel George "Bud" Day, who was shot down over North Vietnam in August, 1967 and spent 67 months as a POW. It would be difficult for even the most callous and hard-bitten Kerry supporter to ignore the testimony of a man who served 30 months as a Marine NCO in the South Pacific during WWII and two tours as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Korean War--a man who is America's most highly decorated officer since General Douglas MacArthur, having received every significant combat award, more than 50 combat awards in all, and to whom was awarded the Medal of Honor. When this man testifies, as he does in "Stolen Honor" that John Kerry's actions harmed American POW's--that John Kerry committed treason against the United States of America and is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief of its Armed Forces, everyone should pay attention. No wonder John Kerry and his supporters don't want this film to be aired. It would be the death of his candidacy.
Most of are now "preaching to the choir"--we are telling one another what a despicable person John Kerry is--that he truly is unfit for command. What we need to do--and do now, is to go on the Internet to Google.com, type in Colonel Bud Day and read his bio and the letter he has written, which contains much of what he says in "Stolen Honor". Then, we need to tell every young voter who we know, what John Kerry did. How he provided aid and comfort to the enemy and how he more than broke faith with his fellow soldiers, he consciously caused those least able to protect themselves, the POW's, grievous harm. And, for what? To further the political ambitions that began even before he went to Vietnam. Even those who could care less about the Vietnam War should care about the man who is trying to become President of the United States.