SwiftVets.com

[Me#1You#10]

[KeithNolan]

TO ADMIN: no, I don't have any copies of my original thread that was accidentally deleted. I don't save any of this stuff. Keith Nolan

[ASPB]

In February of 1971, an event billed as "The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes" was held in Detroit by the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. More than one hundred veterans gave testimony about their experiences in Vietnam during the three-day meeting, as video cameras rolled. The men described being trained and ordered to murder civilians, to torture and kill prisoners, and gave eyewitness accounts of hundreds of atrocities, including group rapes and the burning of entire villages.

But strangely, all those horrific accounts of rape, torture, arson and slaughter that the VVAW had recorded in Detroit seemed to evaporate once the real investigation demanded by Senator Hatfield began. As recounted in Guenter Lewy's 1978 book “America in Vietnam,” few witnesses agreed to talk with military investigators, even after being assured that they would not be asked about their own crimes. Many of those who did permit interviews turned out never to have been in combat. Some of the most gruesome claims came from men who were imposters using the names of real Vietnam veterans. One Marine who had been in combat eventually told investigators that a member of the Nation of Islam had helped prepare his statement, and admitted that he had never witnessed any of the atrocities he had testified to in Detroit. In the end, the Navy was unable to verify any of the hundreds of war crimes alleged by the Winter Soldier Investigation. Neither has anyone else during the 33 years since, including journalists, historians, and military and Congressional investigators.

In fact, the entire Winter Soldier Investigation that John Kerry represented so memorably before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was a fraud; a propaganda effort designed to horrify America into abandoning the war in Vietnam by poisoning public opinion against a generation of American soldiers.

The anti-war movement intensified rapidly during the months following the VVAW march on Washington. By January 1973, Congress had voted to eliminate funding for military operations in Indochina. The Nixon Administration signed the Treaty of Paris a few days later, and the first American prisoners of war were released by North Vietnam in February. They had been starved, beaten and tortured by their captors, in an effort to make them sign documents in which they admitted to committing war crimes and atrocities.

All American military personnel left Vietnam by April 1973. North Vietnam initiated minor probing attacks into South Vietnam during the fall of 1974, in violation of the Paris treaty. There was no military response by the United States. In early 1975, North Vietnam launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam. Saigon fell on April 30. The victorious communist regimes, which did in fact commit atrocities and mass murder as a matter of policy, celebrated with a killing spree throughout Southeast Asia. Over the next several years, an estimated two million Cambodians were slaughtered, as were tens of thousands of South Vietnamese. One million South Vietnamese were imprisoned in “re-education camps,” and two million more fled the country.

There is no record that John Kerry spoke out, then or ever, against these war crimes.

In his 1998 book “Stolen Valor,” which documented in detail the results of 10 years of research, B.G. Burkett finally laid the false stereotype to rest. He discovered that Vietnam veterans were actually more successful and psychologically healthy than their civilian contemporaries, and showed that black and white soldiers suffered casualties in about the same proportion as their relative populations in America. Burkett has also used service records from the National Archives to expose thousands of phony Vietnam vets. One was Al Hubbard, executive secretary of the VVAW in 1971 and a primary organizer of the Winter Soldier event who had claimed a heroic combat record as an Air Force pilot wounded in Vietnam. Burkett found that Hubbard was neither a pilot nor an officer, was never wounded, and was in fact never assigned to Vietnam at all.

Court martial records show that American war crimes did occur in Vietnam but were quite rare. The U.S. Army convicted 201 soldiers of serious offenses against Vietnamese, 95 of them homicides. Seventy-seven Marines were convicted, 27 for homicide. About one quarter of the total homicides occurred during combat operations. From 1965 through 1973 about 2,600,000 Americans troops served in Vietnam. In 1971, the year of the Winter Soldier Investigation, there were 690 homicides in Detroit, Michigan, population 1,500,000.

hattip: www.wintersoldier.com
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On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB

[Me#1You#10]

[hist/student]

Doug, a couple of things for you. Yes my source/mentor/ teacher was a advisor, my father.

Dads job was as the head cheese for Vinh Long 65/66. Dad is no B.S. as you may imagine, he saw very heavy action in the Punch Bowl/Korea 51 and was being decommissioned fully disabled as he caught a face full of shrapnel and was 100% without vision. He spent a year in the hospital in Japan and thank god the Swedes invented some magnet which was able to restore most of his vision in one eye and some in the other eye. His face is still full of shrapnel. Some time later he went on to teach history at West Point from whence he was called up to go to Nam. I was five at the time.

I don't know what his official title would have been, only that he seemed to be more like a governor of a small state and he personally led his troops whenever possible...... including two months with a plaster cast on a broken leg, which the medics would replace daily as you may imagine he was frequently neck deep in water walking on this cast. I only mention this, not so much from my own pride but to give you some sense of why I find characters like Kerry so absolutely disgusting.

He knows the ins and outs of what was correct procedure or not better then any person I’ve seen or heard of.... thus people still come to him, for advice and information.

One of his Democrat friends told him of this web site and how it was being attacked with pretty much the same dribble nolan presented with the connason article. This is how I know it is not fuelled by republican ideologues, I am here by way of a heads up from a Democrat who still knows the difference between right and wrong.

Dad had allot of Navy boats under him, but I don't think they were swift boats. This past Summer one of the Commanders of those boats looked him up and came by for a visit. He detailed a fire fight where dad had gone out with them (my understanding is the province chief advisor did not normally go out on the boats) where ...... what the hell they would have all ended up with presidential medals of freedom, if you used the same criteria which awarded Kerry a silver star.

By my fathers Standards, and mine as well.... at the very least kerry would have been beaten to a pulp for having abandoned the helm of his boat full of soldiers. Then the court-martial.

This leads me to my next point... the Sennot article.

You have not discredited anything about the sennot article whatsoever. I apologize for having let that slip.

What we agree on is that the article is sloppily written. What caught my eye was sennot saying that Kerry 'ordered the boat to turn to shore'. My understanding has been that Kerry was actually at the helm and this was SOP. Kerry is so wacky I can imagine him giving himself a verbal order, I know I have done such things at the helm when having lightning striking within a hundred feet or such.

The article was written over eight years ago. Sennot makes it quite clear in his own muddled way that Kerry returned to the scene to film a reenactment and Sennot was shown this reenactment by Kerry. Not much to confuse there, not much at all.

Kerry is big on denying anything he possibly can. In eight years he has never denied this as best I can find.

Hence Kerry did return to film a reenactment and thus the guy is just plane WHACKED

I think Doug, you realize this full and well.

[ASPB]

(May 17-Alexandria, VA) Today, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of more than 220 Swift Boat veterans from the unit in which John Kerry served, call on Kerry to stop the unauthorized use of their images in national campaign advertising.

For example, the photo in Kerry’s national campaign ads contains 20 officers, including Kerry, 11 of whom signed a letter condemning Kerry yet their image is being widely used in his own campaign. It was taken on the island of An Thoi on January 22, 1969. These officers together with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth call upon him to cease the unauthorized use of their photo by his campaign. They are jointly submitting the attached letter to John Kerry. (Photo, letter to Kerry, link to authorized use of the photo and earlier letter to Kerry below.)

Of the remaining eight officers in the photo: two are deceased and four do not wish to be involved in any manner; only two of the 20 are believed to support Kerry.

William Shumadine, shown in the photo and a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, stated, “His use of a photograph with his 19 comrades with knowledge that 11 of them condemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved is a complete misrepresentation to the public and a total fraud.”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s sole purpose is to bring the truth about John Kerry’s service to the American public and is not affiliated with any political organization. It includes more than 220 Swift vets, virtually the entire chain of command Kerry reported to and a large majority of peers who served with him during his short and controversial stay in Vietnam. The group’s purpose has struck a cord with the American public with more than two million hits on its website Swiftvets.com

“John Kerry will find that the truth is hard to contain. It’s been evident in the overwhelming support we have received over the last two weeks. We’re grateful to the veterans and Americans who are rallying behind us,” said Admiral Roy Hoffman, Chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a Special Purpose Political Action Committee. It is a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy “527”organization consisting of, and limited to, former military officers and enlisted men who served in Vietnam on U.S. Navy Swift Boats or in affiliated commands. Chairman, Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (retired). Treasurer, Weymouth “Wey” Symmes, PO Box 26184, Alexandria, VA 22313 www.swiftvets.com

Hattip: Us!
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On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB

[KeithNolan]

Regarding the government's inability to confirm the atrocity tales told in Detroit, please bear in mind that most investigations devolved into the he-said-she-said mode. People accused of war crimes would deny them. End of investigation. Short of photos and videotape, it's almost impossible to prove anything as murky as wartime atrocities.

However, we now know that the Tiger Force of the 1-327th Airborne Infantry committed mass murder and rape in late-1967, and that allegations were made to higher command by disgusted unit members. We also know that the CID investigated the Tiger Force in 1971, then shelved the investigation without filing any charges.

Incidentally, I had reason to look into the charges made in Detroit by one particular Vietnam veteran. I found several dozen other veterans who served in the same unit. They confirmed the Detroit testimony in spades. I won't go into details here because most of these veterans are fairly conservative fellows and wouldn't want what they told me to be used to bolster John Kerry.

I've never argued that most veterans support John Kerry, only that it is dishonest to slam as liars and frauds those veterans who see the world through a left-wing prism.

Keith Nolan

[ASPB]

I guess you can't read. Try again.

recounted in Guenter Lewy's 1978 book “America in Vietnam,” few witnesses agreed to talk with military investigators, even after being assured that they would not be asked about their own crimes. Many of those who did permit interviews turned out never to have been in combat. Some of the most gruesome claims came from men who were imposters using the names of real Vietnam veterans. One Marine who had been in combat eventually told investigators that a member of the Nation of Islam had helped prepare his statement, and admitted that he had never witnessed any of the atrocities he had testified to in Detroit. In the end, the Navy was unable to verify any of the hundreds of war crimes alleged by the Winter Soldier Investigation. Neither has anyone else during the 33 years since, including journalists, historians, and military and Congressional investigators.
_________________
On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB

[arjr111]

Doug wrote

[carpro]

[GoophyDog]

For Keith Nolan:

Wasn't it Hubbard that appeared wth Kerry on one of the TV news shows?

Wasn't it Hubbard that was side by side with Kerry outside the hearing room before and after Kerry's testimony?

If they were such great "foes", why the buddy buddy act?

As for your statement:

[KeithNolan]

As ASPB noted, the NIS investigated some of the claims made by former Marines who testified in Detroit for the VVAW, and determined (as paraphrased in Lewy's book) that "Many of those who did permit interviews turned out never to have been in combat. Some of the most gruesome claims came from men who were imposters using the names of real Vietnam veterans."

Approximately 130 veterans testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit. Given the political passions of the time, I wouldn't doubt that a few phonies slipped through the screening process (especially if that radical firebrand Al Hubbard was involved in the screening, as has been noted here) and gave false testimony in order to bolster the anti-war movement.

My argument is that Al Hubbard and a few phonies don't discredit the real veterans who testified in Detroit---and the overwhelming majority of those who testified in Detroit were most certainly real veterans. As noted before, no incidents were described in Detroit that can't also be found in the court-martial record of the Vietnam War, the memoirs of Vietnam veterans, or in books written by academics and historians.

Anyway, the fact remains that no one has ever identified by name the supposed phonies in Detroit. I contacted wintersoldier.com (an organization engaged in bashing Kerry and the VVAW this election season), but much to my surprise, they couldn't name the phonies, either. No one seems to have the names, or to even know who many phonies testified in Detroit.

Some comment must also be made about the spin in the government-issued statement that Lewy relied on when dismissing the VVAW and the Winter Soldier Investigation. Look at this quote again, "Many of those who did permit interviews turned out never to have been in combat."

Several of the former Marines in Detroit did indeed serve in support units and hadn't seen full-blown infantry combat. They testified not to battlefield atrocities, but to abuse inflicted on Vietnamese civilians around their base camps. Are these non-infantry veterans being lumped in with the phonies? Who knows?

Then we've got this quote, "Some of the most gruesome claims came from men who were imposters using the names of real Vietnam veterans."

Not true. In fact, the "most gruesome claims" from the former Marines in Detroit came from Joe Bangert and Scott Camill. I personally don't believe Bangert's testimony, but he most definitely served in Vietnam. Scott Camill also served in Vietnam, and has the paperwork and photographs to prove it.

Scott Camill is a wild man whose testimony is often dismissed because he had a drug problem and a serious case of PTSD. I'm not sure, though, if his testimony can be that easily disregarded. Camill served as an artillery FO with the 1/1 Marines, 1966-67. He says that his comrades despised all Vietnamese, including civilians, as "gooks" and treated them with disdain and occasional brutality; that villages were burned; prisoners summarily executed; bodies mutilated; etc.; etc.; etc.

Now, it needs to be said that the 1/1 Marines was a well-led, highly-professional fighting organization that saw heavy combat during the period of Camill's service and inflicted heavy casualties on the VC and North Vietnamese Army. In other words, the battalion underwent terrible hardships, lost many comrades, won many battles, and produced many heroes. In addition, shortly after Camill rotated home, the 1/1 Marines fought in Hue City during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Two of the battalion's members earned Navy Crosses in Hue, one earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the 1/1 Marines as a whole earned the Presidential Unit Citation.

Okay, so did Camill lie in Detroit about this hard-fighting battalion? He certainly left out any positive comments about the battalion, but the evidence suggests that he did not lie about the negative stuff. I don't think you could find a veteran who served with the 1/1 Marines in 1966-67 who would deny that most of his comrades detested the Vietnamese as "worthless gooks, dinks, slopes, and zipperheads." A lot this hatred was rooted in racism and youthful immaturity, but the grunts of 1/1 Marines also had concrete reasons for their feelings. They were involved in a savage war with both NVA regulars who routinely shot wounded Marines and mutilated their bodies, and VC guerrillas who planted mines and booby traps and hid behind local villages, many of whose residents actively supported the National Liberation Front. This was a situation ripe for the kind of abuse and atrocities described by Camill.

You guys might want to read A RUMOR OF WAR by Phil Caputo, another veteran of the 1/1 Marines, for his description of how the pressures of a guerrilla war led good American boys to dehumanize all Vietnamese as "gooks," to burn villages, shoot prisoners, cut off ears, etc., etc. You might recall that A RUMOR OF WAR was a best-seller and was eventually turned into a (rotten) movie. Despite all this publicity, I don't believe any veterans stepped forward to claim that Caputo was a liar. Do you think Caputo was a phony or a liar?

You guys might also want to read the books and articles written by W. D. Ehrhart, another veteran of the 1/1 Marines who indirectly confirms Scott Camill's stories of villages being burned and civilians and prisoners being gunned down in 1967. Anybody out there willing to call Ehrhart a phony or a liar?

I might also add that I once corresponded with a 1967-68 veteran of the 1/1 Marines. It was a brief exchange. Because the movie PLATOON had just been released at the time, I was mostly interested in what he thought of Oliver Stone's version of Vietnam. This former Marine said that he was appalled by the poor discipline and fieldcraft shown in the movie. The 1/1 Marines were much sharper, he wrote to me. He also was of the opinion that the murderous conflict between the platoon sergeant and the squad leader in the movie was pure Hollywood bologna. What about the scene in the village with the civilians being roughed up and some of them gunned down, I asked. Yes, said this former Marine, that part of the movie was true to his experiences in Vietnam. Am I to believe that this veteran was just another phony and liar?

As I have said over and over again, I don't believe that most Vietnam veterans participated in war crimes. I think the VVAW overgeneralized when speaking on this issue. But, man alive, we all know that a lot of ugly stuff happens in wars, especially frustrating guerrilla wars like Vietnam. So where do you guys get off saying that most of the folks in the VVAW were phonies and liars?

Are you really so sure that Scott Camill was lying? How about James Duffy, Mark Lenix, Nathan Hale, Charles Stephens, Gary Keyes, Michael Hunter, Mike McCusker, Scott Moore, Donald Duncan, Steve Pitkin, and Kenneth Ruth, who also testified in Detroit; in your heart of hearts, do you really think all these guys were nothing but phonies or liars? What exactly were they lying about? They didn't testify to any abuses and atrocities that other veterans who had nothing to do with Detroit or the VVAW haven't also described to reporters and historians or written about in their memoirs.

I might also refer you to THE GRUNTS by Charles Anderson, who was a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam in 1969. Anderson writes that "It is simply not known how many atrocities occurred in the war, but personal observation and interviews lead me to believe that between one-third and one-half of all Americans who served in Vietnam committed one or more of the atrocities cited below. It should be kept in mind that most of those who served in the war quietly did their jobs without calling any undue attention to themselves, either of praise or censure."

Anderson continues: "When the bullets flew, the grunts were the greatest people in the world to have around. But, between firefights, probably half of the grunts, in their dealings with the people of an ancient and very different culture, were at least counterproductive and often just plain disastrous."

"When Americans now think of atrocities," writes Anderson, "the My Lai massacre comes to mind. But murder was not the only type of atrocity, and My Lai was certainly not the first, only the most widely publicized. There were literally tens of thousands of incidents of malicious intent and atrocious result. . . . In addition to murder, rape and robbery were common types of atrocities carried out by American troops. Americans on patrol and sweeps often had ample opportunities to pacify a sex drive and engage in souvenir-hunting in private homes. And in every unit there were a few individuals, dubbed the 'zippo squad,' who liked to burn villages to the ground whether or not the combat situation dictated such. In heavily-populated areas there were many who enjoyed riding around in jeeps and forcing Vietnamese on motorcycles or in three-wheeled buses off the road. Others got their kicks by driving close to pedestrians and kicking them into roadside ditches. Still others got a laugh out of teaching hungry young orphans living on the streets how to swear in English, without explaining what the new words meant. . . ."

You know, I'm starting to think that this website is about the worst thing that could have happened to the image of Vietnam veterans. To mock John Kerry's wounds and valor awards is really to mock all the medals earned by those who served in Vietnam. (You know, there are tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans out there who won Purple Hearts for the same kind of relatively superficial wounds that Kerry received. You're basically telling all these guys that their Purple Hearts don't count because that small piece of shrapnel that pierced their flesh didn't hit an artery or vital organ and kill them. Purple Hearts don't prove that a man was seriously injured. They never have. They do prove, however, that he was in harm's way and bled at least a little for his troubles.)

And to attack John Kerry for his involvement with the VVAW is to bring all this ugly stuff about war crimes and atrocities back to the surface.

It's generally accepted that General Westmoreland's search-and-destroy strategy was a moral and military disaster that resulted in much needless carnage and massive civilian casualties. Many of Westmoreland's fellow generals thought the strategy wrongheaded, if not idiotic. The strategy was counterproductive in that it turned much of the rural population of Vietnam against the United States, and its emphasis on body count, body count, body count led to various war crimes and atrocities. Why do you guys want to dredge all this ugliness up and try to defend or deny the results of a wrongheaded strategy?

You know, maybe you guys should really stick to attacking Senator Kerry's career in government, and quit picking at the Vietnam scab. Your attempts to whitewash the war are so egregious that you're turning a conservative, pro-veteran individual like myself into a latter-day mouthpiece for the VVAW.

Keith Nolan

[KeithNolan]

GOOPHYDOG asked, "Wasn't it Hubbard that appeared with Kerry on one of the TV news shows? Wasn't it Hubbard that was side by side with Kerry outside the hearing room before and after Kerry's testimony? If they were such great 'foes', why the buddy buddy act?"

Did Kerry and Hubbard act buddy-buddy in public? Yeah, apparently so. But any detailed history of the VVAW reveals the arguments that went on between them behind closed doors. Kerry was revolted when Hubbard accepted an award from the Soviet Union for his activism with the VVAW, and Kerry was Hubbard's most vocal critic within the VVAW when it was revealed that Hubbard had lied about his military service.

GOOPHYDOG also repeated something I had written: "Incidentally, I had reason to look into the charges made in Detroit by one particular Vietnam veteran. I found several dozen other veterans who served in the same unit. They confirmed the Detroit testimony in spades. I won't go into details here because most of these veterans are fairly conservative fellows and wouldn't want what they told me to be used to bolster John Kerry."

In response to this, GOOPHYDOG asks, "Is there any documentation other than your statement to verify this? Your noble gesture smacks of prevarication. Sorry folks, but after seeing so many deceptions I absolutely refuse to take one person's word for something. Show the source or some other independent corroboration. Anything less will certainly discredit what information you think you may have."

I'm sorry, but what "deceptions" exactly have I been involved in? I've used my real name here, and cited all my sources except in this single regard.

As stated, I'm not going to name the veterans I spoke to regarding what one of their former unit members said in Detroit when I suspect that most don't support Kerry in this election. I haven't polled them, but they're a fairly conservative bunch, like most veterans. They didn't talk to me about their combat experiences and the atrocities they saw so I could put a political spin on their testimony and use it at this website to defend the VVAW and thus help John Kerry's run for President.

I just spoke to these veterans. We're in the middle of closely-contested election. This just isn't the time nor place to divulge what they told me.

If you think this makes me a liar, so be it.

KWN

[fortdixlover]

[fortdixlover]