SwiftVets.com

[Guest]

In from Don Bendell, and yeah I'm including his signature

LA Times

Dear Mr. Whitefield;

Congratulations. You have taken left wing journalism, even left coast journalism, to a new low with your tasteless, low-class article filled with Hollywood and Media-borne stereotypes of Vietnam veterans. My son who just served as a Green Beret weapons sergeant in Iraq does indeed have a Harley, a fancy chopper no less. Although I served as a Green Beret in Vietnam in 1968-1969, I hate motorcycles and would never own one. Another son earning his Green Beret at Fort Bragg will be going to Iraq this year, and has no intention of owning a bike, either. Gee, I guess that makes us all veterans and Americans who simply have a right to own motorcycles, doesn’t it. Your pony-tail, camouflage-fatigue wearing, bearded, drug-influenced, beer swilling, Easy Rider-looking image of Vietnam veterans is simply that, a Hollywood image. In fact, 8 out of 9 of those so-called Vietnam veterans you run into never even served in the military.

In regards to your remark that we are all angry because we lost that war. I don’t see Vietnam having to build a wall along their border to keep people from flooding into their country. Some countries like Vietnam have secret police and border patrols to keep their oppressed citizenry within their borders. We are in a quandary about how to keep people out because we have so much to offer. I don’t know if you have noticed but Hanoi would give every US statesmen a hooker and a case of whiskey if they thought it would further their goal of just getting some more free trade with us.

The American military won every major battle we fought in the Vietnam War, especially the 1968 Tet Offensive, but bass-voiced, pipe-smoking, grandfatherly Walter Cronkite declared the Tet Offensive a North Vietnamese victory and like the mindless, follow-the-leader wannabe journalists that most of the media elitists like you are, you all picked up on that and played the story to the hilt. In fact, leader of all North Vietnamese forces and outstanding military strategist General Vo Nguyen Giap wrote in his memoirs that the 1968 Tet Offensive broke the back of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army), and they suffered staggering losses and were ready to surrender to the US, however the US anti-war machine, with the US media greasing the gears was in full operations, and gave them hope, so he said in his own words they decided to hang on with bloody fingertips and hope the anti-war demonstrations would help them stay until eventual victory.

Sure we were never celebrated like other American war veterans, but we do not need short-sighted idiots like you to make us feel validated. I was there to serve God, my country, and an ideal, an American ideal that has much greater import than your misinformed opinion. Wasn’t it amazing how all those countries ravaged by the tidal waves a few years ago, those African nations dealing with an AID crisis, and the truly oppressed all over the world always turn to the country of Vietnam to bring in the Red Cross, volunteers, money, and assistance? I mean after all, they kicked our butts didn’t they? To the victors go the spoils and that shining spot of human freedom and personal dignity, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is what all countries want to be just like, according to your thinking.

We Vietnam veterans, the real ones, who have a higher per capita income level, education level, and lower arrest rates than any other large group of Americans of the same age, did not lose the Vietnam War, Mr. Whitefield. We won! We kicked the enemy’s ass to the bamboo-constructed curb, just like our children and grandchildren are doing now in the Global War on Terrorism, but there is one big difference: The American kids in harm’s way today need not worry, because Vietnam veterans like me will not allow liberal media elitists like you do to them what you all did to us back then. Sure, you will not print my letter, as your rag has proven it cares not one whit about balance, but this email will go all over the internet, all over the world, and people will applaud the fact that you have been taken to the woodshed, which we will do everytime you try to disrespect our military. Some men in suits played word games for political expedience in regards to the outcome of the Vietnam War, but make no mistake, we won, and I am very proud to be a Vietnam veteran, and if you can shut me up, there are 10 more Vietnam vets who will stand in my place. Guys like you try to make the anti-war machine build up steam, but each time you do, we will poke holes in the boiler. I put my life on the line for what I believed in: What about you?

Blessings,

Don Bendell

Bendell Enterprises PO Box ***
Canon City, Colorado 81215-0276 (719) 269-****

Isaiah 6:8

Please visit: www.donbendell.com and www.bendellkarate.com

Buy Don's new novel now, a modern day military thriller, BROKEN BORDERS, the exciting sequel to CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DETACHMENT, released worldwide by Berkley(Penguin) and available everywhere.

"Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam."

link hypertexed/kate

[Me#1You#10]

I am as disgusted by the op-ed itself as I am elated with Mr. Bendell's reply. The contempt in which I hold Whitehead and his Kerry-loving, military-loathing peers knows no bounds...and for that, alone, it is worth reprinting here as testament to their loathsomeness...

[AMOS]

Yes, Miss Whitefield, I still have guns. Lotsofem. Remember that.

[LewWaters]

Most telling is that Whitehead 'declined' the opportunity to 'discuss' his op-ed on the Hugh Hewitt Program.

Paul Whitefield's Essay in The Los Angeles Times
_________________
Clark County Conservative

[fortdixlover]

[dusty]

There are a group of people in this country who should not be allowed to breed. People whose gene should not be admitted into the pool of future human beings. Paul Whitefield is one member of that group.

Dusty
_________________
Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right!

[AMOS]

Yep, their gene pool needs some more chlorine. Note, gene 'pool', as in one.

[Stevie]

well it sure as shoot won't be 'ol Whitehead fighting for our freedom...or his.

what a chicken liver! so easy to hide behind a desk and shoot words out isn't it? he's probably too chicken liver to go as an embedded ! lol!

honestly, I'm to the point that these people should not be those our brave troops are fighting for! Their addresses should be given to all terrorists ...
the terrorists can be sure these weaklings won't seek 'justice' if they or
their families are bombed...right?
(no, they'll run sniveling to the law, military, press etc...)
_________________
Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged.

[sixdogteam]

A new low is right, for sure!
_________________
HHC 212th CAB MMAF RVN '70-'71

[Bob51]

Paul.Whitefield@latimes.com

[Bob51]

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/01/an_unpopular_pr.html#more

Too clever by half? I had no idea the good citizens of Los Angeles were such sophisticates in deployment of the style of an Irish satiricist.