SwiftVets.com

[SwanLady]

I want to thank you all for what you're doing.
I was very young when Kerry was doing his thing. I was in high school. And because I lived in DC at the time, his face was everywhere. I can remember my Dad calling Kerry a "Commie" and wondering why he said that. After all, people don't lie in front of the Senate, do they?

Yes, they do.

I saw the pained faces of men returning from Nam only to be spit on as they left Washington National Airport (now Reagan National) to go to their homes. I saw them refused employment, turned away by family and friends, and called "baby killers" by stupid high schoolers who thought they were being "chic" by being war protestors.

I was ashamed of my own peers.

Many years later I would come to know many fine vets who served in Nam. They would not talk about their time there and I assumed that it was because they had a reason to be ashamed. Then I met "Charlie", a man in his 50's who was in a psyche ward where I volunteered time to help with therapy for patients.

Charlie told me how it really was. He had been exposed to Agent Orange while in Nam. This wasn't common, but it wasn't all that unusual, either. When he came back home, the affects of Agent Orange ravaged his body. But getting anyone in the medical establishment to consider him seriously was difficult. Instead, he told me, they sent him to shrinks (Charlie didn't seem to realize I was planning to become a "shrink") who insisted his problem was guilt---- guilt for his alleged war crimes. War crimes Charlie vehemently denied participating in.

He told me how he never even SAW the things people said they did. He also mentioned that the famous photo of a naked little girl running down the road wasn't due to the actions of OUR military, rather, it was the fault of a VN air drop.

He said he finally found a doctor, strangely enough one who had been in the military during WWII, who would help him. That's how Charlie, after all those years, finally ended up in a psyche ward, receiving medical and psychological care for the affects of Agent Orange and the after shocks of the actions of people like Kerry.

One thing he told me was that he "lost everything" he cared about. His wife believed the protestors. His children, over the years, have finally filtered back into his life, with questions he could only try to answer.

Paraphrasing: "I was supposed to be ashamed of myself but nobody could tell me what I had done!"

On behalf of the Charlies out there, I thank you for bringing this to light. We do not need someone like Kerry as Commander and Chief.

[LewWaters]

Swan, thank you, that was very touching.
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Clark County Conservative