SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

[waltjones]

NOLAN: You are fuelled by ignorance! Like I said before, your arrogance is akin to a man saying he knows how it feels to have a baby. I find the title of this topic insulting to myself - who has infinitely more standing in this forum than you do - and others on this site. Like somebody else said - they haven't understood all these years, why would they now? You ARE the blind person trying to know colors, and as far as I can see you're not making any serious effort to learn anything. Why don't you go over to the Vets Only forum and see how many Vietnam Vets support Kerry? I think there is one so far. You think you're the teacher, but you're not even a good student.
And Craig, since when do you cut and paste veterans' stories (in another thread)? You don't even deserve to be reading them, much less doing that.
Let the vets come over and speak for themselves; they shouldn't need you to drop their essays in this forum. I put much more credibility in what a vet has to say directly (e.g DougReese) than anything you would ever post. Quite frankly, Craig, you're just a sideshow. Thatisall .....
_________________
Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor.

[Big Kahuna]

[waltjones]

Hey, Nolan: I've got an idea; why don't you go find 220 Swift Boat Vets who support Kerry? That shouldn't be a problem, right? Then you could start your own BB and everything! I'm afraid most of the officers and all Kerry's COs are taken though, but I'm sure you'll improvise. Good luck! Thatisall ....
_________________
Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor.

[KeithNolan]

Once again, you guys ignore every question I ask and every point I make, and retreat to the if-you-ain't-a-vet-you-don't-know nothin' argument, as if veterans speak with one voice about the Vietnam War.

Like I've said before, guys who were in the same unit at the same time can't even agree about what it all meant. You guys seem to think that your personal experiences, personal feelings, and personal biases represent some kind of Universal Truth.

I'm sure that a large number of veterans do not support Kerry. I've never argued that point. Most veterans are relatively conservative and Kerry is a left-wing Democrat who belonged to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Does anyone really know what kind of support Kerry has among veterans? I don't. Different polls provide different numbers. It's supposed to be half and half right now, isn't it? Actually, I'm kinda surprised that Kerry has ANY support among Vietnam veterans in this conservative, hawkish, super-patriotic post-9/11 country of ours!

Poll numbers aside, the fact remains that fourteen of the fifteen sailors who actually served on Kerry's Swift Boat say he was a fine officer (the lone Kerry-basher seems to have huge memory problems when pressed on details), as do a number of former Army advisors like Jim Rassman who went on joint operations with Kerry. They might not agree with his politics and anti-war activism, but they knew him to be a solid officer in 1969. That's always been my main point.

Why doesn't the support of those men who actually fought alongside Kerry in Vietnam mean a damn thing to you Kerry-bashers? I'm sure you can find hundreds of former Swifties who don't like Kerry, but they weren't shoulder-to-shoulder with him in combat and are mostly ticked off about his days with the VVAW.

By the way, if I have no standing to say my piece at a forum set up for non-veterans, why don't you also stomp on those non-veterans like History Student and Marine's Wife who are also rattling on here?

It seems that if a non-veteran supports your point of view, they get a pass from you and even a few words of encouragement---but if a non-veteran doesn't support your point of view, you play the vet card. You can't have it both ways: either me and Marine's Wife/History Student/etc. all have the right to say our piece, or none of us does.

Doesn't it bother you that a lot of non-veterans at this site are running around, shooting their mouths off about Kerry---he was an incompetent, a coward, a murderer, blah, blah, blah---and refusing to back up all their charges with a shred of evidence?

Doesn't it bother you at all that the same dirty-trick tactics being employed against Kerry were previously employed against John McCain and Max Cleland?

Anyway, I might mention that I've run these posts past a number of Vietnam veterans that I know. I wanted some feedback from guys who were there. I've basically been told, in response, to keep fighting the good fight, but to have no expectation to change the minds of clamped-down idealogues.

These veterans aren't particularly enamored of Kerry (hell, some are retired field-grade officers and don't think too well of the VVAW), but they know a smear-job when they see one and are disgusted at what Bush II's minions have said about the honorable combat service of men like Kerry, McCain, and Cleland.

I won't repeat what these combat veterans have said to me about the vets on this website who presume to speak for the Vietnam Generation. Believe me, guys, you wouldn't like it, and I'm only sorry that I haven't been able to talk any of these combat veterans into jumping down in this muddy ditch with me to wrestle with the haters and idealogues. Why don't they want to get involved with this? Well, they don't need the hate mail, for one thing. More to the point, they just don't seem that fired up about either Kerry or Bush II. Like me, they can't believe that these guys represent our only choice in November. Lord, where's John McCain when you need him?!

Anyway, let me again ask that you Kerry-bashers finally answer the questions and address the topics raised in the first post of this thread. Please don't play the vet card. Please throw down some facts. I'm listening.

Keith Nolan

[sparky]

I just heard LtCol Solis on NPR. He'll be teaching the Law of War at West Point next year. It's good to have such a sane, balanced, and authoritative instructor there.

Keith ... I'm telling you ... you're expecting too much here. These people represent the dark underbelly of conservatism and can't be reasoned with. And they know this. They've been conferencing long enough to know the utter futility of attempting reason and logic in promoting their point and with practice (and failure), they've fallen into their current pattern of groundless accusation always followed by peer acceptance.

Part of their agenda seeks nothing more than the approval of other conservatives here. That's why it's devoid of anything requiring effort. They also know the groundlessness of the charges they make but since others are in on the con game too, it doesn't matter. What does matter to them is defeating Kerry at all costs. The reasons for this vary, but include other issues like abortion, gun control, a feared loss of American hegemony, and most importantly, how the perceptual cards fall on the divisive matter of Vietnam, topics which are difficult for them to argue on their own merits.

I know the feeling that if only you could just reason with them, get them to pause and look at the facts, and cut out the distractions and name calling, they'd see their errors. Sad thing is, they already do but those *other* issues I described above override this.

Another of their motives is the anger at not receiving the "heroes welcome" that comes to returning veterans. In every other war, there was a return symbolized by the archetypal "tickertape parade" complete with easily available women, job offers, free drinks in bars, respect from family and neighbors, etc...

They didn't get that and they're understandably angry with this. Rather than blame those who engineered this war and whose orders they obediently followed, or blaming vets like those in Tiger Force, they blame the truthtellers who came back and reported what they saw. Part of this cognitive distortion includes denying the extent of wrongdoing and accusing those brave souls who spoke the truth of being soviet stooges.

In their mind, not attacking the truthtellers is a step towards accepting blame for atrocities they, as individuals, didn't commit and attacking them puts them one step closer to absolution. Conversely, attacking the leaders who engineered this war and lied to keep it running, opens up questions about their own guilt and gives fuel to the war's opponents.

This explains their tenacity after nearly 4 decades in refusing to place blame where it belongs and their insistence in placing it clearly where it doesn't.

The ultimate insult to them...the thing that would make it much harder for them to look friends, coworkers, and neighbors in the eyes, would be if one of the most outspoken critics of the war who testified about atrocities in Vietnam ascended to the presidency and was permitted the stature of that office. It would symbolically settle the matter as to how the country has come out in its view of the war. In their minds, it's not a symbol of healing, but rather a symbol of defeat; after all, Kerry isn't going to say that the war could have been won had the troops not been straitjacketed by politicians, as the usual cant goes.

I'm convinced that people who stereotype expect that others also stereotype. Not surprising since we expect that others share our own inner thought processes and that they're universalized. For this reason, it's impossible for them to understand that the vast majority of their fellow citizens don't believe they're war criminals and that nearly everyone understands that it was only some bad apples there.

Instead, when they tell people they're Vietnam vets, they anticipate a negative response. When one isn't forthcoming, they assume it's still in the thoughts of the other, but masked. In subtle ways, they then treat the other person as an accuser who just hasn't verbalized the accusation. And ultimately, they find themselves surrounded by hostile Vietnam vet haters, reinforcing their initial belief. [/i]

[KeithNolan]

Sparky, that was brilliant. I think you've discovered the real root of this rabid Kerry-bashing, and have spoken to the problem with intelligence and compassion. Too bad that most of the veterans here won't understand that you're really on their side.

I agree, too, with your comment about this website representing the underbelly of the conservative movement. Up until now, I would have described myself as an old-fashioned conservative Republican (you know, the kind who doesn't agree with all that Kerry said while with the VVAW, but will defend his right to say it and attempt to understand where he was coming from), but this exposure to dirty-tricks and hate-filled idealogues has left me rather disenchanted with the GOP.

More later. . . .

Keith Nolan

[PhuCat to Phu Quoc]

this website is fueled by lies and innuendo

Mr. Nolan wants to make a clean break, and start over.

That's fine with me. I'll do my own Part 2.

But first....

this website is fueled by lies and innuendo (Part 1)

Part 1
You are correct Mr. Nolan, this website is fueled by lies and innuendo - lies and innuendo that were spread by John Kerry after he returned from Vietnam. But now more than 30 years later there is additional fuel, righteous anger coming from the original targets of the chorus of lies and innuendo to which John Kerry added his voice. I was one of those targets.

John Kerry was divisive in 1971 and took part in a massive and shameless slander that has forever shaped and distorted public perceptions of the Vietnam War and Vietnam veterans. It appears to me he did it for reasons of personal and political ambition.

John Kerry could not let matters lie. John Kerry was divisive in 1971 and he is divisive in 2004 and again has Vietnam War veterans pitted against one another. John Kerry just had to trumpet his wartime service in a gamble for political gain and I guess he thought it was a sure winner, but I think he was wrong.

This time Kerry's message is being answered. Unlike during and after the war, publicly aired views are not so one-sided. Voices silent for 30 years or more about the Vietnam War are heard in this forum and others like it. In his quest for political power John Kerry brought up his Vietnam War service and now that is being discussed along with everything John Kerry has done and said after he returned from Vietnam. I think that chances are good John Kerry will get it all shoved where the sun don't shine before this is over.

The reality is, John Kerry took sides with and actively assisted people that sought the subversion and weakening of the United States military during the Vietnam War, and I remind one and all, during the Vietnam War we were also in a historic global military confrontation with the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Red China. The efforts of John Kerry and those others had a corrosive effect on military morale and readiness worldwide, it wasn't just about Vietnam.

There is even a former Romanian spymaster quoting KGB chief Yuri Andropov that the anti-Vietnam War effort was one of KGB's great triumphs and that what John Kerry said and wrote was used as propaganda by European communists and socialists siding with North Vietnam.

What about the Swift Boat skippers in the photo with John Kerry, most oppose Kerry, some in a very vocal and strident manner; is that lies and innuendo?

Mr. Nolan, by your account, you just write the books, that's all. You haven't had the lies and innuendo spread by the John Kerry's, the Jane Fonda's and those like them hung about your neck for 30 years.

-----------------------------------------------
this website is fueled by lies and innuendo (Part 2)

Part 2

Mr. Nolan, it appears you are coming at veterans the same way you come at readers of your books, with overwhelming torrents of words and paragraph after paragraph of argumentation assembled with what you probably think is tight reasoning.

One might think you are using this forum to build your own monument rather than to discuss the qualities of John Kerry that matter.

I had to laugh when you cited some interesting names as if they had any weight in supporting your arguments. Two of those names are Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, two historians masquerading as partisan political gangsters, or two partisan political gangsters masquerading as historians, take your pick. Did Stephen Ambrose plagiarize to write his foreword for you? Take another look at Brinkley's book about John Kerry, "Tour of Duty", try and spot the errors, there are just a few quickly noticeable, one quite glaring.

The timing in the publishing of Brinkley's book is suspect, though it could be argued the publisher wanted to boost sales by releasing it as interest in Kerry began to accelerate. My view is that "Tour of Duty" was published at a time when Brinkley thought he could help Kerry. After looking over "Tour of Duty", I thought Brinkley should have insisted on an editor with some kind of relevant experience.

By the way, in order to improve your basic understanding of the information you casually throw about, Naval officers don't get efficiency reports, they get fitness reports.

Both John Kerry and I volunteered for in-country service in Vietnam. We got what we asked for. I've been around Swift Boats and Swift Boat sailors, and I view their feats in awe and all the Swifties got my respect and affection in 1969 and 1970 and they get it now. Therefore, I am not questioning John Kerry's heroism and service in Vietnam. But, it was John Kerry's endless announcements of being a Vietnam War veteran that opened inquiries into the nature of his service.

About the time John Kerry was drafting his request to return to the U.S. after three wounds, I was being medevaced to Japan with a serious injury. Kerry went home to the U.S. At the hospital in Yokosuka, I volunteered to return to Vietnam, and I did. I went on to serve 13 more years in a U.S. Navy that was crippled and weakened, not by Vietnam, but by political opportunism of antiwar activists such as John Kerry. This is while the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines were facing a Sino-Soviet bloc with the intention and capability of enslaving or incinerating my family, along with the families of the antiwar political opportunists. It's kind of hard for me to forget that kind of subversion and disloyalty, and I remember it now, and I'll remember it in November.

Richard Rongstad
USN (Ret.)
Republic of Vietnam 1969-1970
Phu Cat to Phu Quoc

[Greenhat]

[Dave Crosby]

Hey Noland, Sparky and cohorts,

Is Kerry paying you by the hour or by the word?

I suspect the latter. No one could be such a blow hard by accident.
_________________
He also serves who only stands and waits.

[d19thdoc]

KeithNolan wrote:

[waltjones]

Nolan: You don't mind if I start a topic with the name below, do you? It would be in about the same class as yours. I think we've collected enough of your ridiculous assertions to put them all in one place. I'm sure though, that it will be continually added to.

Keith Nolan is fueled by lies and innuendo ....


I will not do this if you can tell me who of the Swifties are lying; I want the names and proof that they're lying. If you can't do that, you're in the same class as Kerry.
_________________
Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor.

[Speedy]

[LewWaters]

[KeithNolan]

Buster? The civility around here went from a clip "Mr. Nolan" to a smart-ass "Keith" to a rude "Nolan." Now, I'm "Buster"?

I'm telling ya, that sumbitch Kerry just doesn't pay me enough to put up with this!