SwiftVets.com

[gregrohlik]

Kerry will appear at the American Legion in Nashville next week. I wonder what kind of reception he will get there. Considering the coverage that appearance will get due to the present controversy it could be a boon or a bust for SBVT: If he is well received, he'll inflate that to try to marginalize your movement. If he is not well received, it will add much credibility to SBVT.

[ALMOUNT]

I hope those Legion members remember what those vets did at the VFW convention and do the same..
_________________
101st Airborne Div.
Vietnam 67-68


http://www.DELTARAIDERS.COM

I killed a six pack....just to watch it DIE

[gregrohlik]

The troubling thing is that he probably wouldn't go near a group like that if there were the possibility of a poor reception in the same way that a lawyer only asks a question to which they already know the answer. is there any way to find out in advance what the Legion there has promised in the way of a reception?

[producehawk]

Run the adds in the nashville area.

[Doc Farmer]

[gregrohlik]

Look, I'm a farm boy living a few miles southeast of a small town in Minnesota so I don't pretend to be a strategist, but this situation seems threatening to me. If people protest outside but not inside, the media will spin it as a "fringe group" and try to make it seem that they are at odds with the Legion members inside.

Two things would work, I think. 1) Organize a media friendly response at the speech itself. 2) Show the possibility of such a thing happening so that Kerry's handlers disallow him from appearing.

[gregrohlik]

[quote="Doc Farmer"]

[taz]

[quote="gregrohlik"]

[Tom Poole]

Hopefully, the American Legion feels more strongly than the VFW (no criticism intended).
_________________
'58 Airedale HMR(L)-261 VMO-2

[gregrohlik]

I think Taz is right. They'll want to get Kerry's vet supporters into the best seats for the camara and microphone placements and to ensure plenty of hearty applause. They can spin that by saying that speakers always get preferential treatment for their guests.

The media aren't making much of this because i think they see this as the opportunity to end their coverage. If he gets even a moderately good response, they'll claim that the Legion is satisfied with him and therefore veterans are satisfied with him for the most part and everyone else should be satisfied too.

[gregrohlik]

Here's a point: America knows that Kerry is being sharpely criticized by vets in part because of his exaggerations of bravery. But if he, in the middle of the storm, walks out on stage in front of the biggest group of vets in the country, he scores a point for courage right there. (That will be part of the spin.) If the response he gets insn't overwhelmingly negative, he'll spin it as support.

This, in my opinion, is a high stakes gamble they are making that this could end the coverage by marginalizing SBVT.

[gregrohlik]

Sorry, to keep harping on this. I'm sure SBVT is well aware of this, has been for some time, and will handle it as well as they have done everything else.

You guys are the best!

[Rdtf]

Quote from ' new Soldier' book -




Epilogue

"We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those
thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. [b]We will
not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars-in fact, we will find it hard to join
anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been
unable to provide.[/b] We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a
select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which
decorously memorialize that which was base and grim."
[/quote]

[kman]

[gregrohlik]

The best view of that event would be a bunch of empty seats. Could Nashville vets organize a boycott of the speech? The problem would be that if such an attempt was made and it didn't fly, Kerry could spin that too.