SwiftVets.com

[Scott]

Dear Keith Nolan:

I took a class re: the Vietnam War at Amherst College taught by none other than Tony Lake. To be generous, his textbook selections were critical of the entire conflict, to say the least.

I just did a search of your books on www.bookfinder.com on in-print and out-of-print books and was unable to find anything you wrote about the Vietnam war prior to the Tet Offensive of 1968. Did you write anything about the war before that battle?

If not, why did you choose to start your documentation of that war with that battle?

[DevilDon]

"Anyway, I see that we've now been joined by DevilDon, who boldly declares that all who disagree with him are geeks with typewriters."

I didn't say that at all. I said YOU were a geek with a typewriter. I also pointed out that you make a living retelling stories from people who have actually lived this period, not having participated yourself at all.

d19thdoc said it all, in that he questioned how accurate you can hope to be if you base everything on someone else's recollection of the events. You have simply NO experience in this manner and that alone would cause people to question your "expertise". As for the strawmen, I'm somewhat surprised that you would call yourself that, but so be it.

Additionally, when time permits, i fully intend to see to your questions. They are as baseless and pointless as the rest of your babble. I hope to have some time soon pal, you'll not be disappointed.

[campjwIII]

There are a few issues I want address.
As Kerry had resigned from the Leadership of VVAW in 1971 he made a number of visits to the Boston Office in Cambridge in 1972. While there he would have private meetings with the Regional Co-ordinator.

In So Far As the Winter Soldier Investigation: Read Joe Bangert's Testimony: "The first day I got to Vietnam I landed in Da Nang Air Base. From Da Nang Air Base I took a plane to Dong Ha. I got off the plane and hitchhiked on Highway 1 to my unit..."
Hitchhiked? Give me a break.
It gets worse from there.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092905/posts

I've seen Bangert -up close and personal. He is one of the most repulsive veterans I have had the ill-pleasure to meet. His treatment of fellow veterans was atrocious.

In the VVAW community Scott Camil was considered someone to stay away from. The Gainesville Office was known as Fort McFear.

I am not a Bush minion and resent the implications you make, Mr Nolan.
_________________
How Many More 9/11 attacks have to happen before you wake up and realize the world is at WAR?

[DougReese]

[campjwIII]

Thanks Doug.
I don't know about you but I was shepherded from 90th Replacement to Division.
I remember Joe as Crazy Joe.

Well I have two problems with that news group
1 -I can't log in with that last bit of information they want(??)
2- they want me to pay (?!?)
_________________
How Many More 9/11 attacks have to happen before you wake up and realize the world is at WAR?

[we're nuts]

Mr. Nolan, I quote you, out of context of course,
"I did my share of screaming in there, too, making it clear that I think Bush II is a man bereft of intelligence, character, and decency---a classic empty suit---who should be embarrassed about having hid out in the Air Guard during a war he supposedly supported, and utterly ashamed that his minions have smeared in his behalf the honorable combat service of men like John Kerry, John McCain, and Max Cleland. "

Where do you teach?
You espouse/assume the very same attitudes that you decry.
I will not babble on as you do. No reply is necessary.
"Pride Runs Deep."
Steve Jones
_________________
PRIDE RUNS DEEP
SS343 68-70

[DougReese]

[KeithNolan]

Now that Joe Bangert's name has come up, I'll say that he was the one veteran who I earlier referenced as having told a sea story with a little hair on it in WINTER SOLDIER. I didn't want to mention his name before because I don't have any proof one way or the other as to the veracity of his testimony. I do doubt, however, that an advisor would invite an anonymous enlisted man along to watch him murder and skin a woman. The story doesn't ring true, as Bangert tells it. I'm sure something like that might have happened somewhere at some time---it was a long, long war, after all, fought by all kinds of characters---but I doubt Bangert was the eye-witness he claimed to be.

Anyway, every veterans group attracts a certain fringe element. It works both ways. Again, I don't want to name names, but there is a certain Medal of Honor winner who has been on the lecture circuit for years and whose stories of his heroism and derring-do get bigger and bigger with each retelling. His stories have gotten so big, in fact, that some of those who were also in the battle in which he earned the Medal of Honor have privately told him to knock it off. He hasn't.

The gung-ho, patriotic lies told by this Medal of Honor winner on the lecture circuit don't undercut the heroism and dedication of those who fought in Vietnam, just as the lies that Joe Bangert apparently told don't invalidate the testimony of everyone else who appears in WINTER SOLDIER.

Vietnam was a very personal experience. I've noticed over the years that veterans seem to think that whatever they saw---good or bad---was the way it was in all units at all times in Vietnam. I don't think that those who served in well-led units where abuses were few and far between have the right to denounce those veterans who saw things that led them into the VVAW.

Anyway, you guys have said over and over that the veterans in WINTER SOLDIER were frauds, liars, traitors, and dupes. You've got Joe Bangert nailed in telling what sure sounds like a second- or third-hand story. Aside from this (and Bangert was a real vet, just one with a big mouth), who are all the non-veteran frauds you guys keep talking about?

Mr. Boyle, it has been documented that C/1-20th committed multiple acts of murder, rape, and mayhem (stuff like stealing and beating up civilians) from the time the company first got to Vietnam (when your tour in the same area was winding down) until they rampaged through My Lai (by which time you were back in the United States). The officers in your battalion weren't the only ones who took notice of this behavior and reported it up the chain of command. Given that your whole point here has been to decry as lies everything said in WINTER SOLDIER, I'm not sure why you ever brought up the fact that the officers in your unit reported the crimes of C/1-20th, only to be brushed off by the chain of command. Like I said, that's VVAW talk.

In a website fueled by innuendoes, someone implied that there's something evil afoot because my books about Vietnam start with the Tet Offensive. Please spell out your accusation clearly. I wrote one book about USMC operations along the DMZ in the Summer of '67. I've written three which focus on the Tet Offensive, and one about USA-USMC operations along the DMZ in the Summer of '68. I also wrote about a little-known battle from the Summer of '69, plus books about the 101st Airborne in 1970, the invasions of Cambodia in 1970 and Laos in 1971, and finally, a book about the sapper attack on Firebase Mary Ann in the Spring of '71. In other words, I've written about a lot of different units in many times and places. Tell me again what I'm supposed to be apologizing for?

By the way, one of those books on Tet was a joint venture with Dwight W. Birdwell, who earned two Silver Stars and was (superficially) wounded three times while serving as an enlisted man in the 3/4th Armored Cavalry, 25th Division, 1967-68. Dwight is a tough ol' country boy and a rock-ribbed Republican. I'm sure he hates Kerry and the VVAW. Why would Dwight sit down and write a book with me if I'm really the left-wing whacko and liar that you guys keep accusing me of being?

Finally, why are you guys so comfortable with the fact that while Greenhat implied that he was a combat officer in Vietnam to bolster his points, it is now fairly apparent that he was just blowing smoke?

Why don't you real combat veterans take offense to Greenhat's dismissing of Kerry's demonstrated heroism in combat as nothing but "foolish heroism"?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: by demeaning the particulars of Kerry's honorable service in Vietnam, you're running down the contribution of everyone who served in Vietnam.

Shouldn't Kerry's conduct under fire be off limits on this website since those who served on Kerry's Swift boat have vouched for his leadership and heroism? Why don't you guys just stick to the VVAW stuff, and quit spitting on Kerry's Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Hearts?

And why are you also comfortable with the personal insults now flying from the keyboard of someone called DevilDon? DevilDon is not a combat veteran of Vietnam. He notes that he served with the peacetime Marine Corps. This qualifies him to scream at people who don't agree with his take on Vietnam? ****, my dad also served in the peacetime Marine Corps. Should I drag him online so that he can get into a pissing contest with DevilDon and tell him where he can shove his insults? But what would be the point? Can't we all agree that all the name-calling gets us nowhere?

Anyway, all the hair-splitting and rabbit-trails aside, I still keeping circling back to the original point I made at this site: Kerry's service in Vietnam was honorable, and he had every right in a free country to join the VVAW and speak out about issues like free-fire zones and H&I fire, the general public's blasé acceptance of My Lai, and the atrocities described by his compadres in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

For this, you want his head?

John O'Neill and the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace were on stage debating Kerry back in 1971. Isn't that the way conflicting viewpoints are supposed to be hashed out in the USA?

Keith Nolan

[sparky]

Yeah, that unwillingness on their part to call Greenhat on his exaggerations is pretty strange. It suggests that if you take their side, anything is permissible, even something that would otherwise be a cardinal sin if committed by your opponents.

[LewWaters]

[Greenhat]

[Greenhat]

Oh by the way, Keith...

You have read America in Vietnam by Guenter Lewy correct?

Read the section about the NIS investigations of the Winter Soldier testimony. Maybe this line will seem familiar: "The NIS also discovered that some of the most grisly testimony was given by fake witnesses who had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans."

Do you take the testimony of Mr. Onan (Marine) as honest and accurate?
_________________
De Oppresso Liber

[DougReese]

[quote="LewWaters"]
Crewmen that don't agree with his heroism and extraordinary leadership skills are swiftly discredited by any means possible in an effort to whitewash what just may have been a less than granduer 4 month tour.
[quote]

Maybe I missed something. Is there anyone besides Steven Gardner who falls into that caregory?

Doug

[KeithNolan]

Greenhat, you've got more twists than a barrel of pretzels. You claim that the Tiger Force never existed because you never heard of it while serving with the force's parent battalion, 1/327th Airborne Infantry.

The implication of this was clear: you served with the battalion in Vietnam. If you served with the 1/327th at Fort Campbell after Vietnam, it wouldn't be surprising at all that you didn't hear about the Tiger Force. I'm sure the unit was disbanded before the 101st departed Vietnam.

Anyway, I asked you about a half-dozen times to clarify the period with which you served with the 1/327th, and you never provided a direct answer. I finally concluded that though you had implied you were a combat officer in Vietnam, in fact, you were posing.

Now, you spring out and say, ah-hah, fooled you, I never said I served with the 1/327th in Vietnam. Gotcha!

Okay, you got me. No, you didn't say you served in Vietnam. You only implied it. Why didn't you just say that at the beginning of all this that you entered the army AFTER Vietnam? Why all the ducking, dodging, and confusion? What, ultimately, was your point?

When all is said and done, I don't understand why you keep denying that the 1/327th ever fielded an adhoc unit known as the Tiger Force. The Tiger Force was written about during the war by reporters like Ward Just and historians like S.L.A. Marshall. Why would these guys make up a unit that didn't exist? Why did the CID investigate a unit that didn't exist? Why did the TOLEDO BLADE write about a unit that didn't exist? Why do veterans like Foley write memoirs about their service with the Tiger Force?

You want to pretend that the Tiger Force didn't exist. You also want to pretend that everybody in the VVAW was a fraud and a liar. So how do you buttress that argument. By noting that as battalion historian, you "heard lots of [atrocity] stories, some worse than what Tiger Force was accused of[.]"

You lost me here. Is it your point that those Vietnam veterans who told atrocity stories in the presence of other Vietnam veterans who served in the same unit with them---and in the presence of the battalion historian---were lying for the sake of lying?

KWN

[waltjones]

Nolan: Greenhat's point was that you're a lousy historian who demonstrates that he only believes what he wants to believe, i.e. a hack! I think he has more than made his point!
Thatisall ...
_________________
Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor.