SwiftVets.com

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Magruder44 wrote:

VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM
Leonard Magruder - Founder/President
Former professor of psychology, Suffolk College, N.Y.
Member: National Association of Scholars

(Vietnam vet contact: General Carl Schneider (ret.) -Korea, Vietnam - at If this arrives chopped up, there is a correct copy at v-v-a-r.org.)

VET GROUP OFFERS FREE NEW FILM FOR TV - SHOWS NEGATIVE IMPACT OF KERRY, WAR PROTESTORS, ON VETS

"ARMY TIMES " POLL SHOWS 80% OF SOLDIERS REJECT KERRY - EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT AS OUR POLL, COVERED UP BY THE MEDIA.

The Kerry statement to Congress in 1971, shown recently on CNN, was more than what he claims it to be, just an anguished cry from those who had seen horror of war and wanted it ended. There was an agenda involved, an ideology, very similar to the one argued by people like Jane Fonda, Jerry Rubin, and Ramsey Clark. Like them Kerry emphasized "atrocities", "immorality", and "out now" with no regard for the fate of the South Vietnamese. He told Congress the whole war rested on atrocities, that South Vietnam was a nothing, that the idea of Communist involvement was mystical, that it was a civil war between freedom fighters (the Viet Cong) and an oppressive South Vietnamese government being helped by imperialist America. He fed the falsehoods that minorities were disproportionately represented, that the Vietnam veteran is ashamed of his service, and that the government had used them. Kerry said the U.S. was the criminal element in Vietnam, not the Communist North.

Craig Gordon of "Newsday's" Washington Bureau wrote of this testimony in an article on Feb 21, this year, "It is considered by many to be one of the peace movement's defining moments. Kerry's speech helped galvanize the protests and turn popular opinion against the war. "
On the effect of this, Chuck Lawrence, Vietnam vet and author wrote, "The conduct by Kerry and his friends played a significant part and role in Vietnam veterans being ostracized by our society."
By O'Neill and Corsi, in "Unfit for Command."-"Kerry's false allegations had a profound and lasting long-lasting effect on the American public's view of the Vietnam-era military. Soldiers returning from Vietnam were treated with a degree of contempt that has no parallel in American history, and the image of the Vietnam veteran as murderous, drug-addled psychotics persists in American cultture to today."

That is what this film is about, the disgraceful treatment of vets when they returned home, as a result of the lies of antiwar groups, including Kerry's group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Is it any wonder Lawrence went on to ask, "Do we really want a president who organized and led anti-war and anti-American protests and demonstrations under the flag of the enemy we were fighting ?"
Vets also complain that Kerry seems to have no understanding of a new type of enemy, nor any idea of how to handle such an enemy. His lifelong history of preference for negotiation, dialogue, compromise, even appeasement, they believe, would prove utterly useless in dealing with the terrorists, making him very dangerous as Commander-in-Chief.

To help in the debate over Kerry's role in demoralizing both veterans and the public during the '70's, I am offering a free copy of my new film,"Vietnam vets Condemn War Protestors like Kerry" to any vet or vet group, or any TV station person, that can get the film on local Public Access TV. Most TV stations, as a public service, will give up to an hour of free time to any group wanting to present some reasonable program. Based on 62 interviews with Vietnam vets there was only time for 12 in the film, but all 62 of those interviewed agreed about the damage done to them by antiwar groups such as Kerry's. It has been edited down to 38 minutes to allow for the addition of almost 22 minutes of live comment on Kerry by invited Vietnam vets. The purpose of this project is to provide testimony by vets about the damage done by the 60's-70's war protestors, followed by a live panel of Vietnam vets discussing how Kerry and his group contributed to this damage and why he is "Unfit for Command". Or the film can be used in any program to tell the story of how vets were treated when they returned because of the lies of the war protestors.
The standards for Public Access TV are lower than for other type films, but you should take out a good ad for the showing as Public Access TV doesn't as a rule get much publicity. I was able to show it once on Public Access TV locally and it was received quite favorably. Anyone who has success in getting it shown on TV, please let me know. I will send out a press release and the project will spread. I was only able to spot- check each copy, so if you find a problem, just let me know and I'll send you another copy. We have releases for each person shown in the film.There is still time to show the film, I will send it to you overnight, and even after the election it can be used to show today's students how the war protestors of the 60's lied, largely to avoid the draft. So everybody please ask yourself, can I get 2-3 vets to join me in going to the local TV station and asking them for an hour on Public Access. Maybe you will luck out and they will include it in their regular programming.
Many Vietnam vets write me asking how they can help. This is how you can help.

This film is an amateur production.But is seems to have come out rather well. In 1986 I simply grabbed a camcorder and went to the Houston Vietnam Veterans Parade and asked vets the one queston the media had studiously avoided, "How do you feel about the war protestors?" To my knowledge this is the only film we have that focuses on this one issue.
This special edition has only the interviews, no introduction or ending, so the TV station will have to add the following information:

"Vietnam vets Condemn War Protestors like Kerry"
presented by
Vietnam Veterans for Academic Refrorm
Production and interviews by Leonard Magruder
Founder/President
A representative sample from 62 interviews done
at the Houston Vietnam Veterans Parade..
v-v-a-r.org

What the public wants to hear is how the Vietnam veteran community, and other vets, feel with regard to who would make the best Commander-in-Chief. From all the data I have seen it is clear that a very large majority are opposed to Kerry in this role. In fact, 32 polls sent to us from Vietnam vet groups all over the country show that 80% of all Vietnam vets are opposed to Kerry. (see our updated Presidential Poll at v-v-a-r.org) When we reported this in a national press release it was instantly covered up by the entire media.

Isn't it obvious that Vietnam veterans would very much like to see one of their own become President? Isn't it also obvious that if 80% are against one of their own becoming president that they must have a very good reason and the public should know about this ? Shouldn't the nation be alarmed when 220 out of 226 vets who served in the Swift Boat unit with Kerry signed a letter saying he was unfit to command, and even wrote a book documenting their concerns ? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Now Special Forces Vietnam veterans have sent a large petition to Kerry in solidarity with the Swift Boat veterans stating that Kerry is "unfit to be our Commander-in-Chief or to lead our nation as President. We call upon the American people to reject his effort."
In trying to warn America to reject Kerry are these veterans not making a second sacrifice for the sake of their country, inasmuch as they would like to see a Vietnam veteran become president? But the media, which betrayed their sacrifices in Vietnam, is betraying them a second time, not allowing them to be heard, calling it politics.
In times of crisis, as in the case of the Vietnam War, and now in the case of the Iraq War, the media tend to act as an unelected counter-government, believing that only they know what is best for the country. But what they are really doing is once again robbing the American people of the ability to make critical judgements about their most vital security interests in a time of war.
On the very reasonable assumption that those who have experienced war would know a lot about what makes a good Commander-in-Chief, then their views would be of great interest to those with no war experience trying to decide on this issue. The media knows this. That is why they won't discuss the issue.

There are two issues here of absolutely vital importance to the nation. First, the media is withholding from the public documented evidence that the Armed Forces, Vietnam veterans, and Swift Boat vets by a significant majority reject Kerry as Commander-in-Chief, and second, that what this means is that if Kerry wins there will be a paralyzing tension between the armed forces and the Commander-in-Chief in a time of war.
We therefore urge everyone to join us in this fight in any way you can until the headline "Veterans Overwhelmingly Reject Kerry as Commander-in-Chief "appears on the front page of ever major newspaper in the country.

I have just finished a second protest at a newspaper of the cover-up of our poll, carrying a large poster that reads, "Stop the Media Cover-up for Kerry." For an account of this campaign see "A Wave is Rising" at v-v-a-r.org.
There have now been some important breakthroughs in this campaign. "USA Today" on Oct. 4, because it was backed up by the Army, had to report that a large poll taken by "The Army Times" showed that today's soldiers prefer Bush by 4-to-1. (Troops in Survey Back Bush 4-to-1 Over Kerry) That is 80%, exactly the same figure we gave the media. Also, I was interviewed for an hour on this issue last Sunday on station KHNC, Golden, Colorado, carried nationally by the American Freedom Network thereby breaking through the cover-up by even the local newspapers, "The Lawrence Journal-World" and "The University Daily Kansan.".

Here are excerpts from what is said by every veteran that appears in our film, showing how the impact of statements by Kerry and other war protestors impacted the returned veteran.

Veteran A: Now that hurt me a lot. They yelled at us, Nixon's hired guns. Does one need a college education to do that?
Veteran B: All they cared about was themselves, and those who served in Vietnam they didn’t give jack---- about and that stinks. When a country turns its mind and body against a veteran who fought a war for that country, that stinks.
Veteran C: When I returned I could only keep going if I forgot my Vietnam service, shut it out of my life. But I don't feel that way anymore. I have every reason to be proud of what I did in Vietnam.
Veteran D: Humiliating, insulting, degrading. It hurt, what the protestors did.
Veteran E: They protested the fact that the American soldier was in Vietnam, but when we came back they treated us like dirt - they didn't care.
Veteran F: When we came home we wanted to fit back into society as soon as possible. But it didn't work out that way. They kept saying, “you must be one of those baby killers, one of the psychopathic killers of Vietnam. When you start living with something like that you start telling people you were not over in Vietnam, just out of the country.
Veteran G: They were idiots...we came home alone, straight into the jaws of insensitive idiots. The peace movement was very diverse, from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (Kerry's group) to mothers and fathers who couldn't understand.
Veteran H: Because of them we were portrayed as people that we were not, as baby killers and all of that. If they could make those returning feel they had done something wrong it added credibility to their arguments. It was a tack taken so they would not have to go.
Veteran I: Oh boy, do I remember that, spitting at us at the airport and saying we were rapists, that we raped babies, and they left a mark on us, making people think that we were no good.
Veteran J: When we got back we were blacklisted as very uncomfortable reminders to those people who opposed the war, and many of them felt the arrogant need to isolate many of those who tried to come home and re-penetrate those peer groups - they were ordered to the closet. It was especially difficult for disabled veterans, who were told their sacrifice was a stupid and unnecessary act of patriotism.

In listening to what the vets say in this film we need to remember that not only veterans, but the majority of the American people had no use for the war protestors. In fact, we need to remember just how treasonous the campus "peace"movement really was. "Commentary" of Feb. 1980 reported that 28% of all college students in the 60's supported the Viet Cong, while 51% of those in the "peace" movement favored a Viet Cong victory. A poll by the Univ. of Michigan showed that reactions to "Vietnam war protestors" by the public was by a wide margin the most negative shown to any group. The Harris poll showed, at the height of the war that 69% of the public believed that anti-war demonstrations were "acts of disloyalty against the boys fighting in Vietnam", and 65% agreed "the protestors were giving aid and comfort to the Communists." (see "America in Our Time", by the noted British historian Godfrey Hodgson.)

Yet, in spite of these facts, too often, the university, and even our high schools, continue to teach students that the war protestors were the "heroes" of Vietnam.They are never told the truth, that the real heroes came back to slander and ostracism by their peers who would not serve. There is this hugh lie still at the heart of today's discussion on campus about the Vietnam War, designed, of course, to protect the many in academia (and in the media) who turned their backs on a fight for freedom so many years ago. This film can help expose that. .
Like most liberals, Kerry shares the illusion that most Americans see the "anti-war" protestor such as himself as a "hero," and he even felt that this would help his candidacy.
David Broder, noted columnist of "The Washington Post," recently wrote, "Kerry once told me he thought it would be doubly advantageous that,'I fought in Vietnam and I also fought against the Vietnam War.' " He did fight in the war. Although apparently not enthusiastically, having first requested a year deferment to go study in Paris, and then seeking out safe off-shore duty in the Navy. But in his protest back home he lied about the war. Neither the American people nor the majority of veterans see the protestors as "heroes."It was a hugh blunder playing the Vietnam card.

We end this article by reproducing something from our last article, because this is the most important issue of all and so far no one is talking about it, not even in the debates- the connection between Islam and nuclear attack and the need to develop a doctrine to defend against this. Our next article will deal exclusively with this subject.The top priority issue in this coming election is who will best protect America against terrorists, whom we know for a certainty will use nuclear devices if they have them. Kerry would be very weak on national security compared to President Bush. The Center for Security Policy has rated Kerry among the worst when it comes to national security. In 1997 he scored exactly zero. Going by this, a vote for Kerry would appear to be suicide

For Bush to win this election all he has to do is publicly warn the terrorists of a new addition to the Bush Doctrine, a plan for instant, massive, terrifying retaliation on hundreds of known and suspected terrorist cells in any Muslim nation, with or without permission, in response to any attack on us. Bush would do this. It is doubtful that Kerry would. Therein you see the danger the nation is headed for if Kerry wins. Without a threat of retaliation, announced in advance, a president would have to surrender the nation, for example, in the face of multiple nuclear devices already in place.

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Vietnam vet organizations
K.U. faculty and student org
http://www.i-served.com/MagruderArticlesIndex.html

[Me#1You#10]

Has this group co-ordinated their efforts with the academic reform movement on David Horowitz's "FrontPageMag"?

[Theresa Alwood]

Wow! 20% of vets will actually vote for Kerry. We need to get to those other 20% to let them see who John Kerry is.
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Born to raise a little hell!