SwiftVets.com

[EODARMY]

Help? Religious groups may be the key to this election. Let us get an email campaign started to get Stolen Honor and the last two Swift Vet's/ POW's commercials out to the religious groups. Below is a letter I sent to one of these groups and at the very bottom is a single google search I located (email churches). "Let's Roll!"
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Religious values important?

Please help Veteran's by telling the truth about John Kerry. The Democrat's, John Kerry, and those billionaires (George Soros) supporting the 527 group's don't want American's to see this video, Stolen Honor. Please review the attached video on Stolen Honor and send to as many American's as possible. Also review the last two videos from Swift Vets and POW's for Truth:

Here are the links to the free video Stolen Honor:

http://www.chronwatch.com/link.asp?id=10562

http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/StolenHonor.wmv

http://www.stolenhonor.com/ (Available Monday, 25 Oct 04)

Here is the link to Swift Vets and POW's for Truth comercials:

http://www.swiftvets.com/

Think American Veteran's support John Kerry? In the survey of more than 4,000 full-time and part-time troops by the Army Times magazine, 73% said they would vote for Bush if the election were held today; 18% said they would vote for Kerry. That leaves only 9% undecided and I believe the majority of those will vote for Bush; so 80%-20%?

Democrats claim Bush has a secret plan to bring back the draft. This week, the Army announced that last month it was 30 percent short of its target of 7,274 new recruits. Can you blame young people for not joining and sacrificing when John Kerry states on Iraq: 'Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time'. If American's want the draft, elect John Kerry because many of those who are now serving are our sons, daughter's and grandchildren.

Col. Bud Day, former POW and Medal of Honor recipient states: 'How can you expect our son's and daughter's to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfather's'.

Religious values important; you bet! Review the Seven Army Values that every American soldier knows by heart. John Kerry has tramped every one of these:

Army Values
Loyalty | Duty | Respect | Selfless service | Honor | Integrity | Personal courage

“Army Values” is not merely a phrase for how members of the Army should act; they are who we are. We emulate the seven Army Values because they are the standard for behavior, not only in the Army, but in any ordered society.

Army Values received their impetus from the Army’s Character Development XXI initiative and have been part of the initial-entry training scene since July 1998, when dogtags and thousands of posters representing loyalty, duty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity and personal courage (the seven core Army Values) were distributed worldwide to the field down to company level. The Army designed color posters depicting each of the seven core values, while an eighth poster features all the values.

In Training and Doctrine Command, drill sergeants and instructors teach IET Soldiers how to be warriors, but in TRADOC the sense of the Army as a values-based institution also begins. Every member of TRADOC – Soldier and civilian – is responsible for living and mentoring others in the Army Values.

The Army’s seven core values and their importance in today’s Army are:

Loyalty
Loyalty is the faithful adherence to a person, unit or Army. It is the thread that binds our actions together and causes us to support each other, our superiors, our family and our country.

Supporting a superior or a program even though it is being openly criticized by peers or subordinates requires courage and loyalty. A loyal intermediate would try to explain the rationale behind the decision and support the decision maker. When we establish loyalty to our Soldiers, the unit, our superiors, our family and the Army, we must be sure the “correct ordering” of our obligations are being accomplished and not the easiest. There is no clear rule as to which comes first. Sometimes it will be the service, sometimes the family and sometimes the Soldier.

Open criticism and being disloyal to leaders, Soldiers and the Army destroys the foundation of the organization and results in diminished mission accomplishment. However, loyalty should not be confused with blind obedience to illegal orders. We all take the oath to obey the orders of superiors appointed over us “according to law and regulations.”



“Never say anything bad about your outfit, but equally important, never say anything bad about your higher headquarters. We are all professionals trying to do the best things we can in our outfits everyday.” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general



Duty
Duty is the legal or moral obligation to accomplish all assigned or implied tasks to the fullest of your ability. Every Soldier must do what needs to be done without having to be told to do it.

Duty requires a willingness to accept full responsibility for your actions and for your Soldiers’ performance. It also requires a leader to take the initiative and anticipate requirements based on the situation. One Soldier may think that duty means putting in time from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Another may believe that duty is selflessly serving their country, unit and Soldiers within the unit. Duty means accomplishing all assigned tasks to the best of your ability. The quote “I regret that I have but one life to give to my country” is an example of an unquestionable commitment to duty.

You may be asked to put the nation’s welfare and mission accomplishment ahead of the personal safety of you and your Soldiers. Soldiers and leaders must have a deep commitment to duty and what is best for the unit and the Army. This will ensure that you make the right decision when it really counts.

Respect
Respect is treating others with consideration and honor. It is the ability to accept and value other individuals.

Respect begins with a fundamental understanding that all people possess worth as human beings. Respect is developed by accepting others and acknowledging their worth without feeling obligated to embrace all their ideas. An example of lack of respect is when a Soldier approaches you and offers a better way to get a job done, instead of showing the Soldier respect, you tell her, “You’ll do it my way because I am the boss!”

All of us possess special skills and adhere to certain values. Without respect for all other individuals, there would not be a cohesive and team-oriented Army.



“I’ll give you three tips … [for leadership], and they’re very simple. If I were to go back to be a lieutenant, I think I could be successful by following the Golden Rule, just treating others as I wanted to be treated. Secondly, do what’s right legally, morally, ethically every day. No matter what the pressures, do what is right all the time. … And third, make your subordinates successful. … You want to see every one of your Soldiers become a squad leader, become a noncommissioned officer, rise in ranks and be battalion sergeant major.” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general



Selfless service
Selfless service is placing your duty before your personal desires. It is the ability to endure hardships and insurmountable odds because of love of fellow Soldiers and our country.

Placing your duty before your personal desires has always been key to the uniqueness of the American Soldier. As citizen-Soldiers, we claim our service to the nation, state and community to be an especially valuable contribution. Imagine a unit where the value of selfless service was not instilled. The unit receives a call to active duty and has only two weeks to deploy. Instead of the unit working as a cohesive team in preparation for deployment, many Soldiers start to actively seek ways to avoid deployment. Remember, the selfless Soldier does not make decisions and take actions designed to promote self, further a career or enhance personal comfort.

For leaders, the age-old phrase of “mission, men and me” still rings true today. Selfless service is the force that encourages every Soldier. It is critical to the esprit and well-being of military organizations. By serving selflessly while on and off duty, we greatly enhance our value to our fellow citizens.

Honor
Honor is living up to the Army Values. It starts with being honest with oneself and being truthful and sincere in all our actions.

As Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said, “The untruthful Soldier trifles with the lives of his countrymen and the honor and safety of his country.” Being honest with oneself is perhaps the best way to live the Army Values. If something does not feel right to you, or you feel you are having to compromise your values, then you need to seriously assess the situation and take steps to correct or report the issue. Pressures that can challenge our ethical reasoning include self-interest, peer pressure, pressure from subordinates or pressure from superiors. If a superior asks you to look good on an inspection by “doctoring records,” you should, based on the Army Values, challenge his request.

Honor is defined as living up to the Army Values. Maintaining respect, consideration, integrity, honesty and nobleness will ensure that you and your military organization will reflect great honor for your fellow Soldier, the nation, state and local community.



“American Soldiers are the most humane Soldiers in the world. From what we accomplish overseas every day, our Soldiers are perfectly capable of closing with and destroying up close any opponent and a moment later caring for a child or an injured opponent. That’s the unique quality we have in this force … because they’re disciplined, because we have values that will endure. No matter what changes are made in this great Army of ours, those values, that value set – loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage – will endure; that will never change. We’re willing to look at everything else to make this Army better, but we are anchored on those values.” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general



Integrity
Integrity means to firmly adhere to a code of moral and ethical principles. Every Soldier must possess high personal moral standards and be honest in word and deed.

Living and speaking with integrity is very hard. You must live by your word for everything – no buts, no excuses. Having integrity and being honest in everything you say and do builds trust. For example, your artillery crew accidentally damages an expensive artillery round of ammunition. This will result in an AR 15-6 investigation. Instead of telling the battery commander you damaged the round, you decide to stretch the truth and tell him the round was defective. When the battery commander discovers the truth, he will question your integrity from that moment on.

Integrity is the basis for trust and confidence that must exist among members of the Army. It is the source for great personal strength and is the foundation for organizational effectiveness. As leaders, all Soldiers are watching and looking to see that you are honest and live by your word. If you make a mistake, you should openly acknowledge it, learn from it and move forward.

Personal courage
Physical courage is overcoming fears of bodily harm while performing your duty. Moral courage is overcoming fears of other than bodily harm while doing what is right, even if unpopular.

It takes special courage to make and support unpopular decisions. Others may encourage you to support slightly unethical or convenient solutions. For example, your battalion commander has asked you to change an upcoming training date for the convenience of the battalion headquarters staff. Although it will be an unpopular decision with the battalion commander, you stick to your scheduled training dates to support your Soldiers. Do not compromise your professional ethics or your individual values and moral principles. If you believe you are right after sober consideration, hold to your position.

Practicing physical and moral courage in our daily lives builds a strong and honorable character. We expect and encourage candor and integrity from all Soldiers. Taking the immediate and “right” actions in a time of conflict will save lives.



“If you visit our Soldiers in Walter Reed (Hospital), … to a person, they’re inspiring. Nobody is wringing their hands, no one (is saying), ‘What’s going to happen to me,’ or this or that; they want to stay in the service.” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general

Another example of personal courage: “An Apache battalion commander named Jim Richardson, right after Operation Anaconda – he and another Apache are flying back from the operation. He hears a distress call that says I’m going down. He can’t get a response on the radio. By the time he can turn his aircraft around, he sees they’re in mountainous terrain; he sees a cloud of dust, and he fears the worst. He brings his aircraft back to it. He’s hovering over the aircraft, the aircraft’s destroyed, but he sees movement in the cockpit. He can’t land, so he directs his co-pilot to take the controls, he pops the canopy on the Apache, and he personally jumps out of that aircraft and rescues those two airmen, and they’re OK. This is a battalion commander: 38-40 years old with 18-20 years of service.” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general

“The enduring quality of American servicemen and –women (is) unbelievable: the values, the character, the commitment, the service. …” – Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, Training and Doctrine Command’s commanding general


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God Bless Our Veteran's And God Bless The United States Of America.
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(Edited to remove "broadcast" email addresses. Thanks, EJ)

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

I really like your idea for getting information out through churches, but I have several cautions.

First, sending unsolicited email to someone with whom you have no previous relationship can result in your being reported for spamming. Depending upon your ISP, as few as three complaints can result in your disconnection.

Then, too, if we have 22 emails (or more, knowing this industrious group. ) landing in someone's inbox with identical content, it could end up being bad for us - we've just made ourselves a nuisance.

A short, sweet email that says that these POW's have a right to be heard and that "Stolen Honor; Wounds That Never Heal" tells a story of incredible strength would probably be fine. Include the link to download the movie and ask that the recipient forward the link to anyone who may be interested in seeing this moving documentary.

An interested secretary could print this email out and post it and perhaps even include a link in their church bulletin.

I would suggest that everyone find their own email addresses for their own local churches - this blankets the country a little better and it avoids the possibility of our emails being considered a nuisance.

Good luck - this is a good idea.



.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[momofthreegirls]

You might be better off contacting religious action committees like American Family Association and Faith 2 Action. These people have newsletters and action alerts that they email out to people on their lists and then those people are encouraged to email them to their friends. The problem with contacting churches is that many of them don't want to be too involved in the election because they don't want to alienate anyone. Now that I think about it D. James Kennedy also has an organization that is active in the election. He is the Pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Florida and I am sure if you do a search on him you will be able to get that information.

[Me#1You#10]

Moving to R&R Forum

Thanks