SwiftVets.com

[Maggie]

To the Swiftboad Vets, POWs, and Vietnam vets in general,

I was a child and young teen during the Vietnam War. I recall seeing the news reports on TV, and in magazines and news papers. I recall feeling the war was so far away from me it was as if it were on another planet. It looked so scary to me. I wasn't afraid for myself, but for the [soldiers] I saw in the news clips, and in the still pictures.

When I was around 12 or 13 my Father's cousin was killed in Vietnam. We went to the military funeral in Western Pennsylvania. It was a closed casket. As we stood in the very cold late autumn afternoon in a church cemetery on a hill I was distracted by looking around at the crowd of faces I didn't know in my Father's extended family that had gathered. Without warning the rifles were fired in salute. I must've jumped ten feet with each firing. It was in those loud moments my young mind froze with fear at what war must really sound like. I quaked beyond my cold shivering.

When I entered high school I purchased one of the POW bracelets that became popular at the time. I wore it for several years. At one point I had to remove it to go into surgery. I was so fearful that if I took the bracelet from the warmth and pulse of my arm that something horrible might happen to my POW. So, my Mother pressed her wrist to mine and we made this difficult Houdini transfer of the bracelet to her arm. As soon as I woke up in my room after recovery I insisted Mom shift it back onto my arm again.

At some point in my late teens I removed the bracelet, figuring my POW had returned home with all the others. But the question if he really did return haunted me for years. It was in the early 1980s I decided to try and track down my POW by writing letters to the State Department and Defense Department. I received letters back saying they could not divulge information to me about my POW, but if I wanted to write a letter to him, they would forward it to him. That's what I did, and they sent it to him.

He had indeed survived over 6 years in captivity in Vietnam. He wrote me back filled with surprise at the fact I tracked him down after all the passing years. He included precious saved clippings from his local newspaper that had heralded his return home to his wife and family, already tinting yellow with the passage of time since their printing. With return address inhand, I wrote him a more personal letter and tucked the bracelet inside the envelope. I felt it was closure for us both.

In my adult years I have come to greatly appreciate what our Vietnam Veterans did. You have the distinct misfortune of being the most underrated and abused veterans of any of our wars. Your battle on the homefront these last three decades has been admirable. Most recently you were "spat upon" again by Kerry operatives, and the main stream media... oddly one in the same most times.

I do believe in my heart and soul your story was a very large reason John Kerry was defeated. He made the biggest mistake in his life, political and otherwise, when he decided he could pretend to be something he was/is not... a real war hero. The American people are not so gullible. To look into his face, and to look into your faces, we could see who the true heroes were/are.

I want to thank you all for having the courage to step forward and battle not only John Kerry, but the complicit news media. You all are heroes all over again.

Thank you for defeating this charlatan before he could become Commander in Chief in our great nation.

Keep up the good fight. You won the battle. You will win the war.

God bless and keep all of you wonderful Americans.

Maggie
Youngstown, Ohio
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"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." --Winston Churchill

[Maggie]

You Veterans must keep fighting for your rightful history that was stolen from you.

I read doc's post about feeling he is now at a loss of purpose now that John Kerry has been defeated.

Along with the rights to your war history, many of you are still young enough to fight for the men and women who are now at war for this country's freedom and safety. Their history is being twisted and berated as we speak.

My daughter's fiance's best friend, a Marine, lost his leg just a few short weeks ago in Iraq due to a rocket attack on his barracks. He might lose the other leg as well, as most of the calf muscle tissue is gone. He is but one of many who have given the ultimate sacrifice for the preservation of freedom and security for this great nation, either in limb or life.

You veterans, along with our help, MUST uphold their honor and sacrifice now, because it is obvious the media and many within our country and government are on a mission to destroy them. They are counting on us. The battle is on.

God bless you, and God bless and protect them.

Maggie
_________________
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." --Winston Churchill