by Skull & Bones Kerry
Sunday, Jan. 18,
2004 at
10:47
AM
What Skull & Bones Member Sen
John Kerry don't want you to Know/Remember...
Portion of John Kerry remarks on
NBC's "Meet the Press" May 6, 2001:
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned
you're a military guy. There's been a lot of
discussion about Bob Kerrey, your former Democratic colleague in
the
Senate,
Here is some more info about Kerry from
former VIETNAM POW Michael Benge...
John Kerry's war record
When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on
Veterans
Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked
away. They
remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified
before Congress
during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals.
The dust jacket
of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features
a photograph of
his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps
Memorial, which
depicts the flag-raising on Iwo
Jima, with an upside-down
American flag.
Retired Gen.
Response Jim C:
What you say is true although I believe that it is important to visit and even
reproduce some of these sources if for no other reason than to provoke
responses such as yours. But I have to say, not only for the Kerry types but
for other vets as well, you can't have it both ways: 1) I participated in a
genocidal war and a cornocopia of outright war crimes while serving as a
willing tool of U.S. imperialism; versus 2) I am still somehow "proud" of my
"service" and medals and continue to trade on my "service" and
medals and even celebrate all of it.
There is no
aspect of my own military service I am interested in celebrating, bragging
about, or whatever; it is a shame I will carry with me for the rest of my
life. When I came home in 1966, and later joined and worked with VVAW, I saw,
among some of the "anti-War" Vietnam and non-Vietnam vets, some of the same
shit you find at the typical VFW and American Legion meetings: wearing
bush/fatigue jackets and medals, pecking orders based on bush versus REMF
time, in-country versus out-of-country, officers versus enlisted, CIB
versus non-CIB, airborne versus non-airborne, etc etc etc. I saw some of the
vets still doing "vet-speak" ("Charlie" versus NLF, "the Nam" versus Vietnam)
and some still had a glint in the eye when thinking about the "primo dope" and
"cheap pussy" available; they didn't get the point.
Up until the
Tet Offensive in 1968, almost all troops in Vietnam were volunteers; only
after Tet were draftees sent without putting in a 1049 for
transfer. There is nothing like a good war to turn a "nobody" into a
"somebody"--the Audie Murphy syndrome. Some of those I "served" with
were outright sociopaths, losers, fuck-ups, predators, psychopaths etc looking
for a war environment with few rules and restraints. They didn't get fucked
up FROM Vietnam, they went to Vietnam because they were already fucked up
and looking for a little "glory" to nurture some of the ol self-esteem
problems. Even VVAW, by its own name, still celebrates the veteran status
(ostensibly to note that combat veterans can be the best source to warn others
about what war is really about.) and had, in my day, some forms of celebration
of exactly what they were designed not to celebrate but to
expose--participation in genocidal wars as tools of U.S.
imperialism.
In Kerry's
case, as a member of Skull and Bones (68) before he left, he was driven by the
"three ordeals" of the Bones: prep school; business; war. Bonesmen are
expected to "make their bones" through participation in all three of the
"ordeals." So Kerry's own celebrations of his "war record" and "bravery" are
indeed hypocritical, disingenuous etc regardless of who is making the point
and regardless of for what agenda. That is why they are making some noise
about Bush's own "military record" which can be seen and documented fully on
www.awolbush.com (The dems of course had
nothing to say about it in the last selection 2000).
Jim
C