John Kerry's Anti-War Book Riles Former Green Beret

[thedrifter]

John Kerry's Anti-War Book Riles Former Green Beret
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 19, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - John F. Kerry downplayed any threat posed by the communist government of North Vietnam in his 1971 book The New Soldier and instead charged that American soldiers "were killing women and children" and helping to create "a nation of refugees, bomb craters, amputees, orphans, widows, and prostitutes..." in Vietnam.

The book, a copy of which CNSNews.com has obtained, is very difficult to find 33 years after it was written. Single copies of the book reportedly are selling for as high as $849.95 on the Internet. The cover of the book displays long-haired, bearded men carrying an upside down American flag in an apparent mockery of the famous planting of the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.

The book might not mean much if Kerry weren't the frontrunner in the Democratic race for president and fresh off another win this week in the Wisconsin primary.

But Kerry's anti-war activism of three decades ago is being attacked by among others, a retired Green Beret, who labels the Massachusetts senator's behavior upon returning from Vietnam "a Benedict Arnold type of betrayal."

In the book's epilogue, which begins on page 158, Kerry sums up his views on the war by writing, "We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children." Kerry served in Vietnam, receiving three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.

The book is a compilation of testimonies from members of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It alleges abuses and crimes committed by U.S. soldiers while on duty in Vietnam.

Kerry is listed as the author. His former brother-in-law and current campaign adviser, David Thorne and documentary maker George Butler were credited with editing the book.

Ted Sampley, a retired Green Beret and founder of the website VietnamVeteransAgainstJohnKerry.com told CNSNews.com that Kerry's book and his anti-war activism during the early 1970s represented nothing less than "a Benedict Arnold type of betrayal."

Sampley, a Vietnam veteran and current publisher of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, said "the communists used [Kerry's and his group's allegations] and gained great propaganda value out of that."

In the book, Kerry states that Vietnamese citizens "didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy" and he instead blamed the United States for causing chaos in Vietnam.

"In the process we created a nation of refugees, bomb craters, amputees, orphans, widows, and prostitutes, and we gave new meaning to the words of the Roman historian Tacitus: 'Where they made a desert they called it peace,'" Kerry explained.

Kerry also said he "saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism..."

But Sampley refutes Kerry's charges of widespread atrocities. "Many of the people who made those [atrocity] allegations were not even Vietnam veterans," Sampley said.

"From my experience of two combat tours in Vietnam, I never witnessed anything like [Kerry] described anywhere and if I had, I would not have allowed it to happen," Sampley said. "Most American soldiers are really offended [by Kerry's allegations], because everyone would not have behaved like that and it was a lie," he added.

Kerry predicted that as a result of their experiences during the war, veterans like himself "will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars..."

"We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim," he wrote.

Long before Kerry's Democratic rival, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, complained of there being "two Americas," one for the rich and powerful, the other for the poor, Kerry was using the phrase in his 1971 book.

"I think that more than anything, the New Soldier is trying to point out how there are two Americas - the one the speeches are about and the one we really are," Kerry wrote.

"We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years," Kerry added.

Kerry wrote that his tours of duty in Vietnam irrevocably transformed his outlook on the military.

"Because of all that I saw in Vietnam, the treatment of civilians, the ravaging of their countryside, the needless, useless deaths, the deception and duplicity of our policy, I changed," Kerry wrote.

While Kerry maintained on page 166 that he was "still willing to pick up arms and defend it (America) - die for it if necessary," the book left the impression that the nature of war needed to be classified as criminal activity.

One page after Kerry's epilogue concludes the book quotes Ernest Hemingway calling all war "a crime."

"Never think that war no matter how necessary nor how justified is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead," reads the Hemingway quote on page 167 of Kerry's book.

While Kerry's anti-war activism has created controversy with many Vietnam veterans, others defend the would-be president.

Former Democratic U.S. senator and decorated Vietnam veteran Max Cleland from Georgia said Kerry "was articulating what so many of us felt deep in our gut."

"I wouldn't have joined an anti-war parade, but John came back and began to see that the greatest service to his veterans was to fight (President) Nixon and to stop the war," Cleland said, according to wire reports.

Kerry defended his anti-war activism last week, calling his protests "a measurement of character."

"I didn't love coming back from the war I fought in and having to tell people, 'This is wrong, this is screwed up.' But it was," Kerry said, according to wire reports.

But Sampley said he and many other Vietnam veterans believe Kerry betrayed and dishonored the soldiers who fought the war.

"In order to get to where he is today, to run for president, John Kerry had to wade through the blood of American servicemen still on the battlefield in 1971," Sampley said.

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics...20040219a.html


Sempers,

Roger

[namgrunt]

Hanoi John is not THE JFK, and Max Clelland is no George S. Patton. It wasn't Nixon's war, it was LBJ's.

My eldest sister gave me a copy of Kerry's book decades ago. I think the mice got to it in the attic. I wonder what I could get for a rodent infested book on E-Bay?

[greybeard]

A pristine copy with the origianal picture on the cover was going for over $1000 a few weeks ago. If I had one, I'd run it thru the shredder and use it for kitty litter. No offense intended namgrunt, but if my sis gave me one of those, we'd have to have a heart to heart talk.

[namgrunt]

I'd normally never destroy a book, Greybeard. You never know when it may serve as incriminating evidence.

[greybeard]

Good point!!

[Super Dave]

Or use the boot to beat her...Just a thought though.

[usmc4669]

The old saying is a picture is worth a thousand words see Kerry's picture protesting.

[ivalis]

I think Kerry was echoing Smedly Butler's feelings. "War is a racket"

I don't see any of you fine Marines bad mouthing Smedley's sentiment.

[Phantom Blooper]

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC. General Butler was the recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor.
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. . . .

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

[namgrunt]

Interesting speech by Smedley Butler. Its worth researching the speech to peruse it in it's entirety, and see before whom it was delivered. Until then, I'll withhold comment on it.

It doesn't change my view of Hanoi John Kerry.

namgrunt

[ivalis]

Namgrunt, If Smedly would of said that in 1971 you would have called him a traitor too.

The irony brings a smile to my mug.

[namgrunt]

I don't recall commenting on Butler's loyalties, o smirking one. Don't ever try putting words in my mouth again, you understand me!

I consider Kerry a turncoat by his actions and their consequences. I don't have that opinion of Smedley Butler. If my research changes that oipinion, then it will change. But until and unless I make that change, not you nor anyone else speaks for me. Are we Clear!

Lee Harvey Oswald was once a Marine too. I don't call him "brother" because he betrayed the oath he took. I consider Kerry's oath to have been discarded along with the medals he tossed back. 'Nuff Said!

namgrunt

[greybeard]

If frogs had wings they wouldn't hit their ass on the ground every time they jumped. He spoke those words in 1933 in regards to a time when this country,and the rest of the world was still very much in colonial mode. Very late 1800's and early 1900's. Care to explain the relevance of your analogy to the contemporary? Would you rather be paying the high price the rest of the world paid for it's inaction? Kerry was trying to make a name for himself in front of the anti-war crowd that was prevalent in the 70's-in preparation for a political career. That's the way the wind was blowing at the time. Now, he claims to be a war hero? I'm guessing the wind has suddenly changed direction and he went with it. And yes, Butler took a lot of flack at the time of his comments, from both within and outside the Corps. His words proved to be less than accurate Dec 7, 1941.

[namgrunt]

Interesting reading, this "War is a Racket", by Smedley Butler. I see where some comparisons may be made to certain antiwar "ideals", but not in the implementation, nor in the ultimate goal. Gen. Butler was against war for the damage it wrought on humanity, particularly this country. He even offered a plan to end war, by drafting the corporations and manufacturers of war materials and paying them (the Directors, CEO's and such) the same as the lowest man sent to face combat. It would have a nullifying effect on expectations of profiteering on war demands.

It may have worked back in the early thirties, but would not fly now. Too much has changed. Butler's intentions were honorable in the writing of his book. Most importantly, he didn't charge his fellow servicemen with crimes just for serving. He didn't say to give up to an enemy which might come at us. He wanted to unplug the whole shebang, and that didn't happen.

His words were harsh, but his goal was to save lives and a way of life which has since disappeared. I don't like how he said what he said, but I cannot fault his intention outright.

Perhaps I'm looking through rose-colored blinders because he was a Marine, but he certainly is no John Kerry, by any stretch of the imagination. The comparison made earlier FAILS to stand, in my opinion.

Semper Fi!
namgrunt

[usmc4669]

ivalis: You are a true blue Democrat or just a plain ass either way
there're the same. Wish that I knew where you are comming from.

Phantom Blooper: you did your home work well. Couldn't have said it any better.

namgrunt: What are we going to do with ivalis?