May 26, 2008
Snipers In Vietnam and Now Ride Together in Rolling Thunder Second Time
They were thrust together 41 years ago in the highlands of Vietnam, self-described misfits who went on to tally a remarkable legacy as members of the first U.S. Marine sniperscout platoon trained exclusively in a combat zone.
On Wednesday, May 23, 2007, they met again, older, grayer, wiser for the experiences at the Winchester home of the man who personally selected and trained them to become among the deadliest marksmen of the Vietnam War.
Dave Sehmel, who now owns a construction company in Dallas; Gary Reiter, a retired school teacher from Spokane, Washington; Ed Kugler, a business consultant and author who published an acclaimed book based on his two tours of duty as a sniper in Vietnam; and Walt Sides, owner of Winchester Exchange, and who, as a 25-year-old Marine Staff Sergeant, was tasked into molding his three now 60-ish charges and 30 other young Marines into the elite and highly skilled killing fraternity of sniper scouts.
“Picture what it was like, as a Marine sergeant, looking at these guys and knowing you have to train them,” Sides said Wednesday May 23, 2007, shortly after returning from Washington-Dulles International Airport, where he, Reiter and Sehmel went to reunite with Kugler, the first time the four had physically been together since their days in Phu Bai, Vietnam.
This weekend, the four, and an estimated 500,000 others, will participate in Rolling Thunder XX, a mass rally in support of prisoners of war and those who are missing in action. The ride is held annually in Washington, D.C. Sides is one of the original founders of the group, which was formed in 1986 when he and four other vets determined that something must be done to “never forget” those who were imprisoned or never accounted for in Vietnam.
On that Wednesday, however, the mood was purely one of remembering shared times and fallen comrades, and celebrating their lives in the four decades they’d been apart. The goggled over pictures, beers in hand, of the four together, reed-thin, shirtless, all in their early 20s, gathering around a roasting hog one of the snipers had taken for treat. Other pictures included comrades who never returned home.
Remembering their days in the bush, which at times amounted to months on end searching for targets of opportunity, Kugler recalled “we didn’t look much like Marines, with long hair and stuff."
Most of Wednesday’s conversation consisted of reminiscences that clearly tugged long-repressed heartstrings.As he had when he brought them together in Vietnam,Sides is still, and always will be, the man in charge; the hardearned respect forged decades ago is unmistakable even today.
Sides estimated the four men gathered on his lawn wereresponsible “for better than 300 confirmed kills.”Their unit, dubbed “The Rogues,” tallied hundreds of morelong-distance kills during the war.
“And that’s not counting God only knows how many waterbuffalo,” Sides said, launching peals of laughter.
Grouped around Sides’ customized, V-8 equipped “trike,”which will join an estimated 200,000 motorcyclists this weekend,Sides outlined the unique role of his mission.
“The Marines were training snipers down around DaNang, but this was the first ever sniper platoon completely trained in a combat zone,” Sides said.
“Now, you might find a Marine Corps historian that willdispute that, but then . . . ”
Ironically, several of the men had been in contact over theyears; Kugler had stayed in touch with Sehmel. Four years ago,while surfing the Internet, Reiter found a Web site advertisingKugler’s book, “Dead Center,” and immediately recognized his old Vietnam buddy. That led to the three eventually talking over the telephone, but never a full-fledged reunion.
Later, Reiter and Sehmel got together at a gathering forformer sniper-scouts. That was when they realized they had another common bond: They both rode Harley-Davidsons.
That reunion lead to the pair travelling to Washington,D.C., for another sniper reunion, which coincided with Rolling Thunder XIX.
There, they spotted a kiosk, set up near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, with a name on it that sent shivers up their collective spines: Walt Sides.
“It can’t be,” they said to each other. The Walt Sides who had recruited them for sniper training 40 years earlier, was, they believed, dead, the victim of a fire.
“We had heard he died, along with another Vietnam friend, in a tavern fire,” Reiter said.
“Personally, I found it hard to believe, because I didn’ think fire was tough enough to kill old Walt Sides.”
After an hour of searching, they found their old mentor, who was busy trying to handle the logistics of squaring away the hundreds of thousands of participants in the annual rally.
From that moment on, the trio laid preparations to meet again for Rolling Thunder XX. Now, toasting each other with beer, the foursome, and their assorted spouses and several other veterans who will be riding together this weekend, could only smile.
“This is just awesome, totally unbelievable,” Sehmel said. Kugler could only say it was an “incredibly special” occasion.
Reiter, perhaps, summed it up the best:
“We’re all luckier than hell. We’re truly blessed to have all gotten out of a situation like that.”
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (8)
May 18, 2008
Vietnam Memorial For Residents of North County Dedicated
CARLSBAD: Vietnam memorial for residents of North County dedicated
You can WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
A memorial to North County service members who died in the Vietnam War was dedicated Saturday at Maffucci Field in Carlsbad, across from the Army and Navy Academy.
The brainchild of Jack Frazier, a world history teacher at Carlsbad High School since 1989, the dedication marked the end of a personal journey that lasted five years.
Frazier said his inspiration for the project came in 2003, when he attended a conference in Washington D.C., sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to help educators teach about Vietnam in the classroom. Frazier was encouraged to find creative ways to engage students and motivate them to honor the memory of veterans in their home town.
At first, his students started out researching the names of veterans from Carlsbad High School, Frazier said. They found the names of 133 men from all over North County.
So impressive was the project that it won the 2003-04 North County Educators Project of the Year Award.
More than 800 students from Carlsbad High including members of the community, business owners, family members of those honored and local civic organizations have helped by donating time and resources to bringing this project to fruition. Frazier said that people from as far north as Orange County have come down to help with the project.
Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Stephen Bliss of the Army and Navy Academy, a highly decorated veteran of the war himself, said that after being presented the idea of having the memorial placed on the grounds of the academy, he immediately took the idea to the board of trustees and got their approval. A location was found that everyone agreed was an ideal spot.
Five Army and Navy Academy graduates are among the 133 names on the memorial.
Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington D.C., said the memorial will help to keep history alive and honor those who have served as well as those now serving in the armed services.
"Jack Frazier is a great patriot who wasn't afraid to take action," Scruggs said. "He epitomizes the spirit of the veteran to sacrifice for others."
Frazier said many obstacles were overcome to complete the project. He said that at times he encountered resistance from local leaders, politicians, anti-war groups and individuals still angry about the conflict in Vietnam.
For many of the Vietnam veterans at the dedication, the monument represents an opportunity to heal. Having received less than a hero's welcome upon returning home, veterans of the conflict felt ashamed and as a result, buried the memory of their military past.
Norm Ream of Encinitas said, "The day I got back, I was headed to have my first legal drink in the United States, and I was spat upon."
Other veterans recalled being called baby killers and having been asked how many villages they burned down.
Frazier said his healing didn't begin until the final day of his trip to Washington D.C. in 2003.
After being urged by a friend to visit the wall, he found the name of a cousin who was killed in the conflict. He said that when he touched the name of his cousin, he nearly had a nervous breakdown. So moved was he by the experience that he cried for nearly an hour and had to be helped to his feet.
Now that the memorial has been dedicated, he said, "everything is going to be alright."
Some at the ceremony said the monument gives those who lost loved ones in the conflict an opportunity to honor their memory without having to travel all the way to Washington D.C.
Organizers said they expect the memorial to become a destination for people who wish to pay their respects to the those who gave their lives in Vietnam.
Wild Thing's comment.......
"At first, his students started out researching the names of veterans from Carlsbad High School,"
I love how they had the students do this. To get them involved, they will remember those who served more by the fact they did research to learn about them.
This would be great if this could happen across our land instead of how so many teachers want to re-write history and lie about the Vietnam War.
Posted by Wild Thing at 10:45 AM | Comments (8)
April 02, 2008
Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has gone digital. The digital version is stitched together from more than 6,000 photographs. You can search for a name on the wall quickly and easily using the search box. It will take you to the name instantly.
Once you find the name, you can click on it. This will bring up details on the person, such as rank, hometown and cause of death. But you can help show the person behind the name. You can add photos and comments about your loved one.
Just CLICK on link below
http://go.footnote.com/thewall
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:44 AM | Comments (22)
April 01, 2008
Freedom Never Cries
Please watch this new video and $1 goes to Operation Homefront, a great charity for that assists our troops and their families, until they hit 30K. The song is from John Ondrasik's Five for Fighting. The man portraying the pawn shop owner behind the counter is a Distinguished Medal of Honor Recipient from the Vietnam War, Fred Ferguson.
http://www.whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com/videos/view/id/706270
Chief Warrant Officer Ferguson was commander of a re-supply helicopter monitoring an emergency call from wounded passengers and crewmen of a downed helicopter under heavy attack within the enemy controlled city of Hue during the Tet Offensive. He unhesitatingly volunteered to attempt evacuation. Despite warnings from all aircraft to stay clear of the area due to heavy antiaircraft fire, Ferguson began a low-level flight at maximum airspeed along the Perfume River toward the tiny, isolated South Vietnamese Army compound in which the crash survivors had taken refuge. Coolly and skillfully maintaining his course in the face of intense, short range fire from enemy occupied buildings and boats, he displayed superior flying skill and tenacity of purpose by landing his aircraft in an extremely confined area in a blinding dust cloud under heavy mortar and small-arms fire. Although the helicopter was severely damaged by mortar fragments during the loading of the wounded, he disregarded the damage and, taking off through the continuing hail of mortar fire, flew his crippled aircraft on the return route through the rain of fire that he had experienced earlier and safely returned his wounded passengers to friendly control.
Fred Ferguson joined the Arizona National Guard after earning the Medal of Honor on active duty.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (7)
March 29, 2008
Vietnam War - The Impact of Media
Vietnam War - The Impact of Media
Length: 56 min 28 sec
Vietnam War - "The Impact of Media" explores in detail the 'media distortions' due to television's misrepresentations during the Vietnam ... all » War. It rebuts the view promoted by PBS's 13-part documentary series, "Vietnam: A Television History". The rebuttal also applies to "The Ten Thousand Day War" series.
"The Impact of Media" is a must-see for historians and politicians alike. The late President Ronald Reagan lauded this rebuttal video when he watched it and said that it's "something all Americans should see".
For a much larger screen image of the video you can also go HERE
Wild Thing's comment........
Our major news media are a disgrace and nothing but propaganda mills. They have blood on their hands for their part in helping the enemy. We never lost a battle in Viet Nam! It was our own politicians, the media and the godless, communist hippies that messed things up.
The lies are tremendous many we already know, but it also tells of how planned those lies were, how sound effects would be added, so many things. All done by the media! UNFORGIVABLE!
I am so very grateful to our Vietnam Vets, to all of you. I am so very proud of you, what an honor it is to know you.
....Thank you Mike (Nam Recon vet )
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (11)
March 22, 2008
Vietnam Veteran Navy SEAL Philip “Moki” Martin Rewarded
Martin (center) received congratulations from fellow Vietnam veterans Frank Sayle (left) and Eric Knudson (right). Recognition was delayed because the mission was so secret.
Secret peril rewarded
CORONADO
As he plunged through the darkness and into the stormy waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, Navy SEAL Philip “Moki” Martin knew he and his buddies were in trouble.
Of the 700 or so jumps Martin had made from Navy helicopters as a SEAL in training and during the Vietnam War, he could hardly remember one with such nasty conditions.
This mission – deep in enemy territory on June 5, 1972 – was, quite literally, a leap of faith: The pilot wasn't sure how high they were or whether the Grayback, the submarine they were supposed to meet, actually was there.
“I counted one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. Then I said, 'Oh no, that's too long. We're too high!' ” recalled Martin, 65, now retired from the Navy and living in Coronado. “I hit (the water) like a ton of you know what.”
Martin suffered a twisted knee when he hit the water. His commander, Lt. Melvin “Spence” Dry, died upon impact. A third SEAL, Fireman Thomas Edwards, was badly hurt.
Yesterday, many of Martin's old platoon mates watched as he received a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a combat “V” for valor. The ceremony took place at Coronado Naval Amphibious Base, near the headquarters of the Navy's Special Warfare Command.
Martin's wife, Cindy, and daughter, Callie, watched as Rear Adm. Joseph Kernan, the unit's commander, handed Martin a framed plaque containing the medal.
“It's been a long, long time coming,” Kernan said. “Thanks for waiting for your celebration, so this generation could share in it.”
Two weeks earlier, Dry's family had received his Bronze Star with combat “V” posthumously in a similar ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
The recognition had been long delayed because the mission, Operation Thunderhead, was kept so secret that few of the sailors and SEALs aboard the Grayback knew how significant and perilous it was.
“We saw people leave, and nobody ever came back,” said Frank Sayle, 58, of Houston, a SEAL who served aboard the Grayback at the time.
Only Martin and a handful of others knew that the platoon's job was to rescue two prisoners of war who had hatched a plot to escape from the infamous Vietnamese prison camp known as the Hanoi Hilton.
After a 2005 magazine article about the mission revealed that neither Martin nor Dry had been decorated for their actions, the Grayback's then-skipper, John Chamberlain, nominated them for the awards.
That the Thunderhead mission failed at every turn doesn't diminish its importance, said several of the men involved in it. Its lessons are still taught in SEAL training, some of them by Martin himself.
“It's a bit of closure for us,” said Eric Knudson, 59, of Vacaville, who was a yeoman third class in the platoon.
The Grayback was to slip into North Vietnamese waters and let out several four-man SEAL teams in small, submersible vehicles just offshore on June 3. The teams were to rendezvous with the two prisoners – who had communicated their plans through a method that today remains secret – on an offshore island.
But the currents proved unexpectedly strong. Martin, Dry and their teammates couldn't reach shore or make it back to the sub. They stayed in the water, praying the North Vietnamese wouldn't discover them during the eight hours before a rescue helicopter was supposed to pick them up and take them to the Navy cruiser Long Beach.
Aboard the Long Beach, Martin said, the SEALs knew they had to get back to the Grayback to warn other SEAL teams about the currents. So they made plans to return the following night.
The sub couldn't communicate directly with Dry's team, but it would use an infrared beacon to guide the helicopter to its location.
The helicopter crew had great difficulty spotting that beacon, said John Wilson of Maui, Hawaii, 67, a crew chief aboard the helicopter that dropped off Dry's team.
The helicopter finally found a signal at sea and then sent the team on its fateful jump. It turned out to be a distress signal from a second four-man SEAL team. The Grayback had aborted the drop because of North Vietnamese patrol boats in the area, but the message didn't reach the Long Beach in time.
Wilson's crew returned the next morning to pick up the seven survivors, as well as Dry's body. Operation Thunderhead was called off days later after commanders learned that the POW escape also had been aborted.
“You just had no idea what was going on, because no one was allowed to know,” Sayle said. “We never talked about it again. We never saw each other again.”
Martin stayed in the Navy until 1983, shortly after a bicycle accident while riding to the Coronado base left him a quadriplegic. He later earned a degree in painting and photography at San Diego State University. He has won awards for his artwork.
Yesterday, he was moved by the turnout among his platoon mates.
“I wanted this to be about them, more than me,” Martin said. “The medal is just a piece of hardware they give you.”
Wild Thing's comment........
It is such an honor to read stories of our Veterans, America's heroes one and all. America is so blessed that men and women have been willing to serve our country, we owe them all so very much, more then we can ever repay.
I am sorry about the small size of the photos, I didn't want to enlarge them since it would make them very blurry to see. These small size photos were at the article.
You can also go to THIS WEBSITE .....To learn about Operation Thunderhead and Lt. Philip "Moki" Martin. It is a great site and has photos, write ups and biographies
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (4)
March 21, 2008
The Revolt Of The Vietnam Veterans
The revolt of the Vietnam veterans
By Bruce Kesler
December 19, 2004
Post mortems in the liberal press on the role that Vietnam veterans played in presidential candidate John Kerry's defeat mask the key role of the liberal press, which tried to suppress the vets' story and is distorting it now. I was there at the creation of a veterans group and all along, and know better. The American people deserve to know better too.
In 1971 I organized Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. John O'Neill enlisted to counter the smears of American servicemen in Vietnam. No one else spoke up for us, so we had to. The mainstream press was more diverse than today and we got a spotty but honest hearing.
Kerry's light dimmed then. Americans got the message that a motley crew of exaggerators and frauds didn't speak for Vietnam veterans. We said our piece and went home, back to our diverse, nonpolitical lives.
Meanwhile, anti-Vietnam war protesters of the 1960s marched through academia and the media to claim its power as their own. In 2004, they fought to defend their self-image by defaming that of anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans.
In February 2004, anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans were shocked that he won the Democratic nomination. The mainstream media blessed this coronation. No one except Kerry and his advisers really wanted to revisit Vietnam, but they saw it as a way to appeal to anti and pro-war voters.
Kerry's Vietnam veteran opponents hadn't been in contact for over 30 years, so we searched each other out. Scott Swett, creator of wintersoldier.com that collected research on Kerry's protest activities, was an invaluable connector among us, creating an Internet political network that bound us together.
While we knew all too well about Kerry's anti-Vietnam protest period, we compared notes and surprised ourselves at the extent of deceptions in Kerry's self-hagiography about being a sterling war hero. It was intolerable that John Kerry brazenly glorified this suspect record to centerpiece his few months as a junior officer 35 years ago as qualification to lead the United States in this most challenging time since the Cold War.
The liberal media portrayed anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans as a long-planned, far-right funded conspiracy of liars. That's far, far from the truth. The real story is like the Minutemen, rising from peaceful lives to spontaneously come together to again fight for the America we so deeply love.
There was little or no coordination, just mutual support, with each volunteer shooting from behind his own tree in the same direction. We came to know each other on the field of our revolt against the false image created by Kerry of himself in the media and the false image Kerry was instrumental in painting of us and America.
John O'Neill got off his sickbed. He asked me whether I had the contacts and resources to lead as I did in 1971, which I didn't, and he dug in his own pocket to get the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth started. Vietnam veterans from every service, and Americans from every walk of life, joined in and followed O'Neill into political combat.
Early in the year a friend with access to the Kerry campaign warned me it was digging for any kind of dirt to destroy us. Contrary to the liberal media's story that we surprised Kerry in August, he thought the mainstream media could succeed in ignoring and stifling the Swift Boat veterans, and he had long planned a new smear campaign against us.
The surprise to the Kerry camp and liberal press was that the new media did break through and that Vietnam veterans could not be intimidated. In August, as reported by Newsweek, Kerry operatives fed negative documents and talking points to the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe. Subsequent articles in those newspapers reflected negatively on the Swiftees.
With only one halting exception, the mainstream media refused to investigate the sworn affidavits of 60 credible witnesses to Kerry's behavior, or to follow up on the abundance of additional information given them. The New York Times repeatedly used "unsubstantiated" as its adjective describing the Swift Boat veterans' allegations without ever exerting its considerable power to investigate.
Kerry wasn't pressured by the mainstream media to reveal his full military records to resolve issues, nor questioned as to what he was hiding. The mainstream media's zeal in chasing down every scrap of trivia about Bush's service stands in sharp contrast. That alone strongly suggested a liberal bias.
This behavior by some of the liberal media was purposeful. The survival of their favored candidate was endangered by our truth and facts. As important, the self-image of many reporters was endangered. Their myths of our pervasive evils in defending Vietnamese freedom, and of their valiant memories of mounting school libraries' ramparts, could not take the incongruence of exposure.
In the campaign to discredit anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans, some charged that we were reviving an old vendetta. Actually, we had ignored Kerry until last February. Some charged that we were refighting a cultural war from the '60s. Again, untrue. Many of us smoked marijuana, rocked to the same songs, grew the same long hair. We're Democrats, independents and Republicans.
The true post mortem of Kerry's defeat is simply the last hurrah of simple patriots, amateurishly but fervently rising up and banding together, with few resources, to defeat the mainstream media's boy and juggernaut. Polls and the election show we succeeded.
Wild Thing's comment........
This is a great article and what a time that was too. Vietnam Veterans gathering together at the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website and all across the internet at various forums. Posting their hearts out as they did all they could do to counter John Kerry's lies and bring the truth to the media and to all of America and the entire world.
During that time I did not have a blog, but I did have my website and what an honor it was to meet (online) some of the Swift Boat Veterans. I still have my emails from John O'Neil and Tom Forrest (when he was President of the "Swift Boat Sailors Association" (SBSA). Tom passed away May 1, 2006 . My last email from him was in March of 2006 and I am so glad I was able to tell him how grateful America was for all that Swift Boat Veterans had done.
The reason we do not have John Kerry for President is due to the hard work of the Vietnam Veterans and yes their revolt which was a great success.
You can see Tom's photos and a small write up at my Tribute to Vietnam Vets page.
When a person serves their country it has always been my hope that they could know their fight was done and they could come home and enjoy the freedoms that they fought for and served our country to preserve. But when John Kerry entered the race they all went right back into the most amazing fight for our country.
Thank you.
....Thank you Mark for sending this article to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:45 AM | Comments (6)
March 15, 2008
Vietnam Campaigners Hope for Senate Action
Vietnam Campaigners Hope for Senate Action
Campaigners for democracy in Vietnam are hopeful that long-delayed legislation to promote human rights improvements in communist-ruled Vietnam may move forward on Capitol Hill, following a Senate hearing this week.
The House of Representatives passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act by an overwhelming vote last September, and the legislation is now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Previous versions, passed by the House, made no headway in the Senate.
The legislation provides funding to promote human rights and democratic change in Vietnam and links future increases in non-humanitarian aid to verifiable improvements in its human rights record.
Critics of the one-party government in Hanoi say the political situation in the country has deteriorated, even as its bilateral relations with the U.S. have improved.
The State Department's annual report on human rights around the world, released this week, cited a "crackdown on dissent" in Vietnam, including the arrest of activists and disruption of nascent opposition organizations.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee hearing Wednesday that although "social freedoms" had increased in Vietnam, "serious deficiencies remain in political and civil liberties."
Hill, who visited Vietnam earlier this month, said he had urged officials to release dissidents, and would continue to do so.
The best known of these, Catholic priest and democracy campaigner Nguyen Van Ly, was sentenced a year ago to eight years' imprisonment for distributing anti-government material and communicating with pro-democracy activists abroad.
Another imprisoned campaigner, Nguyen Quoc Quan, is an American citizen who was arrested in Vietnam last November. Hanoi said the American, who is a member of an unauthorized group called Viet Tan -- which Vietnam considers a terrorist organization -- was trying to overthrow the government.
The 26-year-old Viet Tan (or Vietnam Reform Party) says it promotes change through "grassroots, peaceful means," including an underground newspaper, the Internet and radio broadcasts to spread its message. It says Nguyen Quoc Quan was merely preparing to distribute pro-democracy flyers in Ho Chi Minh City when arrested.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chaired the hearing, said the arrest of pro-democracy campaigners was "not the type of news that we want to hear out of a country that is one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid in East Asia."
The two arrests -- and others -- came during a year which began with Vietnam being granted permanent normal trade relations with the U.S. and entry into the World Trade Organization.
Later in the year, the State Department removed Vietnam from a blacklist of religious freedom violators, despite protestations from some experts that the step was premature in the light of ongoing restrictions affecting Christians and Buddhists who want to organize free from government control.
Viet Tan chairman Do Hoang Diem told the senators the country's democracy movement was growing rapidly since 2006, comparing it to similar groups in communist Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.
"After more than 50 years in power, for the first time, the Vietnamese Communist Party is facing numerous and unprecedented challenges to its rule," he said. "The desire for real changes in Vietnam is stronger now than ever before. In response, the regime is using terror tactics to silence opposition."
The choice for the U.S. is not whether to isolate or engage Vietnam, but how to pursue the relationship in the most constructive way, Do said. He urged the Senate to pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act, speak out on abuses and support democracy.
On Thursday, Do said he thought the hearing had gone "very well," and noted that Boxer had expressed support for the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
"That is very encouraging," he said. "We are confident that we will continue to enjoy more and more support as we move forward."
In a letter to Boxer on Thursday, Vo Van Ai, the Paris-based international spokesman for the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, whose leaders are under house arrest, urged the Senate to pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act, saying that economic development alone would not bring democracy to Vietnam.
"By supporting human rights as well as enhanced trade, you will positively impact the lives of 84 million people in Vietnam," he said.
The House passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act last September by a 414-3 vote. It was introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), whose earlier attempts to get similar bills through the legislative process died in the Senate.
Opponents have included Arizona Sen. John McCain, now the Republican presidential nominee, and Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
The two senators, both Vietnam War veterans, were instrumental in the normalization of bilateral relations in 1995.
Do said Thursday his organization has not yet had any clear indication of the three presidential candidates' positions on the latest legislation.
Wild Thing's comment..........
Interesting that both McCain and Kerry once again in agreement about Vietnam.
.....Thank you Jack for sending this to me. Jack's blog is Conservative Insurgent.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (6)
February 08, 2008
The Lies Of The Tet Offensive
The Lies of Tet
By ARTHUR HERMAN
February 6, 2008; Page A19
On January 30, 1968, more than a quarter million North Vietnamese soldiers and 100,000 Viet Cong irregulars launched a massive attack on South Vietnam. But the public didn't hear about who had won this most decisive battle of the Vietnam War, the so-called Tet offensive, until much too late.
Media misreporting of Tet passed into our collective memory. That picture gave antiwar activism an unwarranted credibility that persists today in Congress, and in the media reaction to the war in Iraq. The Tet experience provides a narrative model for those who wish to see all U.S. military successes -- such as the Petraeus surge -- minimized and glossed over.
In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press's pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.
The Tet offensive came at the end of a long string of communist setbacks. By 1967 their insurgent army in the South, the Viet Cong, had proved increasingly ineffective, both as a military and political force. Once American combat troops began arriving in the summer of 1965, the communists were mauled in one battle after another, despite massive Hanoi support for the southern insurgency with soldiers and arms. By 1967 the VC had lost control over areas like the Mekong Delta -- ironically, the very place where reporters David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan had first diagnosed a Vietnam "quagmire" that never existed.
The Tet offensive was Hanoi's desperate throw of the dice to seize South Vietnam's northern provinces using conventional armies, while simultaneously triggering a popular uprising in support of the Viet Cong. Both failed. Americans and South Vietnamese soon put down the attacks, which began under cover of a cease-fire to celebrate the Tet lunar new year. By March 2, when U.S. Marines crushed the last North Vietnamese pockets of resistance in the northern city of Hue, the VC had lost 80,000-100,000 killed or wounded without capturing a single province.
Tet was a particularly crushing defeat for the VC. It had not only failed to trigger any uprising but also cost them "our best people," as former Viet Cong doctor Duong Quyunh Hoa later admitted to reporter Stanley Karnow. Yet the very fact of the U.S. military victory -- "The North Vietnamese," noted National Security official William Bundy at the time, "fought to the last Viet Cong" -- was spun otherwise by most of the U.S. press.
As the Washington Post's Saigon bureau chief Peter Braestrup documented in his 1977 book, "The Big Story," the desperate fury of the communist attacks including on Saigon, where most reporters lived and worked, caught the press by surprise. (Not the military: It had been expecting an attack and had been on full alert since Jan. 24.) It also put many reporters in physical danger for the first time. Braestrup, a former Marine, calculated that only 40 of 354 print and TV journalists covering the war at the time had seen any real fighting. Their own panic deeply colored their reportage, suggesting that the communist assault had flung Vietnam into chaos.
Their editors at home, like CBS's Walter Cronkite, seized on the distorted reporting to discredit the military's version of events. The Viet Cong insurgency was in its death throes, just as U.S. military officials assured the American people at the time. Yet the press version painted a different picture.
To quote Braestrup, "the media tended to leave the shock and confusion of early February, as then perceived, fixed as the final impression of Tet" and of Vietnam generally. "Drama was perpetuated at the expense of information," and "the negative trend" of media reporting "added to the distortion of the real situation on the ground in Vietnam."
The North Vietnamese were delighted. On the heels of their devastating defeat, Hanoi increasingly shifted its propaganda efforts toward the media and the antiwar movement. Causing American (not South Vietnamese) casualties, even at heavy cost, became a battlefield objective in order to reinforce the American media's narrative of a failing policy in Vietnam.
Yet thanks to the success of Tet, the numbers of Americans dying in Vietnam steadily declined -- from almost 15,000 in 1968 to 9,414 in 1969 and 4,221 in 1970 -- by which time the Viet Cong had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force. One Vietnamese province after another witnessed new peace and stability. By the end of 1969 over 70% of South Vietnam's population was under government control, compared to 42% at the beginning of 1968. In 1970 and 1971, American ambassador Ellsworth Bunker estimated that 90% of Vietnamese lived in zones under government control.
However, all this went unnoticed because misreporting about Tet had left the image of Vietnam as a botched counterinsurgency -- an image nearly half a decade out of date. The failure of the North's next massive invasion over Easter 1972, which cost the North Vietnamese army another 100,000 men and half their tanks and artillery, finally forced it to sign the peace accords in Paris and formally to recognize the Republic of South Vietnam. By August 1972 there were no U.S. combat forces left in Vietnam, precisely because, contrary to the overwhelming mass of press reports, American policy there had been a success.
To Congress and the public, however, the war had been nothing but a debacle. And by withdrawing American troops, President Nixon gave up any U.S. political or military leverage on Vietnam's future. With U.S. military might out of the equation, the North quickly cheated on the Paris accords. When its re-equipped army launched a massive attack in 1975, Congress refused to redeem Nixon's pledges of military support for the South. Instead, President Gerald Ford bowed to what the media had convinced the American public was inevitable: the fall of Vietnam.
The collapse of South Vietnam's neighbor, Cambodia, soon followed. Southeast Asia entered the era of the "killing fields," exterminating in a brief few years an estimated two million people -- 30% of the Cambodian population. American military policy has borne the scars of Vietnam ever since.
It had all been preventable -- but for the lies of Tet.
Mr. Herman is the author of "Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age," to be published by Bantam Dell in April.
Wild Thing's comment........
I will never forgive Chronkite and others for their LIES about Tet. He most certainly sold out our troops and our country with his lies. Chief Cheer Leader in the media for the anti-American crowd was Walter Cronkite.
..... Thank you Cuchieddie for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (11)
January 25, 2008
McCain and Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA
The documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POWs" however focuses more on Senator John McCain successfully blocking the release of classified POW/MIA documents. Here is a DVD extra from that documentary.This video was done by The group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain.
Memorandum for: Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Prisoners of War and Missing in Action
Subject: Possible Violations of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, by the Select Committee and Possible Ethical Misconduct by Staff Attorneys.
From: John F. McCreary
Continuing analysis of relevant laws and further review of the events between 8 April and 16 April 1992 connected with the destruction of the Investigators' Intelligence Briefing Text strongly indicate that the order to destroy all copies of that briefing text on 9 April and the actual destruction of copies of the briefing texts plus the purging of computer files might constitute violations of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, which imposes criminal penalties for unlawful document destruction. Even absent a finding of criminal misconduct, statements, actions, and failures to act by the senior Staff attorneys following the 9 April briefing might constitute serious breaches of ethical standards of conduct for attorneys, in addition to violations of Senate and Select Committee rules. The potential consequences of these possible misdeeds are such that they should be brought to the attention of all members of the Select Committee, plus all Designees and Staff members who were present at the 9 April briefing.
The relevant section of Title 18, U.S.C., states in pertinent part: Section 2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally (a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795)
a. On 8 April 1992, the Investigators' Intelligence Briefing Text was presented to Senior Staff members and Designees for whom copies were available prior to beginning the briefing. Objections to the text by the Designees prompted the Staff Director to order all persons present to leave their copies of the briefing text in Room SRB078. Subsequent events indicated that two copies had been removed without authorization.
b. On 9 April 1992, at the beginning of the meeting of the Select Committee and prior to the scheduled investigators' briefing, Senator McCain produced a copy of the intelligence briefing text, with whose contents he strongly disagreed. He charged that the briefing text had already been leaked to a POW/MIA activist, but was reassured by the Chairman that such was not the case. He replied that he was certain it would be leaked. Whereupon, the Chairman assured Senator McCain that there would be no leaks because all copies would be gathered and destroyed, and he gave orders to that effect. No senior staff member or attorney present cautioned against a possible violation of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, or of Senate or Select Committee Rules.
c. Following the briefing on 9 April, the Staff Director, Ms. Frances Zwenig, restated to the intelligence investigators the order to destroy the intelligence briefing text and took measures to ensure execution of the destruction order. (See paragraph 3 of the attachment.) During one telephone conversation with the undersigned, she stated that she was "acting under orders."
d. The undersigned also was instructed to delete all computer files, which Mr. Barry Valentine witnessed on 9 April.
e. In a meeting on 15 April 1992, the Staff's Chief Counsel, J. William Codinha, was advised by intelligence investigators of their concerns about the possibility that they had committed a crime by participating in the destruction of the briefing text. Mr. Codinha minimized the significance of the documents and of their destruction. He admonished the investigators for "making a mountain out of a molehill."
f. When investigators repeated their concern that the order to destroy the documents might lead to criminal charges, Mr. Codinha replied "Who's the injured party." He was told, "The 2,494 families of the unaccounted for US Servicemen, among others." Mr. Codinha then said, "Who's gonna tell them. It's classified." At that point the meeting erupted. The undersigned stated that the measure of merit was the law and what's right, not avoidance of getting caught. To which Mr. Codinha made no reply. At no time during the meeting did Mr. Codinha give any indication that any copies of the intelligence briefing text existed.
g. Investigators, thereupon, repeatedly requested actions by the Committee to clear them of any wrongdoing, such as provision of legal counsel. Mr. Codinha admitted that he was not familiar with the law and promised to look into it. He invited a memorandum from the investigators stating what they wanted. Given Mr. Codinha's statements and reactions to the possibility of criminal liability, the investigators concluded they must request appointment of an independent counsel. A memorandum making such a request and signed by all six intelligence investigators was delivered to Mr. Codinha on 16 April.
h. At 2130 on 16 April, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee, convened a meeting with the intelligence investigators, who told him personally of their concern that they might have committed a crime by participating in the destruction of the briefing texts at the order of the Staff Director. Senator Kerry stated that he gave the order to destroy the documents, not the Staff Director, and that none of the Senators present at the meeting had objected. He also stated that the issue of document destruction was "moot" because the original briefing text had been deposited with the Office of Senate Security "all along." Both the Staff Director and the Chief Counsel supported this assertion by the Chairman.
i. Senator Kerry's remarks prompted follow-up investigations (See paragraphs 4 through 9 of the attachment) and inquiries that established that a copy of the text was not deposited in the Office of Senate Security until the afternoon of 16 April. The Staff Director has admitted that on the afternoon of 16 April, after receiving a copy of a memorandum from Senator Bob Smith to Senator Kerry in which Senator Smith outlined his concerns about the destruction of documents, she obtained a copy of the intelligence briefing text from the office of Senator McCain and took it to the Office of Senate Security. Office of Senate Security personnel confirmed that the Staff Director gave them an envelope, marked "Eyes Only," to be placed in her personal file. The Staff Director has admitted that the envelope contained the copy of the intelligence briefing text that she obtained from the office of Senator McCain.
The facts of the destruction of the intelligence briefing text would seem to fall inside the prescriptions of the Statute, Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, so as to justify their referral for investigation to a competent law enforcement authority. The applicability of that Statute was debated in United States v. Poindexter, D.D.C. 1989, 725 F. Supp. 13, in connection with the Iran Contra investigation. The District Court ruled, inter alia, that the National Security Council is a public office within the meaning of the Statute and, thus, that its records and documents fell within the protection of the Statute. In light of that ruling, the Statute would seem to apply to this Senate Select Committee and its Staff. The continued existence of a "bootleg" copy of the intelligence briefing text - i.e., a copy that is not one of those made by the investigators for the purpose of briefing the Select Committee - would seem to be irrelevant to the issues of intent to destroy and willfulness; as well as to the issue of responsibility for the order to destroy all copies of the briefing text, for the attempt to carry out that order, and for the destruction that actually was accomplished in execution of that order.
As for the issue of misconduct by Staff attorneys, all member of the Bar swear to uphold the law. That oath may be violated by acts of omission and commission. Even without a violation of the Federal criminal statute, the actions and failures to act by senior Staff attorneys in the sequence of events connected with the destruction of the briefing text might constitute violations of ethical standards for members of the Bar and of both Senate and Select Committee rules. The statements, actions and failures to act during and after the meeting on 15 April, when the investigators gave notice of their concern about possible criminal liability for document destruction, would seem to reflect disregard for the law and for the rules of the United States Senate.
John F. McCreary
May 3, 1992
Dolores Apodaca Alfond
chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families
an all-volunteer MIA organization
One such witness was Dolores Apodaca Alfond, chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families, an all-volunteer MIA organization. Her pilot brother, Capt. Victor J. Apodaca, out of the Air Force Academy, was shot down over Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, in the early evening of June 8, 1967. At least one person in the two-man plane survived. Beeper signals from a pilot's distress radio were picked up by overhead helicopters, but the cloud cover was too heavy to go in. Hanoi has recently turned over some bone fragments that are supposed to be Apodaca's. The Pentagon first declared the fragments to be animal bones. But now it is telling the family -- verbally -- that they came from the pilot. But the Pentagon, for unexplained reasons, will not put this in writing, which means Apodaca is still unaccounted for. Also the Pentagon refuses to give Alfond a sample of the fragments so she can have testing done by an independent laboratory.
Alfond's testimony, at a hearing of the POW/MIA committee Nov. 11, 1992, was revealing. She pleaded with the committee not to shut down in two months, as scheduled, because so much of its work was unfinished. Also, she was critical of the committee, and in particular Kerry and McCain, for having "discredited the overhead satellite symbol pictures, arguing there is no way to be sure that the [distress] symbols were made by U.S. POWs." She also criticized them for similarly discounting data from special sensors, shaped like a large spike with an electronic pod and an antenna, that were airdropped to stick in the ground along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
These devices served as motion detectors, picking up passing convoys and other military movements, but they also had rescue capabilities. Specifically, someone on the ground -- a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor detail -- could manually enter data into the sensor pods. Alfond said the data from the sensor spikes, which was regularly gathered by Air Force jets flying overhead, had showed that a person or persons on the ground had manually entered into the sensors -- as U.S. pilots had been trained to do -- "no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 U.S. POWs who were lost in Laos."
Other than the panel's second co-chairman, Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., not a single committee member attended this public hearing. But McCain, having been advised of Alfond's testimony, suddenly rushed into the room to confront her. His face angry and his voice very loud, he accused her of making "allegations ... that are patently and totally false and deceptive." Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks. And then he said, through clenched teeth: "And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people's [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours."
Brought to tears
By this time, tears were running down Alfond's cheeks. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief. She tried to speak: "The family members have been waiting for years -- years! And now you're shutting down." He kept interrupting her. She tried to say, through tears, that she had issued no insults. He kept talking over her words. He said she was accusing him and others of "some conspiracy without proof, and some cover-up." She said she was merely seeking "some answers. That is what I am asking." He ripped into her for using the word "fiasco." She replied: "The fiasco was the people that stepped out and said we have written the end, the final chapter to Vietnam." "No one said that," he shouted. "No one said what you are saying they said, Ms. Alfond." And then, his face flaming pink, he stalked out of the room, to shouts of disfavor from members of the audience.
.
....
Wild Thing's comment........
This is such a huge issue for me and why I have such tremendous animosity towards McCain and always will.
John Kerry and Senator John McCain chaired the country's most thorough investigation into the fate of POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately they did more to obstruct that investigation than to pursue evidence indicating that Vietnam deliberately withheld captured American servicemen.
This is a long post and I apologize for that.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:40 AM | Comments (14)
November 21, 2007
Tribute to US troops in Vietnam
This video was made by the person that has a blog named Le Blog Drzz
The person that made the video titled it...."Tribute to US troops in Vietnam ".....
Music: Paul Potts
Here is a translate page if you want to see the blog translated from the French to the English.
http://translate.google.com/translate_t?langpair=ar|en
It is well done, and I am always glad to see others thanking our Vietnam Vets and praying tribute to them.
Thank you to the person that made this video. And a HUGE thank you to our Vietnam Veterans. - from Wild Thing
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:44 AM | Comments (9)
September 18, 2007
Park Police Say Vietnam Memorial Was Vandalized
Oily Substance on Wall Was Vandalism, Not Accident, Police Say
washington post
The unidentified substance that was found splashed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial earlier this month was the result of vandalism, the U.S. Park Police said today.
Sgt. Robert Lachance, a spokesman for the Park Police, said the investigation into the incident is continuing, but the detective on the case had ruled it an act of vandalism. Lachance said he could provide no more details because the probe is still underway.
The oily substance was first reported to police the evening of Sept. 7, National Park Service officials have said. Dark blotches were found along a stone curb at the base of the memorial for most of its length, and at least two of the wall's panels appeared to have had something splashed on them.
Park Service officials said they did not know what the substance was, and at first said it was unclear if it was the result of vandalism or some kind of accident.
Park Service spokesman Bill Line said today that maintenance and preservation crews were still working to remove the stains and marks, but were proceeding with caution to avoid further damage. He said the crews were trying to avoid pushing any residue into cracks or grout in the stone.
"We're purposefully going to take our time," he said.
Line said it could take another week or more to clean, but officials remain confident they can remove all the stains.
"It's deplorable that someone would vandalize what's really a national shrine," said Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Memorial Fund. "It's an outrage. It's sad."
He said the memorial is open 24 hours a day year-round and has been visited by an estimated 80 million people.
"No organized group would ever be a part of anything like this," he said. "But there are deranged individuals in our society, and I think one has visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial."
Wild Thing's comment........
Confirming the obvious!
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is continuing to monitor the situation and has offered its help to both NPS and the Park Police. It has contacted the stoneworkers who work on The Wall to get their expert advice.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (13)
September 15, 2007
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
Sometime during the evening hours of September 8th, 2007, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. was defaced with a petroleum based acid liquid. There needs to be better security for the memory of these 58,249 killed during the Democrat war in Vietnam.
Washing this off with a pressure washer is a futile task. Oil seeps into tiny pores and crevasses in the stone and even though it appears clean after pressure washing the oil in these pores will in time wick back up to the surface and it will look the same as before.
Lisa Gough, Director of Communications for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, who stated in her press release of Sept. 11, 2007: “The United States Park Police has begun an investigation into the matter, and that investigation is ongoing. Until this investigation is completed, it is premature to speculate whether any intentional act was committed.”
NPS put out a statement also yesterday:
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070911/METRO/109110043/1004
....claiming they still didn’t know and were still investigating.
Also, NPS is misrepresenting the amount of damage. From that link, they state, “50 to 60 feet mostly on the paving stones”.
Also this......along the East Wall Panel 15E that it had multiple deep, long, vertical scratches/gouges.
Then there is this one in Andover.....................
Vietnam Veterans Memorial defaced
Many veterans in town were disappointed to learn last week that someone had vandalized the town's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, requiring the 15-month-old memorial to be sandblasted Wednesday.
"We know that in no way does this reflect how the community feels about our veterans," said Michael Burke, director of veteran services.
The lyrics of a 1970s protest song and a reference to Iraq were scrawled on the monument in the Park. "War, what is it good for, absolutely nothin'," was written in red marker along with a peace sign.
The lyrics are from "War," a song that Motown soul singer Edwin Starr popularized in 1970.
Near the base of the memorial where the phrase "our cause is just" is etched, a vandal wrote "just like in Iraq."
The markings were made with some kind of felt marker, which soaked into the stone, Burke said yesterday. Methuen Monument is helping the town repair the memorial, which was dedicated May 29, 2006.
While there was no structural damage, "the stone does need to be sandblasted," Burke said. He was not sure how much the work would cost, if anything, but said the town was grateful to the Methuen business for stepping in to help.
Police Lt. Harry Collins said the vandalism was under investigation.
Burke said this week he has talked to several veterans and longtime residents, and that no one could remember something like this happening in Andover.
"This is a disappointing event," he said. "This is an anomaly. If someone does have opposition, there are other ways to vocalize that."
In Haverhill earlier this summer, vandals ruined parts of a Korean War Memorial and spray-painted a World War II monument.
Wild Thing's comment........
All of this is very upsetting, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall needs to be protected much better then it is. Times have changed and no longer are Memorials of any kind safe. There should be more camera's and better lighting at night. This is just horrible what people are capable of doing to the Vietnam Memorials. I can't even write this without crying just from the anger I feel.
....Thank you Tom for the link to information about this.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (27)
May 29, 2007
Rolling Thunder ~ I Love You! Thank you!
No Memorial Day weekend in the capital is complete without the ritualistic rumble of Rolling Thunder. For 20 years now, the nonprofit group has led a ''Ride for Freedom'' along the National Mall, a full-throttle demonstration in support of soldiers held captive or missing in action.
Hard hats and horsepower: Thousands of bikers leave the Pentagon car park as they make their way to Washington's mall during the Memorial Day Rolling Thunder parade.
Photo: AFP
Thunder rolls, tears rain on Vietnam vets' parade
from various sources online
The ponytails might have grayed, and they're not as lithe as they were 40 years ago, but for the Harley-riding Vietnam veterans who descend on Washington for Memorial Day, it's a chance to remember and reflect on the war that changed their generation.
An estimated 400,000 motorcyclists swarmed the capital at the weekend for the 20th Rolling Thunder event. Many were veterans sporting leather vests advertising their platoon, their tour of duty, fallen comrades — and their devotion to their Harley-Davidson.
Some had ridden across the US in a pilgrimage to "the Wall", the name given to the stark yet moving monument that records the names of the 58,000 US servicemen who died in Vietnam.
Others had come from closer states. Like Jim Burgess, from Florida. He flew reconnaissance planes out of Thailand along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
"I got 10 people up on the Wall — one from my squadron. You gotta come and visit them once in a while," he said.
Ben Ompad served at the Phan Rang Air Base alongside Australian servicemen in 1967-68. "They were flying Canberras (bombers) back in those days, and I was like an adopted son," he said.
Dan Watson didn't serve in Vietnam, but he'd ridden the eight hours from Pennsylvania to spread the word on behalf of the Christian Motorcyclists' Association.
"I'm president of our chapter and I come every year to hand out Bibles and just talk to people," he said.
There was also a smattering of newer vets, several of whom were still recovering from injuries sustained in the Iraq war.
Specialist Adoph Morciglio, who drove convoy escorts, is now on disability leave from the US Army after a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in Iraq. One of his team died a couple of months later from his injuries. It was his first time at the Memorial Day event.
"I don't doubt in my mind that there were weapons of mass destruction. Saddam just had too much time to get rid of the stuff, " said Sam Clark, a Vietnam veteran who survived the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Keith Eastman, from Dayton, Ohio, who served in the US Air Force on gunships out of Nha Trang, wants to see America stay the distance. "I want us to leave but after we win, and I think you'll find most of the vets feel the same way. We were pulled out of Vietnam and we didn't like it," he said.
Retired Army Spc. George Rusiewicz rides to show support for his brother, who fought in Vietnam and was riding in Rolling Thunder today for the fourth straight year.
“You’ve gotta support the troops, and I think this is a great way to do it,” Rusiewicz said. “We need people to defend this nation, and like they say, ‘Freedom isn’t free.’”
By mid-afternoon the air around Constitution Avenue was thick with exhaust smoke and the smell of synthetic motorcycle oil. But the parade kept coming and the crowd kept cheering, even though by now every shape, size and modification of Harley had passed them by.
Below are some video's about this last weekend with the Rolling Thunder. Love the first one especially.
And this one too...............
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (7)
May 25, 2007
Fire Up and Thunder Out with Rolling Thunder Memorial Day Weekend
Members of Carry the Flame, a group largely made up of bikers who are Vietnam veterans, ride through New Mexico to the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day rally at the National Mall in Washington.
If you travel on one of our nation’s Interstates these last few days before Memorial Day, you might encounter an unusual sight: bikers by the dozens stretched half a mile down the highway, their motorcycles flying military banners and spewing exhaust.
They are members of Rolling Thunder, a nationwide network of veterans and their supporters. Their destination: Rolling Thunder Memorial Day rally on the National Mall in Washington.
Rolling Thunder, which has thousands of members, was founded in 1987 when some Vietnam veterans and advocates for P.O.W.’s and M.I.A.’s befriended one another on the mall.
Ray Manzo of Hoboken, N.J., now a former marine, suggested motorcycles. The idea grabbed them. Masses of bikes descending on Washington would literally sound like Rolling Thunder, the code name for the bombing campaign over North Vietnam.
In its first year, the Memorial Day rally drew 2,500 bikers. Now, nearly two decades later, hundreds of thousands of bikers join in.
“When you put 200,000 bikes together,” said Michael DePaulo, a Vietnam veteran from Berkley, Mass., who helps organize and run the rally, “it sounds like a B-52 strike.”
Until They ALL Come HomeUntil they all come home
We watch and wait
Young and old, black and white
So far away, they're sent to fightUntil they all come home
We wear our ribbons to show our pride
And let them know we are on their sideUntil they all come home
We pray for peace
Throughout the land
Protect them all, on sea and sand
Until they all come homeBy James Withrow
Rolling Thunder
Wild Thing's comment........
God bless Rolling Thunder!
....Please visit my POW MIA page at my website
...You are also invited to visit my Tribute to Vietnam Veterans page.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (7)
May 24, 2007
Soar with the eagles, Earthquake!!!
Capt. James B. McGovern Jr. of Elizabeth, N.J., poses on the wing of his World War II fighter plane at an unknown location in this undated file photo provided by his family. Fifty-three years after he was shot down on a desperate cargo-delivery flight over Vietnam, a legendary pilot and soldier-of-fortune known as 'Earthquake McGoon' is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday. (AP Photo/McGovern family photo via the Home News Tribune, File)
Famed flier to be buried at Arlington
NEW YORK
Fifty-three years after he was shot down on a desperate cargo-delivery flight over Vietnam, a legendary pilot and soldier of fortune known as Earthquake McGoon will be buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery.
The burial plan was announced by the Pentagon on Wednesday.
Earthquake McGoon, whose real name was James B. McGovern Jr., was one of the first two Americans killed in the Vietnam conflict. His remains were recovered from an unmarked grave in a remote northern Laos village in 2002 and identified last year by forensic experts at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command's laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
But a family fued among relatives in New Jersey, in part about burial plans, stalled his interment. Meanwhile, former colleagues of McGovern in World War II and Indochina tried to arrange an Arlington burial to coincide with a planned "final reunion" of pilots who flew in China and French Indochina with Civil Air Transport, a postwar airline secretly owned by the CIA.
McGovern, who weighed 260 pounds and was nicknamed after a hulking character in the hillbilly comic strip "Li'l Abner," was killed May 6, 1954, while air-dropping an artillery piece to the trapped French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. His C-119 "Flying Boxcar" cargo plane, crippled by anti-aircraft fire, continued 75 miles into Laos and crashed on a hillside.
The crash also killed his co-pilot, Wallace Buford, and a French flight engineer. Three other French Legionnaires survived the crash and were captured by communist troops, but one died later. The remains of Buford, of Kansas City, Mo., were never found.
Dien Bien Phu fell to Ho Chi Minh's communist-led revolutionary army the next day, dooming the French colonial regime in Indochina.
McGovern and Buford, both civilians at the time, were the first two Americans killed in fighting in Vietnam, where ensuing warfare would kill nearly 60,000 Americans and more than a million Vietnamese over the next two decades.
Earthquake McGoon was a flamboyant figure who became famous in the early 1950s for his escapades. As a member of an Air Force squadron descended from the famed Flying Tigers, he shot down four Japanese planes and destroyed others on the ground.
His adventures included being captured by communist Chinese troops who freed him because he called them "liars" for not letting him go; winning a clutch of dancing girls in a poker game; and setting free a group of Japanese POWs on a beach rather than follow orders to "dump cargo" after he developed engine trouble.
Possible graves were spotted in the Laotian village of Ban Sot in the late 1990s by an analyst for the Hawaii-based POW/MIA Accounting Command, which searches for missing Americans in Asia and elsewhere.
In 2002, a JPAC team led by anthropologist Peter Miller found one of the graves contained remains that were later identified by forensic experts as those of McGovern.
Wild Thing's comment..........
From 1946 to 1976, Civil Air Transport (CAT) and Air America served alongside U.S. and allied intelligence agents and military personnel in the Far East, often in dangerous combat and combat support roles. Behind a shroud of strict secrecy, many Air America personnel were unaware that they were "shadow people" in counterinsurgency operations. Some 87 of them were killed in action in China, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere.
Though many of those Asian countries eventually fell to the communists, the contributions of Air America personnel to the cause of freedom remain unparalleled in aviation history. CAT and Air America personnel were the first Americans in China and Korea and, after the U.S. military had withdrawn from Vietnam, Air America pilots risked their lives to evacuate the last Americans. Air America -- "First in, last out."
This official website of Air America and CAT tells the 30-year story of these great Americans--shadow people, largely unknown to Americans and the world. They helped bring the Cold War to an end.
Click HERE to go to their website to read about Earthquke McGovern and Buford disappeared while flying a C-119
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (2)
March 02, 2007
Vietnam Vet to Receive Medal of Honor 41 Years After Battle
Major Bruce P. Crandall "Snake" was assigned as Commanding Officer of "A" Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in the Republic of Vietnam in 1965-66. Bruce's heroic efforts in the Ia Drang Valley are well documented in the book and film "We Were Soldiers" by Joe Galloway
This from the comments President Bush made.
A few years ago, Bruce learned he was being considered for our nation's highest military distinction. When he found out that Captain Freeman had also been nominated, Bruce insisted that his own name be withdrawn. If only one of them were to receive the Medal of Honor, he wanted it to be his wingman. So when I presented the Medal to Captain Freeman in 2001, Bruce was here in the White House. Captain Freeman wished he were here today, but he got snowed in, in Iowa. His spirit is with us. Today the story comes to its rightful conclusion: Bruce Crandall receives the honor he always deserved.
LTC Bruce Crandall (Ret.) received his wings in the first aviator class at Camp Rucker, Ala., in 1955. He participated in mapping operations from Africa to the Arctic and in Central and South America, where he was director of the first project using military satellites for terrestrial mapping. He has been a fixed and rotary wing test pilot and helped to develop and test the airmobile concept and doctrine he so effectively helped implement in Vietnam.Crandall served in the Dominican Republic and two tours in Vietnam. His 750 combat operations in Southeast Asia included the famed Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, during which he saved more than 70 wounded soldiers and provided ammo critical to the survival of the U.S. ground unit. In 1966, Crandall flew two more night rescue missions which evacuated 12 wounded from a unit in heavy contact with the enemy. He received the 1966 Aviation and Space Writers Helicopter Heroism Award for this daring rescue.
In addition to his many military awards for gallantry and service, Crandall was the seventh Army inductee in the "Gathering of Eagles," a U.S. Air Force organization honoring contributors to aviation, and he received the Silver DeFleury Medallion for his contributions in engineering and aviation.
To READ more of the battle, see the video and other things related to this CLICK HERE for Crandall's site
As a 32-year-old helicopter pilot, he flew through a gantlet of enemy fire, taking ammunition in and wounded Americans out of one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam War.
Now, a week after his 74th birthday, Crandall received the nation's highest military honor Monday in a White House ceremony with President Bush.
"I'm still here," he said of his 41-year-wait for the Medal of Honor. "Most of these awards are posthumous, so I can't complain."
Crandall's actions in the November 1965 Battle at Ia Drang Valley were depicted in the Hollywood movie "We Were Soldiers," adapted from the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young."
At the time, Crandall was a major commanding a company of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).
"We had the first airmobile division ... the first one to use aircraft as a means of transportation and sustaining combat," Crandall said. His unit was put together earlier that year to go to Vietnam and "wasn't as thought out as things are today."
He didn't have gunners for his aircraft. That's why he flew unarmed helicopters into the battlefield.
He didn't have night vision equipment and other later technology that lessens the danger of flying.
The unit had "minimum resources and almost no administrative people" — thus the lack of help to do the reams of paperwork that had to be sent to Washington for the highest medals, Crandall said.
Generals in-theater could approve nothing higher than the Distinguished Flying Cross, Crandall said in a phone interview from his home near Bremerton, Wash, so he received that award. Through the years, he was able to get that upgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross and now to the Medal of Honor.
Crandall was leading a group of 16 helicopters in support of the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment — the regiment led by George Armstrong Custer when he met his end at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, or "Custer's Last Stand."
Without Crandall's actions, the embattled men at Ia Drang would have died in much the same way — "cut off, surrounded by numerically superior forces, overrun and butchered to the last man," the infantry commander, Lt. Col. Harold Moore, wrote in recommending Crandall for the medal.
Moore, now a retired three-star general, later wrote the book about the battle along with Joseph L. Galloway, a former war correspondent now with McClatchy Newspapers.
"This unit, taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, out of water and fast running out of ammunition, was engaged in one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam war against a relentlessly attacking, highly motivated, vastly superior force," said U.S. Army documents supporting Crandall's medal. The U.S. forces were up against two regiments of North Vietnamese Army infantry, "determined to overrun and annihilate them," the documents said.
The fighting became so intense that the helicopter landing zone for delivering and resupplying troops was closed, and a unit assigned to medical evacuation duties refused to fly. Crandall volunteered for the mission and with wingman and longtime friend Maj. Ed Freeman made flight after flight over three days to deliver water, ammunition and medical supplies. They are credited with saving more than 70 wounded soldiers by flying them out to safety, and Freeman received the Medal of Honor in July 2001.
Paperwork and other parts of the process delayed Crandall's medal until now, officials said.
Thinking back to the Vietnam battle, Crandall remembers the first day was "very long ... we were in the air for 14 and a half hours." He also thinks of how impressive and calm the unit on the ground remained, saying Moore and his commanders were "solid as rocks" throughout the fight.
And of course, Crandall says, he's also proud of his own performance.
"I'm so proud that I didn't screw it up," he said.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (13)
October 21, 2006
POW's Lawsuit Re: Kerry
POW's Lawsuit Could Force Kerry to Come Clean On Vietnam "War Crimes" Charges
When John Kerry slandered an entire generation of men who fought in Vietnam he branded them as "war criminals." Today, much of the same thing is being said about our young men and women in Iraq.
Now, a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas will test the very foundation of Kerry’s anti-war persona for the first time. It isn’t dubious medals or Kerry’s disputed service record in Vietnam that is being called into question. This time Kerry may finally be forced to answer for the events that launched his public career, one that made him an anti-war hero for many American liberals and a turncoat for millions of Vietnam veterans.
The lawsuit (Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, et al. v. Kenneth Campbell, et al.) challenges the basis, the factual accuracy of then Lt. (j.g.) Kerry’s acrimonious testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. It was there Kerry’s public career was catapulted with his now ubiquitous portrayal of American soldiers as murderers, rapists and torturers "who ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam . . . [and] razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."
For the anti-war, anti-American protesters, the American soldiers are the "terrorists," and the enemies are the victims of a barbaric U.S. military which tortures and murders defenseless civilians.
That false premise, one of the most vicious and enduring smears spawned by Kerry 35 years ago, will also be put to the test once Kerry’s true "Band of Brothers" are put under oath in a Philadelphia courtroom.
The background to this lawsuit is long and complex, but even a condensed version is rich in
irony and poetic justice.
It had it roots in 2004 with the documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal. Many may recall the film, although it is probably best known for not being seen, suppressed after Sinclair Broadcasting Company courageously announced it was going to air the documentary in its entirety.
Thanks to Kerry and his liberal colleagues in the Senate and their enablers in the mainstream media, Sinclair was browbeaten into withdrawing the film, its broadcast license threatened by a Kerry campaign manager in 2004. The film’s producer, Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter, interviewed former POWs for the documentary.
I was among those whom Sherwood, a decorated Marine combat veteran himself, asked to participate in Stolen Honor. I was a POW for nearly six years, held in North Vietnam prison camps, including the notorious Hanoi Hilton, a place of unimaginable horrors — torture, beatings, starvation and mind-numbing isolation. When Kerry branded us "war criminals," he handed our captors all the justification they needed to carry out their threats to execute us. Thanks to Kerry, Jane Fonda and their comrades in the anti-war movement, our captivity was prolonged by years. The communists in Hanoi and Moscow couldn’t have had a better press agent to spread their anti-American propaganda.
To guarantee Stolen Honor would never be seen by anyone — not even theatre-goers — the producer was slapped with a libel and defamation lawsuit.
That lawsuit was filed by a long-time anti-war disciple of the Massachusetts Senator. He was one of Kerry's key war crimes "witnesses," one of several on whom Kerry claims he based his Senate testimony.
The lawsuit put a unique spin on the definition of defamation, claiming that Stolen Honor had damaged the public reputations of himself, Kerry and others by simply quoting their own words and criticisms of America during the Vietnam war!
The POWs and the wives of POWs who participated in Stolen Honor refused to abandon the facts conveyed in the film. For some of us, it was the first time since our release by the Communists in 1973 that we were able to have our voices publicly heard, to tell our stories about the consequences of Kerry’s treachery.
In 2005, we formed a nonprofit organization, the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation (VVLF), to gather records, documents and other materials to form a fact-based, educational repository for students and scholars of Vietnam history and to tell the true story of the American soldiers in Vietnam. The VVLF’s mission is "to set the record straight, factually, about Vietnam and those who fought there."
For our efforts, we were promptly sued by two long-time anti-war Kerry followers and VVAW members. It was clear that Kerry not only wanted to punish us for Stolen Honor; he intended to use surrogates to sue us into permanent silence and financial ruin.
Forced to spend huge sums to defend ourselves from these frivolous lawsuits, we have filed a countersuit against these Kerry surrogates and intend to reveal the truth about the lawsuits and their sponsors. We believe that we can prove that the purpose of nearly two years of litigation was to protect John Kerry, to drain us financially and spiritually, and to prevent us from setting the record straight.
At stake is ultimately nothing less than the integrity of the American military in Vietnam, the honor of the men who served their country, the nobility of those who gave their lives, and the truth of America’s history in Vietnam. Until or unless we do correct the existing record, the American military may never be free of the myths and smears of Vietnam, its honor and integrity cleansed as it fights to defend freedom at home and around the world.
Our mission is hardly over. We hope you will join us in fighting this battle . . . for our soldiers, then and now. For more information about Vietnam, the foregoing litigation, or to make a donation, please access the VVLF website now — Go Here Now.
Col. George E. "Bud" Day
Director and President,
Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation
Col. George E. "Bud" Day, USAF (Ret.,) was a POW in North Vietnam for five years, seven months and 13 days. He served in three wars (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam) and earned the Medal of Honor. He is the Air Force’s most decorated living veteran. He is the Director and President of the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, Inc., an organization created to better educate and inform the public about the Vietnam War, its events, its history, and the men and women who sacrificed to serve their country
* Thank you Jack for telling me about this. Please visit Jack's wonderful blog.......Conservative Insurgent. He has a post there today about McCain that is excellent!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:44 AM | Comments (6)
September 15, 2006
Swift Boat Leader Responds to Kerry
Swift Boat Leader Responds to Kerry
Human Events
John Kerry recently volunteered that he was prepared to “kick [the Swift Boat Veterans’] ass from one end of America to the other” and that he would “demolish” us. He ought to take a Christmas cruise to Cambodia to calm down. Maybe he could take a side trip to tour “Genghis Khan” ruins.It is a little difficult to imagine Kerry (“I voted for it before I voted against it”) kicking the most decorated living serviceman, Bud Day, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, or our salty commander, Adm. Roy Hoffman, anywhere. Perhaps Kerry had in mind using a “Rice Fanny Grenade” as he did by mistake on himself shortly before leaving Vietnam. If so, based on the record, he is in far more danger than anyone else.
Kerry and his friends certainly seem to show much greater anger and hatred toward us than toward the murderous al Qaeda terrorists. This is actually a positive thing. Based on his record of switching to adopt the North Vietnamese position in 1971 and (after voting to send our kids to Iraq) proposing to cut and run in Iraq, it is likely that Kerry will be endorsing our positions by 2008 and (in his words) “Swift Boating” himself. If not, it is OK. After living for 34 years with his claim that our comrades, living and dead, were like the army of Genghis Khan, we will always remember and be grateful for the support of the American people in 2004. Nothing he will ever say can demolish that or will speak nearly so loudly.
Mr. O'Neill is a Houston attorney who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist during the Supreme Court's October 1974 term. He authored the New York Times No. 1 bestseller, "Unfit for Command" in 2004.
Wild Thing's comment......
John O'Neill has my undying admiration. Words cannot express the gratitude that should be given to the Swiftees.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:45 AM | Comments (4)
July 07, 2006
(POS) Vietnam-era Draft Dodgers Reunite in B.C.
CASTLEGAR, B.C. -- For U.S. draft resister Craig Wiester, fleeing his country to avoid the Vietnam War meant losing a country, a way of life -- and a father.
He grew up in a small town in Ohio and his father was a Second World War veteran.
"I think he would rather have had me come home in a body bag from the jungle than see me go to Canada."
Whatever father and son bond there may have been was strained for many years afterwards.
His father, when it became clear that Wiester was going to resist the draft, called the FBI and the local draft board and told them everything.
"He worked with the local draft board to move as quickly as possible against me."
The son didn't wait around for the consequences and decided to go to Montreal, where he lived for eight years.
Wiester was among what organizers expect will be several hundreds draft resisters and veterans who will take part in numerous workshops and panels over four days at Selkirk College and the nearby Brilliant Cultural Centre.
"For the resisters you see some who lost their families, lost their friendships," Klein said during a break. "Many people disowned them."
I decided this was important for me. This was a way of validating that experience."
Wiester hopes that his experience here can answer at least one question for him.
"The question is why are we dishonoured still in American society?"
Almost 50,000 Americans of draft age avoided the call in the late 1960s and early '70s by going to Canada, where for the most part they were welcomed.
Many returned after President Jimmy Carter granted an amnesty in 1977. It's believed that about half the original number chose to remain in Canada.
One highlight of the reunion is a weekend speech by former U.S. senator George McGovern, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972 who lost to Richard Nixon.
McGovern, 83, is part of a long list of well-known peace activists who will speak or take part in various panels. Tom Hayden, a student leader in the 1960s, a civil rights activist and former California senator is also attending.
The draft resisters are being honoured at the reunion in this small city, near the Slocan Valley, Nelson and other communities, where hundreds settled about 600 kilometres east of Vancouver.
The four-day event is also intended to pay homage to Canadians who assisted the draft dodgers.
A note from the past:
"I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill, and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious objectors. One of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under indictment and may never be able to go home again. He is one of the bravest, best men I know. His country needs more men like him more than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity." --- From Bill Clinton's letter to Col Eugene Holmes Dec 3 1969
Wild Thing's comment.......
Carter pardoned the Vietnam draft dodgers on January 21, 1977 (the day after he took office). Damn he just could hardly wait.
Draft dodger Bill Clinton really should go don't you think? I hate him by the way. An he could make the keynote speech, then add in traitor Kerry too.
Wiester said he wonders why they were dishonoured still in American society???? How about this you are a worthless POS that's not deserving of the least bit of respect. I hope they ALL rot in hell, right along side Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Hanoi Jane. Because you ducked your duty while thousands of others stepped up to the line. Because you've spent your life TAKING from this society but ran like a scalded dog the first time it asked you to GIVE anything in return. Because at heart you're a coward who wants to hide his weakness behind some billowy rhetoric!
This made me think of Wallace's quote in Braveheart: "Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live, at least for awhile. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing, to take all the days from this day till then, to come back here and tell our enemies, they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"
These cowards are now wallowing in their guilt, and I feel nothing for them but disgust. They have to go and do this event seem accepted again. IMO I wouldn't let them on my property, not one of them. Not alive anyway!
I know it would be probably be unrealistic to do this, but I wished that some investigative reporter could have found out what happened to the the guy who got drafted to take Clinton's slot. (that is, the next guy in line that actually answered the call maybe in the county that Clinton was in when he did his artful dodging.)
Here's his email address:
craigw@ulch.org
I sent him a little Wild Thing email. Hope it makes his day.
Hey draft dodgers go here ( my Tribute to Vietnam Veterans) and weep from your very souls that you will never be a man! Never have my respect, not ever!
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:45 AM | Comments (24)
June 14, 2006
Welcome Home 2006 in Branson ~ Thank you Vietnam Vets
Welcome Home... America's Tribute To Vietnam Veterans
Celebrate our veterans with parades, concerts, and eight days of activity at the Welcome Home Tribute to Vietnam Veterans. This week long procession of thanks invites all who are Vietnam veterans and those who would like to appreciate them to join in the festivities.
Awards will be given, rides on the Huey helicopter, and a Sky Soldiers air assault demonstration will light up the eyes of all visitors. The week will end with a Native American Powwow, veterans luncheons, and a Heartland Benefit concert.
Vietnam era veterans wishing information or to register for the Homecoming may do so by going on-line at:
Welcome Home
or by calling 1-800-335-4587. Tickets for general public go on sale May 11, 2006 at 7:00 am. Tickets available by phone at 1-866-464-2626, or online HERE
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (2)
June 06, 2006
Kerry 180
Hanoi Kerry was still a USNR officer while he:
gave false hearsay testimony to Congress
negotiated with the enemy
helped the US lose a war
abetted in the deaths of millions
created a hostile environment for all servicemen
Why is Kerry still in the US Senate?
This is in violation of
U.S. Constitution Amendment 14 Sec 3 (1868)
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President,
or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,
or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath,
as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,
or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer
of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States,
shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The FBI has proof of his giving aid and comfort to the enemies
Hanoi Kerry Timeline of a traitor includes FBI files
May 1970
Kerry and Julia traveled to Paris, France and met with Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam (PRG), the political wing of the Vietcong, and other Viet Cong and Communist Vietnamese representatives to the Paris peace talks, a trip he now calls a "fact-finding" mission.
(U.S. code 18 U.S.C. 953, declares it illegal for a U.S. citizen to go abroad and negotiate with a foreign power.)
a) A person charged with absence without leave or missing movement in time of war,
or with any offense punishable by death, may be tried at any time without limitation.
904. ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
We’ve formed a blogburst group and here are the bloggers who are contributing so far. If you want to join the blogroll for Free Kerry’s 180,click to email
Cao and include the url for your blog.
Thank you Cao for all the work you do on this and the blogroll.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (4)
May 30, 2006
John Kerry Watched Apocolypse Now One Too Many Times
Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss
John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia."He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares.
"They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."
Three decades after the Vietnam War and nearly two years after Mr. Kerry's failed presidential bid........
Wild Thing's comment...........
( the rest of the article has photos and more Kerry propaganda)
Have you ever met a nag? I hope not but if you have they never stop. My brother-in-law is married to one. Ugh! They are like chalk screeching on a chalkboard, a dripping faucet through the night and your waiting in between for the last bit of nagging to be the last but it never is. Drip, drip, drip, nag nag nag. There is an insanity to it without being labeled such and it can drive others away and it should! Well Kerry is that, he is his own special pathetic joke. A bad joke that just won't go away, a fodder for cartoons and a traitor to America.
When we think we have heard the last of him he pops up again with more of his BS. Does he do what has repeatedly been asked of him? NO that would be too easy, too honest, and too honorable. He also said on the Senate floor that Nixon sent him into Cambodia. The only problem is that Nixon wasn't President at the time. Just more lies!
John O'Neill was on Hannity's show last week and Bob Beckel started foaming at the mouth all over again. Bob ("I Call Escort Services") Beckel started literally chanting that the Pentagon has "discredited" the Swift Boat Vets. He must have used the word "discredited" about 40 times.
O'Neill finally got a word in and explained again in detail how Kerry's first purple heart was faked. Beckel went bananas. The MSM still can't accept that a little 527 spending a measly $200K per ad could have counteracted their months and months of spin for Kerry.
The Swift Boat Vets did a fabulous job of exposing him, along with tons of other Vietnam Veterans joining in. To even think that these MEN had to do this shows how strong evil is in America. The evils of the John Kerry's and Hanoi Jane’s getting press and notoriety and backed by those that hate America.....the enemy from within.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (4)
May 23, 2006
Free Kerry’s 180!
Kerry’s 180 has been incarcerated. After all, we all saw that he wants to share with the American people according to his statement on Russert’s program on television in front of the entire nation.
You would think that in view of his opening a law firm back in the 70’s (Kerry & Sragow) -that he would know how to properly execute a form. Apparently when he DID sign the 180, did so just so his biographer was the only one who would receive the information at the Boston Globe.
We understand there are 100 something pages missing from that file.
Retired Rear Admiral George R. Worthington, who served with the Navy SEALS, calls Kerry’s celebrated ribbon-tossing stunt in 1971 a breach of trust. “It didn’t help for him to be making foreign policy when other guys were in combat or the Hanoi Hilton,” says Worthington. “He voted against nearly every weapons increase when he was in the Senate.”
Kerry insists ‘’The truth in its entirety will come out . . . the truth will come out.”
We are still waiting.
We’ve formed a blogburst group and here are the bloggers who are contributing so far. If you want to join the blogroll for Free Kerry’s 180,click to email Cao and include the url for your blog.
Thank you Cao for all the work you do on this and the blogroll.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:55 AM | Comments (2)
May 10, 2006
C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" Landed on Friday May 5th, 2006
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.” -- Ronald Reagan
Families swarm to greet former prisoners of war moments after they landed in the C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" on Friday, May 5, 2006, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The "Hanoi Taxi" was the first aircraft to arrive in Hanoi in February 1973 to pick up POWs returning to the United States. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Larry A. Simmons)
Airman 1st Class Humberto Alcocer leads the honor guard during a ceremony recognizing the last mission of the C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" on Friday, May 5, 2006, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Airman Alcocer is a member of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base honor guard, and is with the 88th Medical Operations Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Larry A. Simmons
While walking through it you see the equipment box that the POW's signed as they flew back home.
Note in the corner the signature of Col. George "Bud" Day - Medal of Honor winner and outspoken critic of John Kerry He was a POW in North Vietnam, 1967-1973.
For more than five years, Col.Bud Day resisted the North Vietnamese guards who tortured him. On one occasion in 1971, when guards burst in with rifles as some of the American prisoners gathered for a forbidden religious service, Major Day stood up, looked down the muzzles of the guns, and began to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." The other men, including James Stockdale, the ranking U.S. officer in the prison, joined him.
Jim Lamar (left) talks to Tech. Sgt. Rick Sforza on Saturday, May 6, 2006, about an aerial photograph of the "Hanoi Hilton" prisoner of war camp where he was held captive in Vietnam. The two men were flying on the final mission of the C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Sergeant Sforza is a Reserve photographer with the 4th Combat Camera Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Larry A. Simmons)
Col. Doug Moe looks out the window while flying on one of the the last missions of the C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" on Friday, May 5, 2006 over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The "Hanoi Taxi" was the first aircraft to arrive in Hanoi in February 1973 to pick up prisoners of war returning to the United States. The C-141 landed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force where it will be on display this summer. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Larry A. Simmons)
DAYTON, Ohio (AFPN) -- The first aircraft to return Vietnam prisoners of war to the United States arrived at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at 9:30 a.m. May 6.
The C-141 "Hanoi Taxi" was the first aircraft to arrive in Hanoi in February 1973 to pick up POWs returning to the United States. The "Hanoi Taxi" was one of several aircraft involved in repatriating more than 500 American POWs held by the North Vietnamese.
The Hanoi Taxi -- the last C-141 Starlifter still serving in the Air Force -- made two of its final three flights May 5. Former POWs gathered for a reunion and to take part in a weekend of activities created by the Air Force Reserve Command’s 445th Airlift Wing here that included retirement of the famed aircraft.
The aircraft made several passes before its final landing on the runway behind the museum May 6. Crewmembers from the 445th AW flew the aircraft from nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to the museum.
A ceremony was held following the aircraft's arrival at the museum. Speakers included Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, commander of Air Mobility Command; Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley, commander of Air Force Reserve Command; and retired Maj. Gen. Charles D. Metcalf, museum director. Former Vietnam POWs and past crewmembers were in attendance to witness the event.
During the ceremony, Lockheed Martin presented the museum with a painting of the Hanoi Taxi flying over the museum. The painting is titled "The Airlift Legend: Celebrating the 43-Year Career of the C-141 Starlifter."
Herv Stockman - flew more than 50 combat missions during WWII piloting a P51. Flew the first U-2