US Traitor SMEARED a Hero - Her Dad

Brethren -- This is to help frame the context of the first of the Presidential Election debates tomorrow night. We have heard from the Swift Boat veterans and both candidates, et al on this much disputed and historic issue. I will now turn this athenaeum over to a young lady, Carol Crowley, who intimately recalls John Kerry's hurtful comments from 33 years ago regarding those he served with in Viet Nam. She recollected them last week on 09/20/04 for the Atlantic Journal-Constitution. Her comments follow BELOW mine.

As you listen to Sen. Kerry's harangues tomorrow night, be aware that his photo has a special place of "honor" at the War Crimes Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It hangs high in a room dedicated to the anti-war activists who helped the Vietnamese Communists win the Vietnam War and is comparable to the painting of the British Prime Minister and "peacenik" Neville Chamberlain found hanging in a place of honor in Hitler's mountain-top "Eagle's Nest" in 1945. Its prominent placement there clearly recognizes John Kerry's contributions to their Communist victory. Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Now since the former Capt. John Kerry raised the issue of their military service FIRST from more than three decades ago (all four months there - including his month of training, but excepting his magical mystical tour "Christmas in Cambodia") then he should answer these unanswered questions about his own record. Before last week, Kerry had a one-track/one-issue-mind (Viet Nam...) anyway. Therefore, he should also tell us...

WHY did he NOT report his alleged "Genghis Khan" war crimes while yet in uniform as all military commanders are required to do? It's a federal crime not to! Since he as a Naval officer personally and admittedly committed "atrocities" and "genocide" (his statement to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971: "massacred, burned villages, raped, mutilated, tortured, etc.") in Vietnam then those "war crimes" would be punishable by law in this country.

WHY is he now trying to hold up his medals to our faces after he publicly trashed them (literally) on TV.

WHY did John Kerry's official website allude to three hostile military actions (rocket attacks, woundings, etc.) upon his Swiftboat -- which he took credit for -- PRIOR to the time he even embarked upon or took command of that boat on 1/30/69?

WHY did he immediately remove those fabrications (firefights and missions he never participated in) from his web site when the Boston Globe asked him about them?

WHY are his self-professed yet alarmingly conflicted claims of being both a war hero and war criminal in Viet Nam contrasted by the 22 statements of his 23 living Naval officer peers?

And I also wonder: where is his radical buddy "Hanoi Jane" (Fonda) now -- whom he often supported and hung out with in anti-American rallies during and after Viet Nam? Would that admitted socialist still call him a "baby killer" today? And would he accept her endorsement?

Both turncoats claim that their activities did not violate the definition of TREASON given in Article III, Section 3, of the US Constitution. I'd still argue that since they both gave "Aid & Comfort" to our enemies and TORMENT to our US troops. And given the opportunity, I'd spit into his face too -- just as I did into hers * when I was an 18-year-old college freshman back in 1972.

* At the Rutgers Univ. Student Center where during her speech with Tom Hayden, Fonda, then age 34, insulted our much younger wheel-chair bound veterans -- lined up in the first row holding placards against her movement -- as "baby-killers who had their balls shot off needlessly for Nixon". (I shared the GOP ticket with him, etc. and had served as Pres. Richard M. Nixon's Essex County Youth Campaign Chairman that year.) I spat into her face as she passed me exiting in haste. These were some of my give-aways in my later political campaigns. (I was elected to county/municipal office for 17 consecutive years until I resigned upon my ordination to the diaconate.)

Jane Fonda was quoted in the Detroit Free Press of November 22, 1970 as having told a student audience at Michigan State University; "I would think that if you understood what communism was you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists."

In April, 1972 Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden (later her ex) and others traveled to North Vietnam to give their support to the North Vietnamese's Government. There she posed for photos with enemy troops atop their tanks while holding their guns. She also applauded an NVA anti-aircraft gun crew. Those guns were used to shoot down American planes and contributed to the deaths of American Airmen.

From there, she also made radio broadcasts (tapes of which were incessantly played to our POWs) urging U.S. airmen to stop bombing North Vietnam and told our US servicemen stationed on aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin that the bombs they were loading into planes were illegal and that using the bombs "makes one a war criminal." When she returned to the United States, she advised the news media that all of the American Prisoners of War were being well treated and were not being tortured.

As the American POWs returned home in 1973, they spoke out about the inhumane treatment and torture they had suffered as prisoners of war. Their stories directly contradicted Jane Fonda's earlier statements of 1972. Some of the American POWs such as Senator John McCain, a former Presidential candidate, stated that he was tortured by his guards for refusing to meet with Jane Fonda and her group. Jane Fonda, in her response to these new allegations, referred to the returning POWs as being "hypocrites and liars."

The Wall Street Journal (on August 3, 1995) published an interview with Bui Tin who served on the General Staff of the North Vietnam Army and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. During the interview Mr. Tin was asked if the American antiwar movement was important to Hanoi's victory. Mr. Tin responded, "It was essential to our strategy" referring to the war being fought on two fronts, the Vietnam battlefield and back home in America through the antiwar movement on college campuses and in the city streets. He further stated the North Vietnamese leadership listened to the American evening news broadcasts "to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement."

Visits to Hanoi made by persons such as Jane Fonda, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and various church ministers "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses." Mr. Tin surmised that "America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win." From 1969 until the end of the war, over 20,000 American soldiers gave their lives in Viet Nam.

In 1975, after the fall of the South Vietnam Government, Jane Fonda returned to Hanoi with her newborn son Troy for a celebration in her honor for the work she had done for North Vietnam. During the celebration, her son was christened after a Viet Cong hero, Nguyen Van Troi. Troi had attempted to assassinate Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara while on his visit to South Vietnam in 1963. The South Vietnam Government executed Troi for this attempted assassination.

The Vietnam Memorial Wall contains the names of 25,493 American soldiers who served their Country and paid the ultimate price for freedom who were under the age of 21.

"Kerry Smeared a Hero -- My Dad"

Many of you believe dirty politics is the motivation of Vietnam veterans speaking out in opposition to John Kerry. Let me tell you the real motivation.

In the movie "We Were Soldiers," the story about the battle of the la Drang Valley in Viet Nam in 1965, a young Sergeant, Jack Earl Gell, cried as he died, "Tell my wife I love her . . ." and my family relived the death of my dad. He told my mother in letters that he and those he served with believed they were doing the right thing, fighting to help a sovereign nation defend its freedom.

Before the movie was filmed, I heard my father's dying words from retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and journalist Joe Galloway, who were with him in the Valley of Death. I met Mel Gibson, who played Col. Moore in the movie, showing him family pictures and letters to help him learn the essence of these young men serving their country in a difficult time. Gibson said my father was a true hero.

I remember when the movie was released witnessing the healing of men and family members who clung to this story with a new pride after decades of being vilified. Finally, they talked about it. Finally, many were proud to be Vietnam veterans.

And then Kerry was nominated as a presidential candidate.

I don't blame Kerry for my father's death, and I don't much care if he shamelessly chased after medals.

But I do care that when he returned from Vietnam he gave aid and comfort to the enemy while our soldiers were still dying.

I care that he smeared my father and a generation of our armed forces with false charges of war crimes while posing himself as a hero.

I care that Kerry's false charges encouraged our enemy who was pressuring our POWs in inhumane ways to confess to imaginary war crimes.

I care that he went to Paris to meet with the Viet Cong in 1970 while still an officer in the Navy Reserve, returning to publicly advocate for their position and against America's position.

This isn't about politics. It's about honor and betrayal and protecting our country. And for me it is deeply personal, as it is for countless vets. Thirty-nine years later, my mother still cries on Nov 14. Thirty-nine years later, we miss my father every day. Thirty-nine years later, Kerry poses as a hero.

As children of Vietnam veterans, many of us feel an unwelcome emotional strain as the arguments about what really happened in Vietnam are tugged back and forth, often by people who were not there. We deeply resent the suggestion that our fathers were war criminals as that theme inevitably seeps into the argument.

We are educated and grown. We have children of our own, some in the service. We know in our heart and soul the scars of war that will never go away. But we are not weak, and we will not be silent. I will stand with the Vietnam veterans who speak out, and the voice of my father will be heard through me. As long as I have breath and Kerry seeks the Office of President, I will speak out against him. Others like me are too many to count.

While we are dismissed as dirty politics, the truth is we would be doing the very same things if Kerry were a Republican. President Bush has never had anything to do with our opposition to Kerry, and if the president makes a personal appeal to us to stop, we cannot and will not do so, because there are some things that can never be forgiven, can never be forgotten.

John Kerry is one of those things. -- Carol Crowley