Bush has been abused for his war record, here's commentary on Kerry's from a Naval officer who was there:

"I know nothing about "Swift Boat" tactics so I can't judge the veracity of this letter. Maybe a more knowledgeable classmate can shine some light on this. It was forwarded to me by a high school classmate, USNA grad ('59) and Rear Admiral (Ret.)
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>Walt Plaue
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> ----- Original Message -----
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>I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.
>
>Here are my problems and suspicions:
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>(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.
>
>(2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.
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>(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong.
> (a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.
> (b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.
> (c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area.
>EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It couldn't run and it couldn' t return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.
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>Something is fishy.
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>Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.
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>I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And fishy.
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>Keep smiling,
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>Mike
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man.. all you right-winger nazi's have nothing to do but reverse the mud slinging. Its bad enough that there's some now... why not just toss some more?

Right-winger nazis? That's offensive and unwarranted. The soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee has spouted off for a year about his war record and how it makes him superior to Bush. He made it a central issue of his campaign, but anyone who points out that there might be another perspective is a right-winger Nazi? Bite me.

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breathe in.... breathe out... and count to 10

Well said..he is a phony!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1062437/posts

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Shocking, a politician is a phoney! My heart is all aflutter!

This foolishness about Kerry's performance in Vietnam is tragically irrelevant. It has as much to do with the leadership of this country as Bush's NG drill schedule.

Aside from being stridently, adamantly ardently the not-Bush candidate, what the heck does Kerry offer?

What does he propose to do about Al Queda? How? Why?

What about our foreign oil dependency?

What about federal land management, mineral sales, timber sales, offshore exploration?

How does he propose to pay for his new programs, given the staggering deficit brought upon us by the present administration?

What about global warming?

Foreign trade agreements?

Gun ownership?

USA Patriot Act?

Border security?

Illegal aliens?

There are plenty of issues out there that could help people differentiate the candidates. This medal and service log stuff is astonishingly trivial.

Botnst

I agree. The reason you don't see much differentiation is the differences themselves are astonishingly trivial.

I've just come to hate them all. Politics has just become a cynical pandering to the least common denominator. I was a republican for 20 years but registered Dem for the last election. Why? The 8 year smear job on Clinton followed by the hatchet job done on McCain.

But how much better is it on this side of the aisle? Gore was no prize, I think he would have done a better job than Bush, but not enough of a difference that makes me upset at the election outcome. Kerry is just a big disapointment. As stated above, the man has no positions. I read two newspapers a day, and watch a fair amount of news and I have no idea where he stands on anything.

At least Dean had some blood flowing through his veins. He gave speeches with actual policy in them. His campaign, much like McCain's didn't seem to revolve around not offending anyone. Agree with those two gentlemen or not, I think both had an honesty about them that is a curse in politics today.

But given the stupidity of the masses both parties will keep churning out inoffensive clones that are "electable" without regard to actual ability to govern or think.

ps
An actual letter in the Rocky Mountain News a couple days ago in response to a Bush NG story asked "where was John Kerry when Clinton was dodging the draft?" As if Kerry was supposed to be bring Clinton to Vietnam at gunpoint.

That gentlemen is the rabble that is electing our representatives.

I feel yore pain there, Koop.

It took me about 20 years of continual fade-out to finally decide the Democratic Party had turned left and gone over the cliff.

Couldn't see any compelling reason to join their dark twin, the Repos.

I dropped from traditional, party-line Democrat to unaffiliated, but leaning mostly libertarian.

Tired of them both $tealing my money for $hit I don't like.

Botnst

Look if you don't agree to maintain the status quo with Israel you are persona nongrada with the media. Dean said to be even handed. "The media crucified him" Perfect choice of words. Kerry said he would maintain the status quo, he's in. I totally agree on Kucinich. The only morally pure one of the whole bunch. Little strange and needs to be more pi$$ed off but his heart is in the right place. Edwards more the same old, same old.

The current state of our political system is a direct result of the concentration of wealth and the power the goes along with it. Face it things are going to have to get a lot worse before somebody who willing to change things is going to stand a chance.

The best solution I can think of is if people were allowed to vote for "none of the above" and nobody would get in. The process would repeat until a candidate receives a true majority of the voting population. This getting in with less the 25% of the voting population is true bull$hit. And I don't want to hear about everybody should exercise their right to vote when the choices have been preordained such that none of them represent the interests of the working class.

In that regard at least the Bushes are up front about who's interests they represent, unlike the slick predecessor who conned everybody into thinking he was otherwise..

I love the generalizations, that you commie terrorist lovers come up with.(does that sound stupid? think about it)


Nazi's ? give me a break.

The letter that PC put up to start all of this is purely speculative, but may very likely be right on. The duty Kerry was pulling may not have been the very most exposed, but you can know that it was right up there, and he may have wanted out. He at least took the challenge of putting himself in harms way, maybe not as noble as being a Hospital Coreman, but it shows me a lot more character than ducking into the Guard. I can’t fault anybody for suddenly wanting out when they actually experience the adrenaline rush that comes from real fear, but I’ll always give them the nod for character compared to somebody who avoided the circumstance.
I see a serious lack of character in the way the administration approaches things – “Clean Air Act” that raises pollution levels – “Healthy Forest Initiative” that may allow clear-cutting – “The War on Terror” that slips in a private agenda. It’s all too much like a magician that makes you look at his right hand while he picks your pocket with his left.
The problems we face will take many administrations to solve, or even to even turn around. Unfortunately the way it’s all put together right now it seems that leaders of great character don’t even get near the top. Of the bunch that’s left, I really like Edwards. He has a spark that may be able to capture the national imagination. Anyway, the next administration is stepping onto some very thin ice, as I see it; maybe it’d best to just let Bush fail miserably.

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"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius

Anybody who changed their vote based on Dean's holler is a knucklehead anyway. Do you find it presidental to have a President who has a poor command of English? Judging Dean on his holler is even more superficial than judging W because he is inarticulate. What you refer to as "presidential" is a facade. The reason W is not presidential is not because he can't put two sentences together. He is not presidential because he is a dishonest, self-important, uninformed prick with no empathy for people who don't see the world his way. What does Dean's holler have to do with anything?

Something just occured to me, it the only thing G.W did in 8 years is give you guys ulcers I would call it a total success.

Paybacks a B!tch.

If that is all that he did, it would be an improvement over what we have now.

That's the truth. Politicians don't seem to learn that lesson.