[GCFL-discuss] Authoritative sources

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

A brief note to the compulsive bean counters (in and out of the GCFL
discussion) who are nit-picking about how much time Kery served in
Vietnam, and how badly hurt he got for his purple hearts:

Those who are nit-picking have generally not been in military service
themselves. I have not either. I have noticed that those who served
directly under Kerry in Vietnam have enthusiastically come forward to
support him. That is the best authority available in my view.

There are certainly Vietnam veterans committed to GWB's re-election. 
That is only natural -- veterans are a large enough number to reflect
most political opinions in the country generally. But those who depended
on him in battle have convinced me he is a capable leader when a fight
has to be made.

The current administration is full of men who never served in the
military, but are compulsively ready to put other people's sons on the
line for the most obscure and personal preoccupations -- even suggesting
in September 2001 that we should not attack the country where those who
attacked us were harbored, but instead should attack another country that
had nothing to do with that particular atrocity. To call their judgment
obscene is to give them an undeserved compliment.

As to the purple hearts, I haven't heard Kerry making a big issue of
them, but they probably are inflated for a reason he had no control over.
It was well known by 1969 that both the Johnson and Nixon administrations
were handing out purple hearts for the slightest scratch or sprain,
because they considered it good propaganda for the war effort. There are
some old Doonesbury cartoons about it, if anyone wants to look for them.

Siarlys


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