Two MOH Winners say Bush Didn't Serve

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:


Sounds like a worthwhile read. The only book I've ever read concerning
Vietnam was Chickenhawk....which being a helo type, I enjoyed immensely.

It would be self-serving to suggest that you might enjoy When Thunder
Rolled. There are several SAR stories you might find interesting.


I will read it without a doubt. I just checked and the San Francisco
Public Library system doesn't have it yet....but I'm sure I can find it
somewhere around the city.


It is his conduct during the
Winter Soldier testimony, his categorization of the military still in
harm's way as criminals and guilty of atrocities,

Did he say that all military personnel in Vietnam were criminals and
guilty of atrocities?

Yes, he did.

Verifiable citation please (one that specifically states _all_)



his throwing of
someone else's medals over the White House fence

What of it?

You don't see a problem with such a grandstanding effort using someone
else's awards?


If that someone else was OK with it; so am I.



his alignment with
VVAW and offering of aid/comfort to the enemy.


How did he offer either aid or comfort to the enemy?

His picture hangs in honor in the Vietnamese War Remembrance Museum.


So? How does/did that give aid and comfort to the enemy?


He now seeks to turn the clock back and trade on his combat experience
as that seems to offer more traction in a nation at war.


He was silent on it for a long time, but the media kept bringing it
up...over and over again. Is he supposed to remain quiet about his
honorable service to country?

C'mon. You really haven't been paying attention. Kerry is the one who
repeatedly brings it up.

I have been paying attention. Kerry went months without bringing it up.
The media would have nothing of that and repeatedly glorified him
(unnecessarily, IMHO) because of it. The Bush campaign then took
pre-emptive strikes on his service. Since everybody seems intent on
making it an issue...he included it. I can't say he isn't entitled to
that.


His TV spots running in CO start out with him
slogging through the jungle (unusual position for a Swift boat CC),
and listing his awards.


I don't know about that. I worked alongside a fellow by the name of
Nathan Benjamin for three years at the VA. Nate was also a river rat in
Vietnam. We had numerous conversations about his experience
there....starting with me asking him how he got the the horizontal scar
from side-to-side on the back of his neck. Seems they routinely set
ashore for various missions not limited to search and destroy. During
once such occasion, they had just set ashore and hadn't gone more than
100 ft into the jungle when they were immediately engaged in
hand-to-hand combat with Nate taking a machete blow to the back of his
neck. The fact that he was falling forward saved him from being
decapitated and able to recover and fire his favored weapon (.44 mag
with the ammo tips cross cut by his knife)...putting an immediate end to
his attacker's life. All of this happened while in the jungle and during
the course of a brown water mission.



...
Didn't you say a while back that you were in the CSAR business? Never
got to employ your skills?


Nope. About 10 years too young to have served in Vietnam and got out
well before Iraq. I was in the active reserves (HS-246) during the first
Iraq affair, but never got called...and quit the reserved after
hostilities ended (out of disgust over US troops being sent there in the
first place).

Is it unfair to note that you should have been told that when you
signed on to the reserves that you could be "sent over there in the
first place"?


Been told what? That I could be sent into harm's way? Having come into
the active reserves in December 1987 directly from a 4.5 year hitch on
active duty...I was very well aware of such possibilities.

In 1987 Iraq was our buddy. I doubt any of envisioned Operation Re-elect
Bush would be coming a few years down the pike. When hostilities began,
I was onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln doing my two weeks for the year
with HS-6.

Did I bug out then? No (although I was under no obligation to the
reserves). I was against that operation from the start and joined
protesters every Sunday in Balboa Park (San Diego), but I stayed
in...all of us with orders to have our gear ready for immediate
deployment to a fleet squadron. I couldn't fathom getting out when the
people I flew with and cared about most would have to pick up my missing
slack if called upon.

I waited till _after_ hostilities ended. Shortly thereafter in the
middle of a drill week-end, I got in my car and drove off NAS North
Island and said goodbye to the military forever.


And, to go a bit further, to note that your service
seems quite parallel to the President's?

The president served on active duty?



Except, of course that when
you signed on there was not the possibility of conflict

The economic draft lives on in this country. I joined for the same
reason the vast majority of enlisted people join: as a 17 year-old
emancipated minor, it was the only way I could see ever getting a chance
to go to college. I also believed everything my country told me and even
voted for Reagan.


and when there
was the possibility you got out?

There was less of a possibility of being sent in harm's way when I got
out than when I came in...although the possibilities of dying did not
favor in to the equation in either case.



--Mike