Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will begin airing a new ad tomorrow featuring the wives of former POWs in Vietnam, recounting how their husbands and other prisoners were tortured to obtain confessions of atrocities while John Kerry accused American soldiers of war crimes back home.
The 527 group, producers of a best-seller calling Kerry "Unfit for Command," has a $1.4 million ad buy on national cable and on broadcast television in the swing states of Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada.
The featured wives, Mary Jane McManus and Phyllis Galanti, will participate in an accompanying media blitz with satellite media tours, talk-radio interviews, editorials and local events.
In the 60-second spot, the swiftboat vets' seventh, the wives refer to Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony in which he made a blanket condemnation of Americans serving in Vietnam, charging the chain of command fostered an environment in which they regularly committed atrocities.
The group's second ad included Phyllis Galanti's husband, Paul, a prisoner of war from January 1966 to February 1973, saying, "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying. ... It demoralized us."
The new spot, titled "Never Forget," includes a reference on screen to the website of a television documentary, "Stolen Honor," that provides more testimony by former POWs of the demoralizing impact of Kerry's war-crimes accusations.
The text of the ad reads:
Mary Jane McManus: Three months after we were married, my husband was shot down over Hanoi.
Phyllis Galanti: Paul and I were married in 1963. Two years later he was shot down over North Vietnam.
McManus: All of the prisoners of war in North Vietnam were tortured in order to obtain confessions of atrocities.
Galanti: On the other hand, John Kerry came home and accused all Vietnam veterans of unspeakable horrors.
McManus: John Kerry gave aide and comfort to the enemy by advocating their negotiating points to our government.
Galanti: Why is it relevant? Because John Kerry is asking us to trust him.
McManus: I will never forget John Kerry’s testimony. If we couldn’t trust John Kerry then, how could we possibly trust him now?
September 10, 2004, 9:06 a.m.
Honor Reclaimed: POWs have their say.
by Kate O'Beirne
If the powerful documentary featuring highly decorated Vietnam POWs recounting how Lt.(jg) John Kerry's antiwar activity affected them was seen by the huge audience it deserves, Massachusetts's junior senator wouldn't get elected to a sanitation commission. In Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, 13 POWs, whose cries of pain, defiance, and despair went unheard during their hellish captivity, share their stories about the betrayal they felt when a fellow officer claimed American forces were guilty of widespread war crimes. Over 30 years ago, antiwar veterans (both faux and real) basked in the media spotlight; now proud veterans who endured their slanders, along with years of cruelty and abuse, are having their say. These indisputable heroes include two Medal of Honor winners, one of whom explains, "This is an effort that was long in coming, but would not have come about if not for the Democratic candidate 'reporting for duty.'"
The 45-minute film opens with scenes of the dank cells at the Hanoi Hilton where the oppressive silence would only be broken by "cries of pain." One POW recalls the intense pain of the torture they suffered, explaining that "the rope was the worst." Following one such session, designed to win a confession of war crimes, another explains that for days afterward he was unable to move his body from his shoulders down. Ken Cordier, held for over six years, explains that they would be brutally manacled until they "screamed loud and long enough" to be released in exchange for information and confessions. Any injury was specifically targeted in order to break the captives more quickly. Tapes of Jane Fonda accusing them of being war criminals were played in their cells.
Mary Jane McManus had eloped in Hawaii and was married for three days when her husband Kevin returned to Vietnam to complete his tour. She didn't see him again for almost six years. While she kept her lonely vigil, she witnessed the charges being leveled by John Kerry and others. She couldn't fathom that anyone would believe American troops were capable of routinely committing atrocities, because "they were our husbands, and sons and brothers."
James Warner, held for over five years, recalls being made to stand motionless inside a small chalked circle on the floor. He lasted for 97 hours, during which he had a view of the camp's front gate. He saw the author Mary McCarthy and Tom Hayden enter the camp. His mother attended the Winter Soldier hearings and issued a statement criticizing the war, which his captors shared with him along with statements by John Kerry. He explains that Kerry met with his mother and sister and thinks it was a "contemptible act" to take advantage of a "grieving old lady and manipulate her grief to promote your own political agenda." He adds, "He burned up his Band of Brothers membership card when he did that."
When John Kerry was the prized spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), there were 700 American POWs in Vietnam. Many of those involved in this documentary, funded by $200,000 in donations from Pennsylvania veterans, believe that antiwar activists encouraged their captors to hold out because the "war would be lost in the streets of America." They point out that the immediate withdrawal of troops demanded by the VVAW would have abandoned them to whatever fate their captors chose when they were no longer bargaining chips in a negotiated end to the war.
Paul Galanti, who flew 97 combat missions before being shot down on June 17, 1966, spent over six and a half years as a POW. Referring to the Winter Soldier hearings that have been thoroughly debunked, Galanti says that John Kerry "should have known those guys he was with were frauds." The film includes a short clip from the Winter Soldier hearings that drew chuckles from the audience. An alleged veteran is having his memory refreshed about an alleged atrocity he was having trouble recalling. Galanti reminds the audience that "the cruelties of My Lai were exposed by the soldiers there."
Leo Thorsness, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, talks about the strict rules of engagement governing pilots flying over North Vietnam, ruefully noting that as a result the enemy had "plenty of chances to shoot us down."
Colonel George "Bud" Day, who also won the Medal of Honor and is considered one of the most decorated veterans of the last century, recalls being outraged to learn that veterans were warned not to wear their uniforms when they returned home. The film depicts protesters waving signs reading, "No Parades for Murderers" and "See Nixon's War Criminals" in front of veterans. "Right to this day we still have not recovered our good name," Day angrily declares. He charges that John Kerry wants them to forget the role he played in blackening the name of all Vietnam veterans. "I can never forget," he says.
The documentary is available on the Stolen Honor website. Its producer, Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize wining journalist and Marine Vietnam veteran, points out that "there is no fog of war here" given the public testimony of John Kerry. He explains that the motivation is "deeply personal" rather than political.
An Army Vietnam veteran recently told me, "When John Kerry loses, it will be the parade we never had." They've earned it.
ELECTION 2004
New Film Says Kerry Worsened POWs Captivity
By Melissa Charbonneau
White House Correspondent
September 10, 2004
CBN.com - WASHINGTON
. . .
At the first screening in Washington of the anti-Kerry documentary "Stolen Honor," clips of POW survivors described the torture endured at the hands of North Vietnamese.
The controversial film also contends that Kerry's anti-war activities, and his 1971 Senate testimony accusing American soldiers of war atrocities, worsened the POW's captivity by bolstering the morale of the North Vietnamese.
Former POW Leo Thorsness said, "He's been in Vietnam, now he swaps to the other side, and he's saying the same thing we're being tortured to say. That was a very difficult time."
The film blames Kerry for ruining the reputations of the Vietnam veterans. According to the vets, Kerry was saying things he knew to be false and knew would harm them, and they said that means that he abandoned his comrades.
Veteran and film producer Carlton Sherwood said, "Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam veterans, literally creating an image of those who served in combat as deranged, drug-addicted psychopaths."
The film explains that these vets were good men who, because of Kerry's testimony, later came back to the U.S. and were spat upon. They could not even wear their uniforms on the street.
And, the film asserts, his testimony lengthened their captivity and threatened to ruin the chances of the POWs getting home.
One POW said, "I'm convinced Kerry and his fellows, the anti-war people, caused the war to be extended two more years, throwing medals over the wall, speaking against our country in time of war. He knows it would extend the war and complicate things and probably hurt a lot of prisoners. I can never forget."
The Kerry campaign did not return CBN News' calls for comment.
The $200,000 used to produce the film was raised by Pennsylvania veterans. They and the POWs in the film say it is Kerry who brought up Vietnam. He built his campaign on it, and now he should be held accountable for what he said about it after the war.
When John Kerry appeared before the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the spring of 1971, his testimony sent shock waves throughout America and the world. Here was a young, articulate Ivy-Leaguer, a highly decorated Naval officer who had seen combat in Vietnam. Now, driven by conscience and lofty ideals, Lt. Kerry said he felt compelled to break his silence and tell the unvarnished truth about the Vietnam War and those who fought it. The war, he said, was a criminal endeavor driven by a “policy of atrocities.” The 2.5 million men who served in Vietnam were akin to “Genghis Khan’s barbaric hordes,” thugs and psychopathic war criminals who wantonly plundered the Vietnam countryside, murdering, raping and bombing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians - old men, women and children -- each and every day.
Lt. Kerry’s widely televised statements were dramatic and persuasive, made all the more credible by the fact he had been there, said he had witnessed many of these same atrocities. His testimony catapulted him to international prominence and the ranks of leadership in the American anti-war movement, launching his once failing political career. It also permanently branded in the American psyche the image of Vietnam veterans as murderous “baby killers” and “drugged out losers,” a perception that persists today, one deeply embedded in our history.
That single act earned for Kerry the lasting enmity of Vietnam veterans, especially those who had borne the brunt of his accusations, that small percentage of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who actually served on the frontlines. Many of these combat veterans would carry the scars of their service for life. Kerry’s repudiation of their sacrifice represented yet another war wound, one that would never heal. As compelling as Kerry’s Senate testimony was, these men knew it was lacking in one key element … truth. They knew from their own combat experiences virtually all his allegations were lies; the U.S. military would never countenance such brutality. And, they also knew his actions were a deliberate betrayal of all of them, especially the more than 58,000 who lost their lives in the Vietnam War.
But, perhaps, more than any living group of combat veterans, it was the America ’s POWs who suffered most, forced to endure the immediate consequences of Kerry’s treacherous falsehoods. In 1971, some 700 of these men were reported as captured or missing in action, most presumed held prisoner by the North Vietnamese Communists in such places as the notorious Hanoi Hilton. Already subjected to years of torture, solitary confinement and unspeakable psychological and physical abuse, their lives were literally hanging by a thread when Kerry issued his damning testimony. In mere moments, Kerry had willingly given the Vietnamese Communists what they had spent years of torture and blood-letting to drag out of their American hostages, an unqualified “confession” they were all war criminals.
Vietnam POWs Say Kerry's Words and Deeds Were Used by Guards to Torture Them
Posted Aug. 4, 2004
By Richard Tomkins
John Kerry's bid to become commander in chief of wartime America has opened old wounds among some former Vietnam-era POWs who bristle over Kerry's antiwar activism and atrocity allegations during the Vietnam conflict.
Those activities and statements, pushed out of sight by a campaign that spotlights Kerry's service in Vietnam, were used by the POWs' North Vietnamese captors to sap the morale of prisoners and U.S. troops still in the field in South Vietnam, former POWs told United Press International.
"They were always talking about that [antiwar demonstrations], and they picked right up on Kerry's throw-away line, 'Don't be the last man to die in a lost cause, or die for a lost cause,'" said Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who spent 2,284 days as a prisoner. "They repeated that incessantly. ... They used these photographs and inputs, voice tapes, whatever, from these peace people to try to convince us the whole country had turned antiwar and we were showing a very bad attitude and would never go home."
Jim Warner, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese in the Hoa Lo prison complex -- known to U.S. servicemen as the Hanoi Hilton -- remembers Kerry. He became acquainted with him, he said, when a North Vietnamese guard and interrogator the prisoners nicknamed "Boris" took Warner to the quiz shack in the complex's punishment camp called "Skid Row" in May 1971.
During a four-hour propaganda and harassment session, Boris pulled papers from his pocket and gave them to Warner to think about, he said. Some were clippings from a leftist newspaper in the United States. The other was a typewritten transcript of Kerry's testimony before a U.S. Senate panel in which he repeated allegations of U.S. troops routinely committing atrocities, attacking the war and saying communism was not a threat in Vietnam.
The atrocity allegations were garnered from the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit in early 1971, in which actress and activist Jane Fonda and Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), were involved.
At that event people claiming to have seen combat in Vietnam alleged committing atrocities -- rape, cutting off of ears and heads, murdering women and children -- on a routine basis and with the knowledge of their superiors. Many of the allegations proved false or could not be documented, and the veracity and identities of many witnesses later came into question.
"It was the stuff about the Winter Soldier," Warner said. "The paper he showed me, the statements from John Kerry, were separate. And the stuff that was supposed to be from Kerry was a typewritten transcript of a few pages, but he was pointing to the statements. I can't quote the statements, but essentially they were the same as those being played now on talk shows of his testimony in front of the Senate."
Warner was in his Marine Corps F-4B aircraft when he was shot down over North Vietnam on Oct. 13, 1967, and was held for 1,979 days. He told UPI that in that confrontation with the North Vietnamese officer he was told "these statements [by Kerry] ... were proof I deserved to be punished. I was pretty sure they weren't going to do anything, but in the summer of '69 they had spent four months trying to get information out of me, and I still had the memory of my mistreatment -- sleep deprivation, leg irons, a cement box in the sun [and feet and ankles swollen from chains digging into the flesh].
"The memory of that was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I was extremely uneasy. Every time he mentioned [the papers], this officer said I committed crimes, that this war was illegal. I just had no idea. ... All along they told us they would execute us for our 'crimes.'"
Particularly galling for Warner was his parents' brief participation at an antiwar event in Detroit where they said their son was a prisoner and they hoped he would be released. Warner said he never spoke to his parents about that after his return -- it just wasn't something talked about -- but his sisters had told him Fonda and Kerry were involved in getting his parents to appear, an appearance he believes lent a measure of respectability to the event.
Warner said Kerry and VVAW, which had staged large demonstrations in Washington, often were mentioned in the radio broadcasts that played incessantly over the camp's loudspeakers.
"On our [former POW] listserve there are many people who mention hearing Kerry on Radio Hanoi and how much that infuriated them," Warner said, "but I don't know of anyone else confronted like that."
Cordier, now living in Texas, doesn't recall Kerry's name specifically being used in interrogations, propaganda broadcasts by Hanoi Hannah (Radio Vietnam) or during "attitude checks" -- political indoctrination sessions -- since Kerry was then not a household name. But he said he does remember the North Vietnamese using the so-called Winter Soldier investigations and photographs of war veterans, both real and imposters, throwing military medals over the White House fence.
Paul Galanti, a former Navy pilot who spent 2,432 days in captivity and worked on the 2000 primary campaign of fellow former POW Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also remembers the broadcasts.
"It was propaganda. They stopped torturing us after Ho Chi Minh died pretty much, but all that stuff we got banged on -- they wanted us to say and to confess to war crimes and killing babies and all this other stuff," he said. "They kept talking about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they had seen the right way and blah, blah, blah, and they were on our side, they had crossed over to the peoples' side and all that stuff."
Galanti said he didn't know Kerry's name then, although he had seen a newspaper photograph while in captivity that showed someone who looked like Lurch (a character in The Addams Family television show in the mid-sixties). Like others, they had only heard newscasts about a former Navy lieutenant and the antiwar movement. "I figured out who it was later," he said.
Cordier, Warner and Galanti said although the antiwar protest propaganda was sometimes disheartening, the North Vietnamese failed in their attempt to use it to break the prisoners' will.
"It didn't make us want to give up, it just made us feel discouraged that there were people who felt that way about us," said Warner, who works as a corporate attorney.
Cordier, Galanti and Warner are dead set against Kerry becoming president. Cordier says it's just not Kerry's antiwar past, but his record till now, including his voting against funds for troops in Iraq.
"The measure of a person's character is their whole history up until the present," he said. "It's not what they say they believe or what they'll do when president or all these platitudes. ... And he has consistently taken the side of our enemies and other countries that oppose us or have a different viewpoint."
Joe Crecca, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966 and held for 2,280 days, won't be supporting Kerry either, accusing him of having "betrayed those who served with him by falsely accusing them of war crimes and a host of other things as soon as he returned to the U.S.A."
Retired Adm. Jeremiah Denton -- held 2,766 days -- helps lead Vets4Bush. Everett Alvarez, who at 3,113 days was the longest-held prisoner of the North Vietnamese, would say only that he would be considered partisan since he had been a Reagan administration appointee.
McCain, who is campaigning for Bush, also was a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton and counts himself as a friend of Kerry. Calls to his office for comment for this article were not returned. However, in 1973, shortly after his release from the Hanoi Hilton, McCain had a strong negative opinion on prominent antiwar activists, although he did not know Kerry by name at the time.
The Kerry campaign, asked to comment, sent UPI an e-mail message that included two quotes from a Oct. 21, 1996, New Yorker article entitled "A Friendship that Ended the War" and asked they be included.
"John McCain has never changed his mind about Kerry's participation in that antiwar demonstration, but he has changed his mind about the man," the article stated. "When I asked McCain if he would be campaigning for [former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, who ran against Kerry for Senate], he shook his head, an emphatic no. 'I simply would not do such a thing. I couldn't do that. ... I'm surprised you would ask. ... Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider.'"
The second quote from the same New Yorker article the Kerry campaign wanted cited was from Kerry in the same interview: "'We started talking about the war, and Vietnam, prison -- what happened to him and all that. ... Nothing had brought us together before, and we just talked. We talked about what I had done.' Kerry was referring to the episode that McCain had denounced in the 1984 campaign. 'But by now it wasn't a big hurdle,' he went on. 'To his credit, he didn't make it one. He made it clear that he had moved beyond all that. ... The war was a tough period for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Both of us decided to put all that kind of stuff behind us, and work together at something.'"
During the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week, a number of anti-Kerry veterans' groups participated in demonstrations opposing Kerry's campaign for the nation's top job, and other groups have more demonstration plans in the works.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- former Navy patrol-boat crews, including former comrades and a crewmate of Kerry in Vietnam -- publicly came out in opposition to the senator from Massachusetts last May and plan to launch a television ad attacking his candidacy later this month.
Kerry, meanwhile, is attempting to organize other veterans into a reliable voting bloc. His campaign works with several people who served with Kerry during his four-month stay in Vietnam as testimonials to his service. In July Kerry told CBS's Dan Rather that he was "very proud" of having been a leader of the antiwar movement but admitted some of his language may have been too strong.
Richard Tomkins is a White House correspondent for Insight's sister news service, United Press International.
McCain: Hanoi Hilton Guards Taunted POWs With Kerry's Testimony
These days, former Vietnam War POW Sen. John McCain has nothing but praise for his fellow Vietnam veteran Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' current presidential front-runner.
But after he was released from the Hanoi Hilton in 1973, McCain publicly complained that testimony by Kerry and others before J. William Fulbright's Senate Foreign Relations Committee was "the most effective propaganda [my North Vietnamese captors] had to use against us."
"They used Senator Fulbright a great deal," McCain wrote in the May 14, 1973, issue of U.S. News & World Report. While he was languishing in a North Vietnamese prison cell, Kerry was telling the Fulbright committee that U.S. soldiers were committing war crimes in Vietnam as a matter of course.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, a key Kerry presidential backer, was "quoted again and again" by jailers at the Hanoi Hilton, McCain said.
"Clark Clifford was another [North Vietnamese] favorite," the ex-POW told U.S. News, "right after he had been Secretary of Defense under President Johnson."
"When Ramsey Clark came over [my jailers] thought that was a great coup for their cause," McCain recalled. Months earlier, Sen. Kerry had appeared with Clark at the April 1971 Washington, D.C., anti-war protest that showcased his testimony before the Fulbright Committee.
"All through this period," wrote McCain, his captors were "bombarding us with anti-war quotes from people in high places back in Washington. This was the most effective propaganda they had to use against us."
McCain biographer Paul Alexander chronicled the Arizona Republican's anger toward Kerry during their early careers in the Senate together.
"For many years McCain held Kerry's actions against him because, while McCain was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, Kerry was organizing veterans back home in the U.S. to protest the war."
In his 2002 book, "Man of the People: The Life of John McCain," Alexander says that the two Vietnam vets finally reconciled in the early 1990s after having "a long - and at times emotional - conversation about Vietnam" during a mutual trip to Kuwait.
Later, Kerry sought to minimize the rift, telling Alexander: "Our differences occurred when we were kids, or at least close to being kids. It was a long time ago, and we both came back and realized that there were a lot of difficulties in the prosecution of that war."
NewsMax gratefully acknowledges the help of U.S. Veteran Dispatch editor Ted Sampley for supplying McCain's revealing 1973 account in U.S. News.
Vietnam POW: Hanoi Hilton Torturers Cited Kerry's Speech
A former Vietnam POW is alleging that his Hanoi captors specifically cited Sen. John Kerry's 1971 anti-war testimony to Congress as they brutally tortured him to get him to turn on his fellow GIs.
One-time Navy pilot Paul Galanti was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966 and spent seven years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.
He told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that he learned of Kerry's April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while being tortured by his Hanoi Hilton guards.
According to the Times, "during torture sessions, [Galanti] said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as 'an example of why we should cross over to [their] side.'"
In his account to the Senate, Kerry accused U.S. soldiers of routinely committing rapes, beheadings, mutilations and all manner of atrocities against the Vietnamese people.
Galanti told the Times that Kerry's decision to publicly allege that U.S. soldiers were war criminals "jeopardize[d] those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy."
Because he did, Galanti said, "John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with."
"The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," the ex-POW said, "because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington."
"Among veterans and active duty military, the picture is more difficult to read, though Kerry's strength in this quarter has been overstated by a media all too ready to buy the "band of brothers" theatrics that Kerry has been staging at each campaign stop. Every time Kerry invokes his real heroism in Vietnam, a network announcer should intone the opinions of Paul Galanti, quoted in the February 17, 2004, Los Angeles Times:
"Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's [1971] speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison. The Navy pilot had been shot down in 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war."
"During torture sessions, he said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as 'an example of why we should cross over to [their] side.'"
"'The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield,' Galanti said, 'because thanks to these protestors they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington.'"
Knowing that I served in the U.S. Senate with John Kerry and that, like him, I am a veteran of the Vietnam War, many people have asked me what I think of him, particularly now that he's the apparent presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
When Kerry joined me in the Senate, I already knew about his record of defamatory remarks and behavior criticizing U.S. policy in Vietnam and the conduct of our military personnel there. I had learned in North Vietnamese prisons how much harm such statements caused.
To me, his remarks and behavior amounted to giving aid and comfort to our Vietnamese and Soviet enemies. So I was not surprised when his subsequent overall voting pattern in the Senate was consistently detrimental to our national security.
Considering his demonstrated popularity during the Democratic primaries, I earnestly hope the American people will soberly consider Kerry's qualifications for the presidency in light of his position and record on both our cultural war at home and on national security issues.
To put it bluntly, John Kerry exemplifies the very reasons that I switched to the Republican Party.
Returning from his tour of duty, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (search) in 1971, in which he claimed it was U.S. policy in Vietnam to carry out atrocities and war crimes.
A number of Vietnam veterans consider this testimony slanderous and say Kerry had to know it was false. They accuse Kerry of lying about fellow soldiers and officers to push a political agenda, and say his words dishonored comrades in arms at a time of war.
"He knew as an officer that those were lies. It never happened," said Vietnam veteran Carlton Sherwood. "He was principally responsible for cementing the image of Vietnam veterans (search) as drugged-out psychopaths who were totally unrestrained and who were a murderous hoard."
After Kerry's testimony, military and independent investigations found that many of the soldiers who told Kerry and others they committed such atrocities were either never in the service, never in Vietnam or couldn't provide more evidence of those horrific actions.
Retired General George S. Patton III angrily charged that Kerry’s actions were giving “aid and comfort to the enemy.”
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2004
Vietnam veteran Steve Pitkin claims that John Kerry pressured him to lie in 1971 when he claimed U.S. soldiers engaged in atrocities during the Vietnam War.
Pitkin had been a key participant in John Kerry’s infamous “Winter Soldier” hearings of the same year, which concluded that the U.S. military was allegedly engaging in war crimes against the Vietnamese.
These days, Pitkin appears in the controversial anti-Kerry documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal.” The film features a clip of Pitkin from another documentary film, "Winter Soldier."
In that clip, the bearded and bandana-wearing Pitkin seems stunned and vague while being questioned by John Kerry in a preliminary interview - apparently overwhelmed over being asked to describe his combat tour.
Today, however, Pitkin discloses that his lack of candor in the 1971 film clip actually reflected his efforts to avoid giving Kerry what he so desperately wanted: war stories about how American troops in Vietnam were daily committing war crimes in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide in that 10-year conflict.
In the end, Pitkin said, he gave in to Kerry’s pressure and made up allegations of war crimes.
"The VVAW [Vietnam Veterans Against the War] found me during a difficult time in my life, and I let them use me to advance their political agenda,” Pitkin now confesses. “They pressured me to tell their lies, but that's no excuse for what I did. I just want people to know the truth and to make amends as best I can. I'd hate to see the troops serving today have to go through what Vietnam veterans did."
During a speech at the Kerry Lied Rally on Sept. 12, 2004, Pitkin first identified himself as a vet who, with prodding from Kerry, lied about atrocities in Vietnam:
“They knew I was one of the very few real combat veterans in the room. I told them I didn’t have anything to say. Kerry said, ‘Surely you’ve seen some of the atrocities.’
“I kept saying ‘no’ and the mood turned ugly. One of the other leaders whispered to me, ‘It’s a long walk back to Baltimore.’ I’m not proud of this, but I finally agreed to speak. They told me what to talk about - American troops beating civilians and prisoners, shelling and destroying villages for no reason, and acts of racism against the Vietnamese.
“John Kerry knew that the Winter Soldier testimony was a pack of lies. I know, because I was there, and I told some of those lies.”
In “Stolen Honor,” Col. Bud Day, a Medal of Honor winner who spent 67 months as a POW, and 16 other POWs of that war lambaste Kerry for creating the myth of brutal GIs terrorizing the countryside.
“The thing about the Kerry comments in 1971 is that they were so sensational, so outrageous, that they were precisely the kind of thing that a propaganda expert and the news media were looking for ...,” Day said. “He has destroyed the good name of all Vietnam veterans. Now he wants us to forget. I can never forget.”
In “Stolen Honor,” Day and the sixteen other POWs who served years in captivity while undergoing torture claimed that Kerry’s Winter Soldier hearings gave the North Vietnamese fodder for their attacks on the POWs and their desire to continue the war.
Pitkin’s About-Face
After years of living a lie, the turnabout by Pitkin is 180 degrees.
In 1971 he introduced himself before the “Winter Soldiers” investigative panel this way:
“My name is Steve Pitkin, age 20, from Baltimore. I served with the 9th Division from May of '69 until I was air-evacuated in July of '69. I'll testify about the beating of civilians and enemy personnel, destruction of villages, indiscriminate use of artillery, the general racism and the attitude of the American GI toward the Vietnamese. I will also talk about some of the problems of the GIs toward one another and the hassle with officers.”
Now, in a sworn affidavit recently executed in Palm Beach County, Fla., he has set the record straight:
“... During my service in Vietnam, I neither witnessed nor participated in any American war crimes or atrocities against civilians, nor was I ever aware of any such actions. I did witness the results of Vietcong atrocities against Vietnamese civilians, including the murder of tribal leaders. ...
“I joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), at Catonsville Community College in Baltimore in 1970.
“In January of 1971, I rode in a van with John Kerry, a national leader of the VVAW, and others from Washington D.C. to Detroit to attend the Winter Soldier Investigation, a conference intended to publicize alleged American war crimes in Vietnam. Having no knowledge of such war crimes, I did not intend to speak at the event.
“During the Winter Soldier Investigation, John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so. One event leader strongly implied that I would not be provided transportation back to my home in Baltimore, Maryland, if I failed to comply. Kerry and other leaders of the event instructed me to publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue.”
In his affidavit, Pitkin also describes how John Kerry’s famous medal tossing in front of the U.S. Capitol was staged:
“In April 1971, I attended a VVAW protest in Washington D.C. known as ‘Dewey Canyon III.’ During this event I was present when protestors, including John Kerry, threw medals and ribbons over a fence outside the U.S. Capitol. I witnessed a man holding a bag of ribbons and medals and handing them out to other protestors. I saw that many of the ribbons and medals were not those that would be received by veterans of combat in Vietnam.”
Pitkin served with the Ninth Division of the U.S. Army beginning May 25, 1969. A mortar explosion wounded him and later the wounds became infected, resulting in his removal from the combat zone. During his tour he received the Combat Infantry Badge, Army Commendation Medal, RVN Cross of Gallantry, Air Medal and Purple Heart. He went on later in life to retire from the U.S. Coast Guard.
NewsMax spoke to Scott Swett of SwiftVets.com and Wintersoldiers.com, who gave some background as to how Steve Pitkin surfaced after three decades.
According to Swett, Pitkin placed a comment on the SwiftVets.com bulletin board about a month ago. Swett says it was he who followed up, interviewing Pitkin over the course of a couple of days.
Says Swett: “Pitkin is unique in a couple of ways. He is the only Winter Soldier investigation subject to come forward and under oath recant his testimony. Pitkin is furthermore the only investigation interviewee to return to the military. But most significantly, Pitkin was interviewed directly by Kerry himself on a
The North Vietnamese general in charge of the military campaign that finally drove the U.S. out of South Vietnam in 1975 credited a group led by Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry with helping him achieve victory.
In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for
organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. - according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North.
"The Vietnam Veterans Against the War encouraged people to desert, encouraged people to mutiny - some used what they wrote to justify fragging officers," noted the former Marine lieutenant colonel, who earned two purple hearts in Vietnam.
dhud37lud: One event leader strongly implied that I would not be provided transportation back to my home in Baltimore, Maryland, if I failed to comply.
Wow, under this kind of pressure no wonder the guy cracked.
The article then goes on to say -“Pitkin is unique in a couple of ways. He is the only Winter Soldier investigation subject to come forward and under oath recant his testimony."
The Republicans could only find one vet willing to spill the beans under oath?? And of course as we all know, Pitkin, being a vet, couldn't possible lie. But then using this logic, Kerry was also a vet so he must be telling the truth too.
Yup, Kerry sure is telling the truth. "I personally commited and witnessed atrosities against the people of North Vietnam".
As you say, if there are soldiers who have done this, he is also one. Does this make me want him for my President? Hell no.
I was in Vietnam, my brother was in Vietnam and niether of us commited or withnessed atrosities. For Kerry to tell you that I did, is an out and out lie.
Kerry is the baby killer and as he has said last week, "I have no regrets and am proud of my service in Vietnam". Proud to be a baby killer and admits it.
Hmmm. Great leadership qualities here.
h@ts, and you and your country supporting this guy tells the American people a lot.
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini
I'm sure plenty of soldiers didn't see any attrocities. But some did!!
No-one blames Vietnam vets for the problems in the Vietnam war. Attrocities happen but they ALWAYS do in war. How many soldiers where there, 500,000? It's impossible that attrocites wouldn't have happened on all sides? IT WAS WAR!!
To continue the futile Vietnam war any longer than was necessary would have been the real war crime.
As for Kerry saying he killed babies? I think not.
USA1 said this in post #9 : Kerry said 'I' killed babies and I resent it. He just said he commited atrosities.
Blaming me for his mistakes.
How did Kerry blame "you" for killing babies?? This is pure fantasy on your part. Kerry said this in his Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1971:
quote:
"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies.
...because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's and so many others.
And here's something very relevant to today's situation in Iraq from the same 1971 testimony:
quote:
Therefore, I think it is ridiculous to assume we have to play this power game based on total warfare. I think there will be guerrilla wars and I think we must have a capability to fight those. And we may have to fight them somewhere based on legitimate threats, but we must learn, in this country, how to define those threats and that is what I would say to the question of world peace.
10-31-2004 05:14 AM
