On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:28:58 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

And, yet you don't seem to respect the opinion of those of us who
served in SEA that the actions of Lt John F. Kerry after his
exceptionally brief service were to the detriment of half a million of
his brothers in arms who were still in harms way.

Ed, I have a concern here. It may be that I misunderstand you, so please
don't take this personally.

It's often been said that people who didn't fight in Vietnam didn't have the
credibility to criticize the war. Now you suggest that those who did fight
aren't supposed to be critical either because it's disloyal. How then is
anyone allowed to oppose a war that they believe to be unjust? Surely we
have to have some way to do that or we suffer badly as a democratic society.

A legitimate question. My problem is that once you don the uniform and
swear the oath, you forfeit your first amendment (and most other)
rights. A commissioned officer is obligate to obey the lawful orders
of those place over him. Once commissioned, even after leaving active
duty, you are still a commissioned officer subject to recall. You
still have the obligations.

When Kerry left his crew after only four months in theater, he
jeopardized them. When he testified before the US Senate (in that odd
combination of rumpled fatiques and battle ribbons) that atrocities
were the order of the day throughout the theater, he lied about it and
simultaneously indicated that he failed to fulfill his obligations as
an officer to terminate such activities if he had witnessed them. He
defamed all of us.

When he protested with his bearded friends on the Marine Memorial,
displaying the inverted US flag, he violated his loyalty to the Navy
and the Corps. When he provided aid and comfort to the North
Vietnamese by demeaning the American military deployed in combat
against them, he went way too far for a citizen, and reached the
unforgivable for a military officer.

The essential issue is that once you choose the course of military
service (which he claims he did as a patriot), you then are being a
hypocrite if you later reverse course quite clearly for political
gain. The sensationalist actions and inflammatory rhetoric which he
engaged in after his return from brief service is certainly not
effective political debate. It is demagogic posturing.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8