"The New Soldier" by John Kerry et al

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:19:47 GMT, Douglas Berry
wrote:

Lo, many moons past, on Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:46:07 -0600, a stranger
called by some Stop SPAM came forth and told
this tale in us.military.army

He reported to Congress that U.S. soldiers had "personally raped, cut
off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of
South Vietnam."

They did. Vietnam was a brutal conflict, and near the end American
command and control began breaking down. Soldiers did do all these
tuhings, feeling abandoned by their nation and service.

I disagree. I will admit that there were _incidents_ where these acts
occurred. However, Kerry tried to make it look like all the US
soldiers were behaving like this.


No electrons were harmed in the posting of this message.

In article ,
emoveunderscore says...

I disagree. I will admit that there were _incidents_ where these acts
occurred. However, Kerry tried to make it look like all the US
soldiers were behaving like this.

Ah... the classic "Just a few bad apples" defence....

Cheers,
dba

"Brian Allardice" wrote in message
news:lBeXb.494098$ts4.154466@pd7tw3no...
In article ,
emoveunderscore says...

I disagree. I will admit that there were _incidents_ where these acts
occurred. However, Kerry tried to make it look like all the US
soldiers were behaving like this.

Ah... the classic "Just a few bad apples" defence....

Who is defending the bad apples? I don't think anyone in this forum would
do so, apart from a few nuts. On the other hand, I would be careful
judging the actions of others when you were not there.

Leonard Caillouet

"Leonard Caillouet" wrote in message
news:XhfXb.5046$Yj.3516@lakeread02...

"Brian Allardice" wrote in message
news:lBeXb.494098$ts4.154466@pd7tw3no...
In article ,
emoveunderscore says...

I disagree. I will admit that there were _incidents_ where these acts
occurred. However, Kerry tried to make it look like all the US
soldiers were behaving like this.

Ah... the classic "Just a few bad apples" defence....

Who is defending the bad apples? I don't think anyone in this forum would
do so, apart from a few nuts. On the other hand, I would be careful
judging the actions of others when you were not there.

Brian has a long history of leaping to the worst possible conclusion in
regards to anything USian. Worse, in this case, is the fact that most of
these allegations have been proven to be unfounded--Kerry's reliance upon
Winter Soldier testimony, which is the sorce of much of these kind of
claims, fails to stand up under closer scrutiny. From a Rand Corp study
completed in 2000:

"These hearings, generated in part out of the response to widening knowledge
of the events at My Lai, painted Vietnam as a catchment of continuous
atrocities and "dehumanized" behavior. It should be noted that some have
raised serious doubts about the creditability of the testimony and some of
the "testifiers" at the Winter Soldier meeting. Lewy (1980), among others,
has pointed out that there were grave problems with the Winter Soldier
testimony, some were apparently not the people they had presented themselves
as, and all refused to give military investigators the dates, sites, and
names of perpetrators of atrocities that they had reported. The tragic
reality, as Lewy pointed out, was that Herbert's book (Herbert, 1973) and
testimony were established to be a series of falsehoods and half truths."


http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/...18_11_ch9.html

Stories of atrocities typically turn out to be apocryphyl at best.
Investigators tried to pin down the accusations, but in each case the
accuser either recants, is proven to have had no real first-hand knowledge
of the allegation, or in the worst cases turns out to have been offering his
"testimony" in someone else's name. If Brian has any concrete evidence of
actual atrocities of the nature described in Winter Soldier, let him present
his case--otherwise, he is just blowing his usual anti-American smoke
screen.

Brooks


Leonard Caillouet

(Brian Allardice) wrote:

:In article ,
says...
:
:I disagree. I will admit that there were _incidents_ where these acts
:occurred. However, Kerry tried to make it look like all the US
:soldiers were behaving like this.
:
:Ah... the classic "Just a few bad apples" defence....

Back in the hole. You're still as stupid as you were the last time I
saw you.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:19:47 GMT, Douglas Berry wrote:

Lo, many moons past, on Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:46:07 -0600, a stranger
called by some Stop SPAM came forth and told
this tale in us.military.army

He reported to Congress that U.S. soldiers had "personally raped, cut
off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of
South Vietnam."

They did. Vietnam was a brutal conflict, and near the end American
command and control began breaking down. Soldiers did do all these
tuhings, feeling abandoned by their nation and service.

It was a horrible time.

Pure BS. There may have been a *few* instances of inappropriate
behavior, but it was less than the crime rate in any big city. I suppose
you "witnessed" these alleged acts? I was there and I certainly
did not.

Al Minyard

I just went online with my local (university) library. Guess what
happens when I try to sign it out?

AVAILABLE
This item cannot be requested. Please see a librarian.

Never saw that response before! I'll drive uptown tomorrow and have a
look.

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:46:07 -0600, Stop SPAM
wrote:

Apparently John Kerry co-authored a book in 1971 called "The New
Soldier." There seems to be varying differences of opinion about how
much of it he actually wrote (other than his US Senate testimony during
the "Winter Soldier" hearings), but his name is certainly prominently
displayed on the cover (see
http://www.newsmax.com/images/headli...NewSoldier.jpg or
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...newsol_cov.jpg).

Copies are apparently going for several hundreds of dollars on eBay;
talk of a cover-up and the liberal Democrats trying to destroy all
copies seem far-fetched (try finding copies of any obscure book from
1971), although there are rumours that both copies are currently
'unavailable' at the Library of Congress.

Has anyone with military service actually read "The New Soldier" and can
comment on it contents?



His "Winter Soldier" testimony apparently quoted in the book is
certainly still controversial:

"Much of Kerry's speech before Congress painted his fellow GIs as so
brutal that, today, they could easily be mistaken for Saddam Hussein's
Fedayeen killers.

He reported to Congress that U.S. soldiers had "personally raped, cut
off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human
genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of
South Vietnam."

There's a NGO link quoting some of Kerry's testimony at:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...er_sfrc_71.htm.

There are also discussions of the accuracy of the testimony, such as:
"After Senator Mark O. Hatfield read the Winter Soldier testimony into
the Congressional Record, he asked for an official investigation. When
the Naval Investigate Service did just that, many of the veterans
refused to cooperate (despite protections against self-incrimination).
One soldier admitted that his testimony had been coached by members of
the Nation of Islam; exact details of the atrocity he'd seen now escaped
his memory. Several veterans hunted down by Naval investigators swore
they had never been to Detroit and couldn't imagine who would have used
their identities. (Somehow this episode was left out of the "Winter
Soldier" chapter of Brinkley's book, but the details can be found in
Guenter Lewy's "America in Vietnam" and in Mackubin Thomas Owens's
account in the latest National Review.)"
-
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...ljiby.asp?pg=2


Lots of conflicting stories, such as:
- http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/kerry.htm
- http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/...0402130943.asp
- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...0/131219.shtml


all the best -- Dan Ford
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