Letter From Ollie to John

I recieved this in an email from a dear friend.  I already checked it out on snopes.com so I figured I would share it.  It articulates, from a well experienced military member, the character deficiency that I loathe in Senator Kerry.  I cringe every time I hear someone say that Kerry was brave for giving his Senate testimony when he returned from the war.

Here you go:

Bring it on, John
> by Oliver North
>
> August 27, 2004
>
> "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question
> my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded
> attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our
> service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on.'" -- Sen. John Kerry

> Dear John,
>
> As usual, you have it wrong. You don't have a beef with President George
> Bush about your war record. He's been exceedingly generous about your
> military service. Your complaint is with the 2.5 million of us who
> servedb honorably in a war that ended 29 years ago and which you, not the
> president, made the centerpiece of this campaign.
> I talk to a lot of vets, John, and this really isn't about your medals
> or how you got them. Like you, I have a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. I
> only have two Purple Hearts, though. I turned down the others so that I could
> stay with the Marines in my rifle platoon. But I think you might agree
> with me, though I've never heard you say it, that the officers always got
> more medals than they earned and the youngsters we led never got as many
> medals as they deserved.
>
> This really isn't about how early you came home from that war, either,
> John. There have always been guys in every war who want to go home.
> There are also lots of guys, like those in my rifle platoon in Vietnam, who
> did a full 13 months in the field. And there are, thankfully, lots of young
> Americans today in Iraq and Afghanistan who volunteered to return to war
> because, as one of them told me in Ramadi a few weeks ago, "the job
> isn't finished." Nor is this about whether you were in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968.
> Heck John, people get lost going on vacation. If you got lost, just say so.
> Your campaign has admitted that you now know that you really weren't in
> Cambodia that night and that Richard Nixon wasn't really president when you
> thought he was. Now would be a good time to explain to us how you could have all
> that bogus stuff "seared" into your memory -- especially since you want
> to have your finger on our nation's nuclear trigger.
>
> But that's not really the problem, either. The trouble you're having,
> John, isn't about your medals or coming home early or getting lost -- or even
> Richard Nixon. The issue is what you did to us when you came home, John.
> When you got home, you co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War and
> wrote "The New Soldier," which denounced those of us who served -- and
> were still serving -- on the battlefields of a thankless war. Worst of all,
> John, you then accused me -- and all of us who served in Vietnam -- of
> committing terrible crimes and atrocities.
> On April 22, 1971, under oath, you told the Senate Foreign Relations
> Committee that you had knowledge that American troops "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 in fashion reminiscent of
> Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and
> generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam." And you admitted
> on television that "yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as
> thousands of other soldiers have committed."
>
> And for good measure you stated, "(America is) more guilty than any
> other body, of violations of (the) Geneva Conventions ... the torture of
> prisoners, the killing of prisoners."
> Your "antiwar" statements and activities were painful for those of us
> carrying the scars of Vietnam and trying to move on with our lives. And
> for those who were still there, it was even more hurtful. But those who
> suffered the most from what you said and did were the hundreds of
> American prisoners of war being held by Hanoi. Here's what some of them endured
> because of you, John:
> Capt. James Warner had already spent four years in Vietnamese custody
> when he was handed a copy of your testimony by his captors. Warner says that
> for his captors, your statements "were proof I deserved to be punished." He
> wasn't released until March 14, 1973.
>
> Maj. Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who was in Vietnamese custody
> for 2,284 days, says his captors "repeated incessantly" your one-liner about
> being "the last man to die" for a lost cause. Cordier was released March
> 4, 1973.

> Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says your accusations "were as demoralizing as
> solitary (confinement) ... and a prime reason the war dragged on." He
> remained in North Vietnamese hands until February 12, 1973.
> John, did you think they would forget? When Tim Russert asked about your
> claim that you and others in Vietnam committed "atrocities," instead of
> standing by your sworn testimony, you confessed that your words "were a
> bit over the top." Does that mean you lied under oath? Or does it mean you
> are a war criminal? You can't have this one both ways, John. Either way,
> you're not fit to be a prison guard at Abu Ghraib, much less commander in
> chief.

> One last thing, John. In 1988, Jane Fonda said: "I would like to say
> something ... to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I
> caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to
> help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless
> and careless about it and I'm ... very sorry that I hurt them. And I want
> to apologize to them and their families."
> Even Jane Fonda apologized. Will you, John?
>
> Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, host of the Fox News
> Channel's War Stories and founder and honorary chairman of Freedom
> Alliance.