Stop using vets as props

Candidate to Kerry: Stop using vets as props
Republican also denounces senator for Iraq War vote
By Matt Viser
Globe Staff / August 22, 2008
Republican Jeff Beatty, an Army veteran who is hoping to unseat US Senator John F. Kerry, criticized Kerry, who also is a veteran, for airing a campaign advertisement featuring veterans.

"I am extremely dismayed by John Kerry's continued use of our veterans as political props, and I'm calling on him to stop," Beatty said yesterday in an interview. "These guys deserve to be respected and not find themselves in a tug-of-war in a political contest."

The 60-second spot, called "Fenway," highlights the story of Sean Bannon, a veteran of the war in Iraq who was helped by Kerry in his wish to receive his Purple Heart at Fenway Park. He also got to throw out the first pitch on Patriots Day. The ad has been running on all Boston and Springfield television stations, as well as on cable.

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/22
/candidate_to_kerry_stop_using_vets_as_props/

It's what politicians do. Sometimes, they do it and have their actions to prove what they have done for veterans, like John Kerry does. Other times, well, they just use them. In the case of McCain, Bush, Cheney, they love to have the veterans stand behind them but if you notice, it's never them standing behind veterans when it really counts. Bush and McCain had to have the VA funding bills shoved down their throats and then they ended up trying to take credit for them.

It's been easier for McCain to use them because, after all, he's not only considered "one of them" but the media have him painted as a war hero as if he has just been released from the Vietnamese. The truth is that he's been using something he had no control over ever since and what he's been in control of, like his votes for or against the veterans, he opted to forget the fact he's not only one of them but is enjoying the benefits of being one of them. Amazing.

I was looking up some of the Silver Star awards and what the recipients did to earn them. We've read about the Medal of Honor recipients and their acts of true heroism, but there are others who have risked their lives to save others above and beyond what the other heroes do. To most of us, anyone who serves is a hero, but these are exceptional ones. Then you have the Bronze Star recipients with V for Valor, again an exceptional act of heroism.

The following is from someone who is an exceptional hero. First you need to know more about the person who wrote the piece against McCain in 2000.

May 5, 2005

Col. David. H. Hackworth, 1930-2005
Legendary U.S. Army Guerrilla Fighter,
Champion of the Ordinary Soldier

by the Editors of DefenseWatch

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 - Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army's legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old. The cause of death was a form of cancer now appearing with increasing frequency among Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliants called Agents Orange and Blue.

Col. Hackworth spent more than half a century on the country's hottest battlefields, first as a soldier, then as a writer, war correspondent and sharp-eyed critic of the Military-Industrial Complex and ticket-punching generals he dismissed as "Perfumed Princes."

He preferred the combat style of World War II and Korean War heroes like James Gavin and Matthew Ridgeway and, during Vietnam, of Hank "The Gunfighter" Emerson and Hal Moore. General Moore, the co-author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, called him "the Patton of Vietnam," and Gen. Creighton Abrams, the last American commander in that disastrous war, described him as "the best battalion commander I ever saw in the United States Army."

Col. Hackworth's battlefield exploits put him on the line of American military heroes squarely next to Sgt. Alvin York and Audie Murphy. The novelist Ward Just, who knew him for forty years, described him as "the genuine article, a soldier's soldier, a connoisseur of combat." At 14, as World War II was sputtering out, he lied about his age to join the Merchant Marine, and at 15 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Over the next 26 years he spent fully seven in combat. He was put in for the Medal of Honor three times; the last application is currently under review at the Pentagon. He was twice awarded the Army's second highest honor for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, along with 10 Silver Stars and eight Bronze Stars. When asked about his many awards, he always said he was proudest of his eight Purple Hearts and his Combat Infantryman's Badge.

A reputation won on the battlefield made it impossible to dismiss him when he went on the attack later as a critic of careerism and incompetence in the military high command. In 1971, he appeared in the field on ABC's "Issue and Answers" to say Vietnam "is a bad war ... it can't be won. We need to get out." He also predicted that Saigon would fall to the North Vietnamese within four years, a prediction that turned out to be far more accurate than anything the Joint Chiefs of Staff were telling President Nixon or that the President was telling the American people.

With almost five years in-country, Col. Hackworth was the only senior officer to sound off about the Vietnam War. After the interview, he retired from the Army and moved to Australia.

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http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,Hackworth_050505,00.html

And now what he wrote in 2000 about McCain when he was trying for the presidency the last time out.

Are McCain's handlers playing the wrong card?
By David H. Hackworth January 25, 2000
John McCain is being hailed by the press as a "genuine war hero." But is he a war hero in the conventional sense like Audie Murphy and John Glenn?

Or is his "war hero" status the creation of a very slick publicity campaign that plays on flag, duty, honor and country?

For sure, McCain has the fruitsalad a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars , two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service gongs.

On a purely medal count basis, he outweighs Murphy and Glenn, who both for years repeatedly performed extraordinary deeds on the ground or in the air against an armed enemy.

McCain's valor awards are based on what happened in 1967, when during his 23d mission over Vietnam, he was shot down, seriously injured, captured and then spent 5 1/2 brutal years as a POW.

In an attempt to find out exactly what the man did to earn these many hero awards, I asked his Senate office three times to provide copies of the narratives for each medal. I'm still waiting.

I next went to the Pentagon. Within a week, I received a recap of his medals and many of the narratives that give the details of what he did.

None of the awards, less the DFC, were for heroism over the battlefield where he spent no more than 20 hours. Two Naval officers described the awards as "boilerplate" and "part of an SOP medal package given to repatriated (Vietnamera) POWs."
go here for more it gets worse.
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_hacker_2.htm

John Kerry has to run on what he did after Vietnam for the veterans and for the people of Massachusetts. John McCain has to run on his record of what he did after Vietnam for the veterans and the people of Arizona. Other than that, well, there is always one more opinion about everything else. McCain needs to stop hiding behind being a POW because he's using it for everything he's done ever since. The media, well, they need to stop being cowards and begin to ask him questions and get the answers that match the question instead of just bowing down to him. He has a lot to answer for. As for Obama, well, his record is good so far, but it's not a very long one. He is paying attention and answering questions that are answers. It would be great if the ads they make had something to do about what they've done and what they want to do instead of the nonsense but, well, they're doing what politicans always do and it's part of the history of this country. Elections have never been pretty or about us. It's ego against ego and even if someone says they don't want to get into mud slinging, eventually they get dragged down all the same.