Pissed off

[pecunium]

I've been looking at how the opponents of the Democratic candidates have been playing for the past few years, and I'm pissed off.

I like to think I'd be pissed off even if I'd been in favor of the Republican candidates.

Because the swift boat ads are the latest in a long series of attacks on those who've served.


Max Cleland
Al Gore
John Kerry

What tipped it was probably the fat-headed, intentionally obscurant, and false, statements by Bob Dole.


Max Cleland: He lost three limbs, when an American grenade went off in a hot LZ. He was jumping out a helicopter while people were shooting at him, and Ann Coulter says it was people like him who cost us the war.

Al Gore: Served as an enlisted soldier in Saigon. He was pilloried because it was, "soft" duty, and because he was one of some 170,000 troops whose tours were shortened by Nixon as part of Vietnamization.

John Kerry: He spent almost two-years training to for duties in a war he had reservations about, but went to anyway. He spent eight months in the combat theatre, four of them in some of the hottest Areas of Operation in Vietnam. He got three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star. He's being called a liar, and a sham artist; accused of managing to fake his awards for valor, and manufacturing his Purple Hearts.

How has it come to pass that we accept slurs on service as acceptable.

Dole, in particular (whom I voted for, in the Primaries, for his race for president, though not for the office itself) has earned more than scorn, he has forfeited the respect his valor in WW2 bought him, and now deserves nothing less than the back of my hand, and the cut direct.

He said Kerry never bled for his Purple Hearts, that they were for trivial wounds.

Well he knows better, twice. The Purple Heart is a simple award, get injured while in contact with the enemy, and you get it. Dole's first award of the Purple Heart came as the result of his error with a grenade (which is what those who tried to besmirch Cleland said, though the facts point to someone else making the mistake).

Dole described his as the kind of wound the Army fixed with, "Mercurachrome, and a Purple Heart."

And it was often like that. Bill Mauldin had a Willie and Joe cartoon where Willie tells the medic to just give him an aspirin, because he already had a Purple Heart. It matters not to me that Kerry, or Dole, may not have suffered any great harm for his Purple Heart.

One of the people in my unit got a Heart for getting a small piece of metal in her eye. No real harm. She wore an eye-patch for a week.

But if it had been a little larger, or a little faster, she might be blind in one eye, she might be dead. That could have happened to Dole, it could have happened to Kerry. They were injured, while under enemy fire, in the line of duty.

That's what the award is for. You don't get a bigger Purple Heart for losing a leg than you do for getting a scratch. You get it because it might have killed you. Sometimes your family gets it because it did kill you.

This is unconscionable.

As a vet, these people have lost my vote, until they redeem themselves, they can whistle for it.

Comments

[ketzl.livejournal.com]

Hear hear! McCain came under fire from those folks too, and he's a Republican... but he wasn't one of the cabal, I guess.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I recalled that, but at ugly o'clock in the jet lag I couldn't recall the details.

I forgot some of them regarding Cleland too, it was ugly enough that, had I been in the room with some of the people spouting that crap, I'd probably have slugged them.

I need to dig out the details on McCain, so I can put it in this when I post it in nnw_oped.

TK

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

How has it come to pass that we accept slurs on service as acceptable.

Most important line in your whole post.

I cannot believe the other day I got into a shouting match with someone about this -- I said about Kerry at least he went, and then she said crap, and then she started to play martyr because 'she bled for this country' and she meant that because her husband was in Vietnam WAY before he married her, and I topped off with no, you have no idea what it is like to be a military wife because YOU weren't one and I was, and besides, I put on a uniform, you didn't , so STFU. (I was in ROTC, which was no big deal, but she acted like she went overseas and singlehandedly saved the day, after sitting at home working at the PX tirelessly day in and out.)

People have no idea what it is like. I have less of an idea that some, more than others. And this swift boat crap isn't helping. More people should be outraged on the attacks of the service of a man who has served his country. And even if he didn't get wounded, I cannot imagine how awful it is to go off to a war. It's not like just getting stationed over in Frankfurt and going to Sachenhausen on Friday nights with your wife, taking your kids to the Oktoberfest, whatever.

I'm getting so ranty I can't make myself coherent! Bah.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Bravo.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Bob Dole surprises me. Some of the other people... well, they've never been in combat. It still stinks, though.

What these people are doing is not much better than what the people who called returning Vietnam vets "baby-killers" did.

[sailormur.livejournal.com]

And what gets me is that a lot of these people slinging these slurs are yelling about "Supporting Our Troops" now. (Usually yelled when someone expresses reservations about Bush's leadership.)

Thanks for posting this.

[ammitbeast.livejournal.com]

Damn well said. Thank you.

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

I will agree... very well said, and from an actual intelligent voice (we don't get that too often these days)!

Thank you. Do you mind if I link to this in my personal journal?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Not at all.

[darksbane.livejournal.com]

*applauds* Well said.

Hear, Hear!

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written.

Dammit, Terry, if you weren't married and straight...well, I'd be in serious difficulty. You bring tears to my eyes on a regular basis, and there aren't too many guys (or women either) who can do that.

Re: Hear, Hear!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

What, the continent in the middle wouldn't post a problem?

Thanks.

TK

Re: Hear, Hear!

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

[sings] I love a man in YOO-NIH-FAWM!!

[jazzfish]

You get it because it might have killed you. Sometimes your family gets it because it did kill you.

Amen. Thank you.

[Read your comments in Making Light, Respectful of Otters, and elsewhere back when the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was breaking, thought "Wow, someone speaking with some degree of experience." And now via Arkhangel I've found your blog. Thanks for writing.]

[alizarin-rose.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I never thought of it that way.

[(Anonymous)]

I got this from a friend, who is having posting troubles, so I am putting it in here for him
TK

Re: Pissed Off:
This is admirably well-thought and well-said, expressing
an attitude almost precisely corresponding with mine. I
might, though, carry it somewhat farther; I have little
respect for the other politicians of that party who did not
vigorously object to such attacks -- or for those journalists
who did not ask Leading Questions inviting such
repudiation in the forums they provide.

Actually, I don't have Absolute Faith in Military Medals &
Awards, just a moderate respect for them. COs get a
certain amount of egoboo and Brownie Points from having
a large number of the troops under their command who
have such citations, so they tend to write-up their
recommendations in (largely formulaic) words that make
the actions sound as impressive as possible, perhaps even
stretching or bending the truth a little. But in my
experience they were always careful to avoid outright
falsehoods. I'm reasonably certain the higher-level
Reviewing Officers check facts carefully, and disallow any
applications that they find the least bit questionable.

Re: Purple Hearts
I confess to disliking the way this Award has become a
catch-all to cover both serious wounds and trivial minor
injuries, but that _does_ seem to be its intended nature.
(Rumor had it, in the '50s, that the medal itself, with
attendant ribbon, cost about seventeen cents to make, and
I'd wager that more than one G.I. has expressed a
preference, perhaps not entirely seriously, for getting the
money instead.)

On a more personal level.... I do not in the least regret the
action I took, while a Medic with the 40th Division in
Korea c. 1952, to help prevent the Purple Heart from being
excessively (in my opinion) degraded. A young
replacement Lieutenant, fresh out of OCS, came to me for
treatment of an injury -- removal of a small splinter of
wood from his left upper-arm. It was the kind of thing
most people would take care of themselves, or that I might
do without writing it up, but he insisted on having all the
formal paperwork done ... and made the mistake of
mentioning the words "Purple Heart" in a seriously eager
tone of voice.

The removal of the splinter might not have been quite as
gentle as was within my power, but I was scrupulously
meticulous in recording all the details on the proper
Forms -- something like "splinter of wood, approx. 2
inches long & 1/16 in. in diameter at the widest part ...
injury incurred incidentally when patient dove into
bunker upon hearing the whine of incoming mortar
rounds (which landed several hundred yards away) and
brushed against the rough wood of the door-post". Yes, I
used the word "incidentally", and indirectly (but clearly)
indicated that the splinter was not secondary shrapnel
from an exploding round, with some malice aforethought.
As I'd expected, my C.O. took the papers over to the Lt.'s
C.O. and (probably after they'd stopped laughing) they
Officially Decided that the injury did not merit a Purple
Heart. (Mind you, I never hesitated to do affirmative
paperwork on even trivial injuries incurred in actual
combat.)

Re: Pissed off

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Terry (being over-scrupulous, IMHO) didn't mention my name, but this bit about Korea in the '50s was written by Don Fitch, who seems to have solved his posting problem by (figuratively) hitting the software in just the right place with his fist.
--Don Fitch

Re: Pissed off

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I was over-scrupulous, but I didn't know what you were calling your LJ, or I'd've been more than happy to let people know who you are.

Re: Pissed off

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more in terms of just appending my name to it -- egoboo, you know, or maybe just accountablity (I don't much like the anonymity and pseudonymity common OnLine). I don't have an LJ (unless one was provided when I signed-up for a free Membership), and don't propose to establish one. Though not really sharp about such things, I can recognize a black-hole time-sink when I see it and don't need yet another one, thankyouverymuch. Welll.. perhaps I'll get around to composing and posting a Rant about the unpleasant-to-me directions my country has moved in during the past 3+ years.