Here is a statement from a Republican Vet.

Maybe he would be the best choice as president.
At least from what I have heard from and about him. He seems the most
honest out of the whole bunch.

McCain Says Kerry Not Weak on Defense

Friday March 19, 2004 3:01 AM
By NANCY BENAC Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Arizona Sen. John McCain, arguably the Democrats'
favorite Republican, managed to step all over the GOP's carefully honed
message of the week Thursday by rejecting the notion that John Kerry is
weak on defense.

President Bush and his campaign apparatus have gone to great effort to
suggest the Democratic presidential contender would be an unfit commander
in chief, picking apart his Senate voting record on weapons and defense
spending.

``The senator from Massachusetts has given us ample doubts about his
judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national
security,'' Vice President Dick Cheney declared Wednesday. A day earlier,
the Bush campaign released an ad arguing Kerry had turned his back on U.S.
soldiers by voting against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and
Afghanistan last year. On Thursday, the campaign put out yet another ad
accusing Kerry of waffling on military issues.

Asked on two morning TV shows Thursday whether he thought Kerry was weak on
defense, the Arizona senator was quick to bat down the suggestion.
Furthermore, he chided both parties for waging such a ``bitter and
partisan'' campaign.

``This kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping
the American people make a choice,'' he said on ``The Early Show'' on CBS.

As for Kerry, McCain said the senator would have to explain his voting
record but he also told NBC's ``Today'' show: ``No, I do not believe that
he is necessarily weak on defense. I don't agree with him on some issues
clearly. But I decry this negativism that's going on on both sides.''

It's not first time the independent-minded McCain has strayed from the
Republican line.

``He doesn't usually pick up the president's talking points and amplify
them,'' said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University.
``He speaks his mind.''

That's just the quality that Democrats find so endearing.

In fact, when the Democratic presidential contenders were asked earlier
this year to name their favorite Republican, four of the nine - including
Kerry - selected McCain. He was the only one to be named more than once.

For McCain, talking about Kerry is not just business, it's also personal.

The two are good friends, a somewhat unlikely destination given their
histories.

McCain, a Navy bomber pilot, spent more than five years as a prisoner of
war in Vietnam. Kerry, who also served in the Navy during Vietnam, came
home with three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and became a leader of
Vietnam Veterans Against the War. At one protest in 1971, he threw away war
medals belonging to other veterans and cast his own military ribbons over a
fence. McCain heard about it while he was still being held captive in the
Hanoi Hilton.

After McCain was elected to the U.S. House, he campaigned against Kerry in
his first Senate race, faulting him for tossing away those medals and
ribbons. But the two came to terms after they got to the Senate, and began
working together. It was McCain and Kerry, for example, who pushed to end
the trade embargo on Vietnam and to establish diplomatic relations with the
country.

McCain has described their current relationship as ``easy.''

``I think it's still possible to have a friend if they're in another
party,'' he said Thursday.

The Kerry campaign welcomed McCain's comments, noting that the Arizona
senator has been a leader on defense issues for decades.

``It's helpful to our campaign, but it's also helpful because it speaks the
truth,'' said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.

Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said McCain was right - at least when he
said Kerry would have to explain his voting record.

``As John McCain indicated, the record is appropriate to discuss and the
record clearly suggests that John Kerry is weak on national defense,'' Holt
said.

McCain has campaigned for Bush this year, but the two are not considered
close, especially since the 2000 presidential race, when McCain and Bush
competed for the GOP nomination. Bush's supporters waged a particularly
negative campaign against the senator.

McCain ``hasn't forgotten that,'' said Thurber. ``But I don't think he's
out to get him. He's just an independent-thinking Republican.''

McCain said last week he would consider an offer from Kerry to be his
running mate, but his office later issued a statement reversing course.

On Thursday, McCain said he didn't want to be vice president on either
party's ticket.

``N-O,'' he said.




On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 10:37:44 -0500, Tim Cummings
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Don Bendell served as an officer in four Special Forces Groups, he writes:
>
>My wife had rotator cuff surgery earlier this year, and the recovery is
>terribly painful. Then, she developed a staph-epi infection, and they
>had to cut the same scar open and operate on her again. Just thinking
>about the pain and anxiety of facing that painful surgery a second time
>in the same wound, makes me cringe. That experience, however pales in
>comparison to what I am going through right now, in my heart.
>
>The old hurts are surfacing and the feelings of betrayal by fellow
>citizens, and their leader stirring them up, are breaking my heart
>again. I am being cut in the same scar. How did we who served in Vietnam
>suddenly become cold-blooded killers, torturers, and rapists, of the ilk
>of the Nazi SS or the Taliban?
>
>Most of us were American soldiers who grew up idolizing John Wayne, Roy
>Rogers, and all the other heroes. That was why I volunteered.
>
>But for political expediency, John Kerry, you have rewritten history,
again.
>After spending only FOUR MONTHS in the country of Vietnam, John Kerry
>testified before Congress in 1971 with these exact words about incidents
>he supposedly witnessed or heard about from other vets: "They 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."
>
>I was a green beret officer who volunteered for duty in Vietnam and
>fought in the thick of it in 1968 and 1969 on a Special Forces A-team on
>the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just for starters. We were the elite. We saw the
>most action. Everybody in the world knows that.
>
>But we did not just kill people, we built a church, a school, treated
>illnesses, passed out soap, food, and clothing, and had fun and loving
>interaction with the indigenous people of Vietnam, just like our boys
>did in Normandy, Baghdad, Saigon, and everywhere American soldiers ever
>served. We all gave away our candy bars and rations to kids. Our hearts
>to oppressed people all over the globe.
>
>My children and grandchildren could read your words, and think those
>horrendous things about me, Mr. Kerry. You are a bold-faced,
>unprincipled liar, and a disgrace, and you have dishonored me and all my
>fellow Vietnam veterans.
>
>Sure, there were a couple bad-apples, but I saw none, and I saw it all,
>and if I did, as an army officer, it was my obligation to stop it, or at
>the very least report it. Why is there not a single record anywhere of
>you ever reporting any incidents like this or having the perpetrators
>arrested? The answer is simple. You are a liar. Your medals and mine are
>not a free pass for lifetime, Senator Kerry, to bypass character,
>integrity, and morality. I earn my green beret over and over daily in
>all aspects of my life.
>
>Eight National Guard green berets, and other National Guard soldiers,
>have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you totally dishonored
>their widows and families by lumping National Guard service in with
>being a draft-dodger, conscientious objector, and deserter, just so you
>can try to sabotage the patriotism of our President who proudly served
>as an Air National Guard jet pilot.
>
>I have a son earning his green beret at Fort Bragg right now, and his
>wife serves honorably in the Air National Guard, just like President
>Bush did, and I am as proud of her as I am my son.
>
>I volunteered for Vietnam and have no problem whatsoever with President
>Bush being our Commander-In-Chief. In fact, I am proud of him as our
>leader.
>
>John Kerry, you personally derailed the Vietnam Human rights Bill,
>HR2883, in 2001, after it had passed the House by a 411 to 1 vote, and
>thousands of pro-American Montagnard tribes people in Vietnam died since
>then who could have been saved, by you.
>
>Earlier, as Chair of the Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs, you
>personally quashed the efforts of any and all veterans to report
>sightings of living POW's, when you held those reins in Congress.
>
>You have fought tooth and nail to push for the US to normalize relations
>with Vietnam for years. Why, Mr. Kerry? Simple, your first cousin C.
>Stewart Forbes, CEO, of Colliers International, recently signed a
>contract with Hanoi, worth BILLIONS of dollars for Collier's
>International to become the exclusive real estate representative for the
>country of Vietnam.
>
>"Hanoi John," now that it works for you, beat your chest about your
>Vietnam service, but to me, you are a phony, opportunistic, hypocrite.
>
>You are one of those politicians that is like a fertilizer machine: all
>that comes out of you is horse manure, and you are  spreading it
>everywhere.
>
>Medals do not make a man. Morals do.
>
>
>Don Bendell
>Canon City, Colorado
>
>Don Bendell served as an officer in four Special Forces Groups, is a
>best-selling author with over 1,500,000 books in print, a 1995 inductee
>into the International Karate Hall of Fame, and owns karate schools in
>southern Colorado.
>
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