KERRY AND THE VETS

Elton John should do a song with that title.

Anyway. Drudge reports that Kerry called the leader of the Swift Boat Vets group and tried (and utterly failed) to defuse the situation. Stephen Green notes the story. And in the comments is this gem. (Sorry, I can't link to an individual comment. Click the link and scroll down to the comment by Peter, posted on August 24, 2004 11:38 PM.) Quoth Peter:

Hell, gang, the Swifties are just the tip of the iceberg. Hang around the milblogs and see what some of the POWs have to say. Then look at what a few of the Medal of Honor Veterans say.

Jennifer Martinez's A Collection of Thoughts is a good place to start. Sorry that I don't know how to post the link.

I know how. This is the site being referred to, and it's well worth a look.

If you keep at it long enough you'll come to the men like me. My service was undistinguished enough, the most I can say for my two and a half tours in Viet Nam is that I didn't disgrace my uniform. My only desire was to forget the war and live in peace. Yet every once in a while the men I served with came to my mind, the men who died came to my dreams.

Now here is John Kerry, the man who, more than any other single human being, stole the honor of those men I served with, asking for my vote. Wrapping himself in that stolen honor, standing on their very corpses to give himself the stature he so sorely lacks so that he can command the young men and women defending America.

It won't wash. Better men than I will speak, men of braver deeds and far more eloquence. There are many men more fit to speak than I. Yet I won't be silent, I cannot. I do not think I'm alone. I thought that those young men, the ones who never grew old, were gone from my dreams. They're back. They're demanding that I speak, however poorly, for them. They want their honor back from those who stole it.

Kerry has a big problem.