Chuckle

I like the way you presented the story.

Wow, what an evil guy. No wonder Kerry despises him so much, he's everything Kerry is not.

As a correspondent pointed out to me in an e-mail, each episode of the HBO series Band of Brothers, begins with a voiceover in which the narrator says of the World War II soldiers portrayed in the program: "I was not a hero, but I was surrounded by heroes." In contrast, what John Kerry is saying in essence about his "band of brothers" is that "in Vietnam, I was a hero, but I was surrounded by war criminals."

From Michael Novak
http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak200408240921.asp

John Kerry wrote a book about his 'Nam experience.

You can read it here:

New Soldier

--==--

And a new joke of the day:

There is a big difference between Calley and Kerry. Calley is a proven war criminal. For Kerry we only have his word as an officer and a gentleman.

What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.

Video link

I think it's far more likely that Kerry was just making stuff up as he went along. How likely is it that his crew, which were far more experienced, would be cocky with a new commander who'd never been fired on?

Kerry was cocky, yes. But that undermines his claim to have been under fire.

Really! Greyhawk,
"RUSH is over the top???

Whatsmatta you trying to establish your bonifides?

What an inane stupid remark, either his comments are valid or they are not!

I think that other Pat has a good point. I can see the validity of your unit-think theory in the abstract. But does it adequately explain what Kerry says in context? Would a group of individuals who had all been fired upon before have a cocky attitude just because they had never been fired upon *as a unit*? Seems a little counter-intuitive to me.

The funny thing about the O'neill-Limbaugh interview is how O'Neill goes on about this book that "Kerry wrote" that is no longer available, called "The New Soldier", and O'Neill characterized the book as a bunch of war crimes confessions.

And a link to the book is right there on Limbaugh's page! Anyone can read it, yet O'Neill says it's unavailable and Kerry is trying to surpress it!

And when you read it, it doesn't fit in with O"Neills characterization at all.

Is this man John O'Neill so blinded by a lifelong crusade against Mr. Kerry that he can't even get such basic factual information correct?

I mean my God the book is published right there on the world wide web, and O'Neill's trying to claim its being surpressed?. Bizarre.

Go look at the book: is it just a bunch of fake war crimes? How does Mr. O'Neill know every statement in there is false?

That just blew any credibility he might have gained in the interview.

Natz,

O'Neill's interview with Rush was a day before the first post of "The New Soldier" Weblog appeared.

Ed

Natz

The book is out of print. Kerry will not release the copyright to have it reprinted.

Go read what Instapundit has to say if you don't want to take O'Neill's word.

Mickey Kaus also says it's out of print.

Natz:

About the book:

The Dems (Kerry) apply pressure to Regnery, the publisher to recall the book - UNFIT FOR COMMAND. Then they go after bookstores who were selling it.

Oh, yea, nothing here. Move along!

Okay Ed. The site shows over a million hits, the interview with Limbaugh was given on Monday, the website itself refers to an August 18th interview with the webmaster, implying the site was already up at that time. I'm just curious: how many websites do you think get a million hits in one day, seeing as you suggest it was set up yesterday?

Greyhawk: "That he then broke that faith is why so many are so willing to do so much to stop him now." This just sounds like, the ends justifies the means.

Natz,

How do you the site has "shows a million hits"? Its Site Meter gif shows about 41,000 visitors, which isn't very difficult at all for such a hot Website to receive in such a short time. (InstaPundit alone is probably responsible for 10,000 of them today.) The rest of the site meter info is password protected.

Ooops--"How do you the site has "shows a million hits"?" That should be "How do you know".

Linda, RUSH is a bit over the top; "You're doing God's work" - yes, I think that's a bit over the top.

Natz: "That he broke that faith" encompasses a wide variety of morally reprehensible acts that you might not understand - but I won't speak for them. I do think the Swift vets motivations are fundamentally simple, and the title of the book actually explains their actions more than most people would like to think. Since you asked.

All: Note I am arguing on Kerry's behalf here. Or at least postulating that he could be innocent of this charge.

Also, I linked a different copy of the text and photos of "New Soldier" last week. But there's a huge difference between something that's available to a handful of internet savvy people - (hint: what percentage of the US population is 40 thousand? One million?) and having something widely available.

Much of what's being discussed today on the news was first mentioned on this blog last February or so. We did the Bush AWOL thing then too. Believe me, vets don't like Kerry. Never have. This is only news to non-vets. Which is why Mike Moore and Terry McAuliffe thought "war hero" was a great idea.

Hey, new post coming. Was Kerry in Vietnam in April?

I'd like to see the context of that quote from his journal. The use of the word "had" could mean that prior to this incident, the team hadn't been fired on, but without more, we can't tell whether he was referring to the time before the incident for which he got the PH and the Bronze Star, or the time up to the date of the journal entry.

Ed I looked at the site statistics page, that's all, and it shows 1.7 million hits...almost 400,000 hist on a single page in the system. But I didn't see a site meter gif on the homepage, maybe we are talking about two different things?

Natz,

I'm referring to the New Soldier reprint page.

It just dawned on me: you're apparently referring to the Winter Soldier Website. That site has been up since early this year; it shares a Webmaster with the Swift Boat Vets' Website.

The site doesn't contain the entire contents of The New Soldier. It has photos from it, (including its damning upside down American flag cover), a summation of its contents, and a fair chunk, but not all of its actual text, unlike the Blogspot page, which did apparently just go live this week, reprinting the entire book.

But O'Neill is right: Kerry would love to have this book tossed down the memory hole. The Internet makes that much more difficult.