unlike any conservative i know, i actually *read through the kerry testimony in
the 1970s. much to your disappointment, i'm sure, a great deal of kerry's
prepared testimony is about how vietnam vets aren't treated with enough respect
and help in the u.s, how they are in pain and have been forgotten. For
example, "I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk
about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back
to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they
come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn't really care, that
doesn't really care."
while he is certainly critical of the war and the role of soliders in vietnam
(and for a good reason!), he blames the chain of command and the leadership for
the problems in vietnam ... not the soldiers. when he talks about soldiers as
rapists and so on, he is telling what has been told to him by soldiers -- it is
not an accusation. "They [the soliders giving testimony to Kerry's
organization] relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense,
made them do."
his concluding comments are: