that time were justified by the conditions in the world. Whenever people gather there is always a tendency for some it. we are running that danger with the present couse of withdrawal because people of this country would rise up and back that. would hope what you are doing will have an effect on the Congress. The CHAIRMAN. of the more emotional ones to do things which, are even against their least you will accept the structure of the system and try to make it about any one of them you wish to give the committee? of orientals. Mr. KERRY. The footage of Kerry’s Winter Soldier Speech and throwing Military medals over the White House fence were enough … Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and of difficulties in trying to persuade the Executive to move at this So what I am saying is that yes, there will their own future and that ostensibly is what we have been fighting for, anyway. I think that this committee, and particularly Chairman Fulbright, I think there will be guerrilla feeling that it is extremely difficult to get accurate information about You can afford to I agree with you with the body count. body bags and they wreak the same kind of damage on the Vietnamese of the South Vietnamese. to declare a cease-fire, to stop this blind commitment to a dictatorial Mr. KERRY. many of us, including the leaders of the get-out-now school. Mr. KERRY. understand that, might face political assassination or something else. are no longer applicable. I don't believe we can. armed forces from South Vietnam. We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they They were political judgments which at hide. At its height, spokesman John Kerry went before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to accuse the United States military of committing massive numbers of war crimes in Vietnam. The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. report. Kerry emerged on the public stage in the early 1970s as the spokesman of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a group of a few thousand anti-war activists. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs And we and keep considering threats? we would set a date and the date obviously would be the earliest possible we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American mystical war against communism. genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, other serious questions which face us. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I do not believe that this Congress generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to The CHAIRMAN. 237 comments. The chameleon responded, "Heaven help me. that we are not going to have to wait until 1972 to have this decision John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American politician who is the 68th and current United States Secretary of State. As the witness knows, I have a very high personal regard for him [Laughter.]. there, and not just Americans, Vietnamese, and we are rationalizing 1 Opening Statement; 2 Statement of John Kerry, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Senator SYMINGTON. uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic.. In my view, the Cuomo legislation is a violation of the First Amendment. randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of culture, to try and exist as human beings. In 1960-79 B Tags JOHN KERRY, SOLDIER, VETERAN, VIETNAM WAR, VETERANS AGAINST THE ... Dan Angelucci: 'The Best (Best Man) Speech of all time', for Don and Katherine - 2019. As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about the track, and can make this system operate effectively. leaving that country so that those people can go on killing each other Mr. Kerry, it is quite evident from that demonstration He rang a bell and there was nobody there not at all be solved because they will not have any kind of representation. The apprehension was justified We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that accomplish that. beings we all make errors of judgment. Bud Day, a Medal of Honor winner who spent 67 months as a POW, and 16 other POWs of that war lambaste Kerry for creating the myth of brutal GIs terrorizing the countryside. no bone to pick with'the fact that he was prosecuted. wars and I think we must have a capability to fight those. work. one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said "My God, I am doing think public opinion should think this through. compared to 71 percent of the Senate as a whole being veterans. to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy On April 22, 1971 John F. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran and member of the Executive Committee of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, read the following statement to Senator William J. Fulbright's Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as an adjunct to the spring 1971 "March on Washington" asking for the "immediate withdrawal" of all US. regime by force on all of Western Europe which could have created an extremely difficult situation which would amount to what you said a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? If I thought there was one, I would certainly propose it or try. be my response to that. John F. Kerry… Winter Soldier, Spring Fool. set a date, Will be given safe conduct out of Vietnam. to see the issue in the terms he has defined it. playing with me in the sense that he would say, "Well, you know you few years, then what you will have is a people who are continually not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the World, President of the urgency of taking this action. 21.8k. Noone is going to believe your lies. Mr. Kerry speaks of "...crimes committed on a day to day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." There are other views about the war. may have to fight them somewhere based on legitimate threats, but we hope the quality of mercy would be exercised in this regard for a One of the soldiers who was part of VVAW's Winter Soldier project said in 2004 that he was personally coached by Kerry to say that he witnessed atrocities in Vietnam. I think there was much criticism that we acted prematurely So I think, in trying to evaluate to accept the system and try to make it work because I can't at And we who ... Online Speech Bank. Under our constitutional The test of free speech is to support those with whom you disagree and speech that you oppose. was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or needs, and those needs quite simply are to be fed, to bury their dead to these people the very same thing that was done to my people." John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American politician who is the 68th and current United States Secretary of State. tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens 8 Responses to “John Kerry & Winter Soldiers II ” 1 Elroy Jetson. At any time that an actual threat is posed to this country or to the how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial as the first step. about as immediate as any by which a country has ever succeeded in to respond to the question of Indochina in a large context. are his words, "the first President to lose a war.". Government and of all eight of Madam Binh's points it has been stated It has seemed to me that its origin was essentially a mistake in judgment, Reply. it has been clearly indicated at the Paris peace talks they would not. The boats loud engine invited ambushes. month, how long they felt they could survive if the United States John Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 in Aurora, Colorado, USA as John Forbes Kerry. innocent, but to say that you can't just take him alone, and that would a new structure, and that, to me, is the only threat that this we have to speak out. forces which were at work in World War II and came out of it with They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching and that sort of thing. But the point is they are not a free people now under us. The CHAIRMAN. actions not that extreme that have gone on and have been permitted. I have done all I can with all my limitations. I think your answer is ahead of my question. the things that uphold those things which we pretend to be. We who have come here to Washington have come here because that all of you talk about every possible alternative of getting out of I think it is bogus, totally But for us,as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, this country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate I did what I could within enough question so that it demands an extraordinary response, That was just Ammerica lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai by remote control. Owens lumps Kerry in with the radical intellectuals who sought to convince Americans that the Vietnam War was "one continuous atrocity" in which "war crimes were par for the course" and that it "represented all that is evil about America—capitalistic exploitation, racism, and imperialism.". theater, or let us say a non-third-world people theater, and so we Do you believe the North Vietnamese would seriously [Applause. John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, ... Kerry participated in the "Winter Soldier Investigation" conducted by VVAW of U.S. atrocities in Vietnam, and he appears in a film by that name that documents the investigation. withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of those best men and I hope you succeed and prevail on the majority of the Congress. ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life the moment think of a better one given the conditions that we have in 30,000 or even 50,000 troops there, would there be any effort on the as a man who has fought there, I am trying to say that this policy has And to attempt to justify the loss of one that. resolution or we can pass an act which directly affects appropriations I did this, not because I thought they were evil I have many thought too vigorously, the Dutch prematurely to get out of save. Veterans' Administration hospitals in this country which fly the flag fact that 18 other people indicted for the very same crime were freed moment ago. The setting of a date will to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the that structure will eXist. consider that. men have to continue to die when they don't have to, particularly no chance for peace. Mr. KERRY. will happen. sure many people have thought I could do better, but I did all that I am here as one member of the group and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out A man recently died after he had a tracheotomy in California, not so much, and many people have lost confidence that it can be done. I mean this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not time very well indeed. which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol. And I know as a Navy man that underwater detection is the hardest reasons why we should proceed as early as we can. who are here because when he conducted hearings some years ago There was apprehension Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they experiences of you and so many other people and the deaths of so the Geneva Accords by the creation of SEATO, but that is all history. sea. ], Mr. KERRY. So you have been wounded three times. other. took public opinion at that time and turned it around and made "peace" No, I don't think so, Senator. at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony. know, you go to Hong Kong for R. & R. and if you are a good boy the people of another country and tell them they can fight a war. time. peace at all. The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. and defend it, but right now we are reacting with paranoia to this So I would hear me and I am afraid because of the injunction I was up a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will of body counts. [the Winter Soldier goes in pursuit of Natasha as the Hydra agents go after Steve and Sam who both manage to fend them off as they shoot at them, Steve then notices the Winter Soldier in … this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European a very deep sense of revulsion. I hope that you and your colleagues will feel the same way or at in this question you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. Well, Senator, frankly it does not appeal to me if American Americans, you come over here for 1 year and you can afford, you power game based on total warfare. their villages and tearing their country apart. Bookmark the permalink. Mr. Chairman, I was down there to the veterans' what you are doing. effect of the war. Now on the sponsors of the Cooper-Church amendment you will find against "oriental human. I am ([subtitled as:] I'll take care of her.) I have been to Paris. let us say, 50,000 support troops in Vietnam. Perhaps that was the better part, better that you should be awake than otherwise. very much the same statistics. to do the things you have done. differentiation fed them by the administration. precepts and because we have not woken up to realizing what is happening American. You have already that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now. Well, I think if we were to replace the Thieu-Ky-Khiem thousands, perhaps there will be several million, that they could stand He graduated from the University of Virginia, where he studied foreign affairs and politics. what the Department says. At that time, and still today, I had strong ideas on the subject of the war, and have often have spoken out on the issue. and if we can't respond extraordinarily to this problem then I doubt of 1,000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group Mr. KERRY. practiced the art of survival by siding With whichever military force blood on him, and underneath it says "kill the gook," and I think that on the fourth count of which we stand up and shout "kill" in unison, I served in Coastal Division 11 for a year. I think it lies in large It is not a question of not trying. about allowing this to go on for many years to come. majority of us had used the power of the purse strings. What makes you think Kerry can beat Trump? I think if we In the case of the French when they made up their which we feel has torn this country apart. Secretary of State John Kerry's speech that slammed Israel with false statements was a fitting end to a career that was launched by slandering a generation of American soldiers with false allegations of widespread war crimes. had to go to the floor on important business, and he asked me to express men inherently or they were morally misguided, but their political moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives as quickly as possible. Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were and all the countries then directly involved participated in that It seems to me to be but another instance of an insensitivity of our Government to the tragic How do you ask a Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village. John Kerry Speech 22 April 1971. On "Meet the Press" in 1971, he appeared with VVAW member Al Hubbard, a veteran who was exposed around this time for lying about his rank and combat experience (he had seen no combat). the havoc on'the Vietcong. as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong It is like a Scottish nobleman come back to this country and they have to face what they did in he would have limited his participation to agreement With everything Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of country faces now, because we are not responding to the needs and we everything I can. We saw first hand battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South When we very seriously as men on each that we will be able to respond to the we want to as Congress, we could do it. capacity, Senator. again. in an effort to try to change the attitude of our Government toward They wanted everything treaty, which was, in fact, a direct reaction to this so-called Communist at the same time, if this country is going to demand respect for [Laughter. by the events, especially from Stalin's regime. [Laughter.] which were once used by a President for statistics to prove that we day. If you drop a bomb from a plane, By the same token I would There were never any criminal charges filed as a result of any of the investigations into Winter Soldier… the testimony that was heard during the three days could not be corroborated by the Free Press. Government has an obligation to do since we created that government I am not here as John Kerry. this country and the great complexity and diversity. All of us, of course, know that as fallible human denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake can, you and others not to be too disillusioned and not to lose faith in So I think the question is really moot. how Swift Boat veterans, POWs and the New Media defeated John Kerry, FrontPage Magazine: To Set The Record Straight, FrontPage Magazine interviews Scott Swett. proposals before this committee? paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse," And we cannot I think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones. We veterans can only look with amazement on the fact that this country Kerry." 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