Anyone here ever read "Unfit For Command?"

I haven't, but have you? Is it anything more than a hatefest?

and got it from the library, but I can't make myself read it.

O'Neill is a freak, and Corsi is a bigot. I already know they took a statement from John where he said that thank god there was only one guy with a grenade launcher involved in a firefight, and decided that meant that one guy with a grenade launcher was all there was facing him and his men.

Well, according to the Vietnamese who were there, that's just not true. There was a major fight that they had to hide from and that leveled their village. But thank God there was only one guy out of the several who had a grenade launcher.

That's just one misrepresentation that I know of. I just can't make myself read the damn thing otherwise.

(was it O'Neill or Corsi) was like that asshole in that Nam movie (name of movie I forget but it was based on "the Heart of Darkness") who said,"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

and I think thats Robert Duvall or Dennis Hopper's character, actually Latch Hoffman was said to be like him. Someone once compared Kerry and O'Neill to Sgt Elias played by Wilem Dafoe and Sgt Barnes played by Tom Barringer in Oliver Stone's Platoon.

Kerry commented that "Apocalypse Now" was a really what Vietnam was like back then. Suppose to be a great movie, but I've never seen it. Nor Platoon. I can't stand those movies too depressing...:( Too much like Iraq.

to Vietnam in Platoon was alot like his own. Theres a great usage of the Barber's Adagio For Strings through out Platoon. Acolyapse Now is pretty good too, it starts out with This is the End, one of my favorite Doors songs. Martin Sheen is in that as well. I like those two movies but they are different from my WWII movies I own, both genres move me deeply that said.

Too damn depressing.:cry: :cry:

its not a war movie really but Cry Freedom with Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline about Aparteid in South Africa, we saw that in english and people acted all insensitive, I sorta lost my temper, some didnt realize how lucky we really were, I just felt so bad for those South Africans.

racial and gender apartheid in America.

for the Boston Herald back in '86 when it came out. I remember him saying that the movie's realism got to him. (Oliver Stone had based the Charlie Sheen character on his own experience in volunteering for and fighting in Vietnam.) Kerry had said that after the screening he needed a minute outside the theater to collect his thoughts. (He was just sitting on the curb, absorbing what he had seen.) 'Platoon' is a very powerful movie, and very sad. Kerry has also said that he identified with the beginning of the movie when the returning Vietnam vets are coming through the airport in Hawaii and Sheen's character notices how dead their eyes are. Kerry, in 'Tour of Duty', says a similar thing happened to him when he was transferring over to active duty there. He said something to the effect of wondering what would do that to someone, turn their eyes so dead. I guess he found out.

If I remember, I will locate that review and post it here. (Should anyone want to see it.)

the founder of the Smear Vets.

I am told Admiral Zumwalt, who I believe was Latch's commanding officer was a man of honor, he lived in the same town my dad did growing up and I think my dad met him once.

Arlington, Virginia is pretty near DC, great place, I like the atmosphere there.

Good man, that Gleen. DC is wonderful

were real haters who hated being exposed by Kerry.

I felt so dirty looking at it trying to hide the cover. I just scanned the first section quickly. I could see why it was hard to fight for the Kerry campaign.

It was essentially hundreds of charges - some down right silly. Some based on Tour of Duty. Some charges - Kerry was already anti-war before coming To VN, Kerry joined to avoid the draft (I guess this shows Kerry was not as smart as GWB - Kerry joined a service that would send him to war to avoid war).

Other charges were just inconsistent - Kerry was trouble because he was too aggressive, Kerry ran away from all the battles.

I think it was hard to fight because unlike the smears of McCain and Clealand, they didn't say 2 or 3 devastating smears, but hundreds of lies that ranged from nothing to major - all attested to by different people, making it seem like everyone he reported to, most of his peers and some of the people on his boat (although it was only 1) all felt he was not a hero or they didn't trust him. It must have been like attacking a black cloud - nothing really there, but you can't push it away.

As a smear campaign, I wonder if their technique of having sworn affidavits from all these people - protects the 2 slimeball authors - forcing Kerry to fight all the sources, if he chose to fight it. So not only would it be hard as a public figure to win, it would be powerful Senator Kerry fighting a group of nobodies.

to get some coffee after dinner. I was checking out the books on clearance. I saw that piece of shit book is being sold for something like $4.95. It's not even worth that much.

I hope that sooner or late that publishing house gets sued enough on something that they are unable to create this filth. I know there are some books that were unfair to GWB, which in fairness I admit I've read - but this book really was beyond any sense of fairness.

I work at Champaign's B&N and it recently hit clearance. If I ever have to sell a copy, it'll take every ounce of my self-control to not lash out at the fucking freeper slime.

I ridiculed the book and asked him if there were more than 10 words per page and if he pulled it out of the bargain bin at shopko

....I'll stick to "A Call To Service" instead! :)

or spit on it. :(

but I once saw it in a store, whereupon I covered it up with an anti-shrub book.

Reading the reviews on amazon.com from people who read it is kind of amusing - I think the IQ level is about 20, and there are a ton of reviews.

They call Kerry a war criminal and a coward. I have to restrain my urge to physically destroy the copies I see.

I don't think there's anything sexual...

Kerry is a war criminal is as ludicrous a fib as Kerry is a dyke.
Not trying to imply anything sexual there. I wasn't trying to make light of that rotten libel. I was just trying to see what the book was like without having to dirty my hands with that shit.
Sorry, that they are bashing your husband like that. That fucking stinks.
DUBYA IS A WAR CRIMINAL!

but we might have some folks who are dial-in. (Slow thread loading.) Love the pics, but you might want to de-busy the sig line.

Don't be mad at me. Just a suggestion.

Love and roses,

TayTay

Is two pictures OK? Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan.

but it is absolutely wonderful to see those pics. I adore both of those courageous, passionate, intelligent and determined women. I love them, They are now and always have been heroes of mine.

Shirley Anita Chisholm and Barbara Charline Jordan forever!

She was amazing during the watergate hearings

Both of these women have passed on. Shirley Anita Chisholm: Died January 1, 2005 Barbara Charline Jordan: Died January 17, 1996.:cry:

I saw the tribute to Chisholm - she was great. I don't even remember hearing about Jordan. Thanks for answering

Chisholm ran for president in '72 and she was brilliant.

and, at least kept off display. That said, I would agree that there were anti-Bush books that were also inappropriate. One that comes to mind diagnoses Bush with pysychological disorders even though the author never met him.

Having read "Tour of Duty" which showed a young man,trying desparately to keep his own morality within an immoral situation, who along with some of his peers took the inititive even while in Vietnam to argue with their superiors against the policies that created these abuses makes it even harder to hear these charges. His 1971 testimony had a stronger moral tone than almost anything I've ever read and could not have been written by an amoral war criminal. In the debate with O'Neil, Kerry's willingness to list those things he took part in that he later considered against international law showed a level of taking responsibility for his actions shows a level of maturity and morality that the slimers have never achieved.

Reminisent of the "Wizard of Oz", where having a heart meant that it could hurt when it was broken, it seems that having a conscience and seeing these things hurts. At least some of the slimers clearly were without consciences in Vietnam and haven't gotten any yet.

a fascinating guy. (Kerry is a gifted writer and I wish he would publish a book that tells his story, his way.) He is two people in that account, the Kerry who was a regular guy and went through a rather regular, if in places heroic, stint in Vietnam. He connected well with the other guys he worked with and earned the respect of both officers above him and the men he commanded. (And he seemed like a regular sailor, drank with the guys, ate with them, and tried to be both of his crew and at the same time be in command of it.)

It's the other guy who is so fascinating. That Kerry was the well-read and well-educated Yalie who knew both his military history and the history of protest against the evils of war. That's the guy with the conscience who objected to the war and to the horrors that war unleashed. That guy is visible only in the diaries (which I have only read filtered through Tour of Duty.) The second Kerry was almost unknown to his own men, as he never shared his anti-war feelings with anyone else while he was in the active service (He didn't write home about it to his parents. Those letters are average.) That's why some of the people he served with were so surprised to see Kerry show up on TV testifying in front of the Senate in 1971. (You can almost see some of the guys he knew in Vietnam saying to themselves, "Where did this guy come from? We never talked about this stuff with our Lt. Kerry.")

This is what left Kerry open to the distortion, smears and lies that came his way. He did not make his own transition from officer to protester of conscience that transparent. (You have to pay attention to see the gradual change in attitude and paying attention is not an American strong suit. Sigh.) It's too bad we got the dopey and false attack on the actual service record last year. (In my mind that was an easy refutation. SBVT lied, and they have no records that prove otherwise. Slam dunk.) But the other story, the protest story is much more interesting and would have been a legitimate area to explore in the Pres race. Too bad it was not. Americans need to examine what constitutes patriotism and how protest fits into a proper understanding of patriotism every so often. But it wasn't done. Sigh!

but it didn't say on what. I loved the parts of Tour of Duty that were Kerry's and felt they were by far the best part of the book. I hope at some point he does write an autobiography. Even if he quit political life in 2008, he would still have had one of the most interesting lives of our generation. (More interesting actually than some Presidents) His writing really was beautiful, which was not a surprise. His speech seems effortlessly eloquent sometimes.

I was impressed that at age 25 he had the self discipline to not talk about his anti-war feeling and concern about the morality of the war to his men. It must have been hard confining it to his journal, but he probably did the right thing making them feel as good about themselves as possible. I got the impression from the book that he did talk to a few of his peers about how stupid the war was.

I found it interesting that he didn't mention much about his feeling against the war in his letters to his parents. Were their letters censored back then? I can understand his not wanting his parents knowing how much in danger he was. He had to realize that if he was killed they would get his journal and know where he was mentally at that point.

Guess that is the basis for the famous 'reserve.' (ugh!) He was (and is) a very interesting person. I like the way his mind works. I imagine he didn't want to unduly worry his parents.

It does take a lot of self-discipline to audit what accounts you tell to different people. A lot of his journal entries are really expressive and full of doubt and uncertainty of what to do. It is remarkable that this inner churning didn't make it into his interactions with his crew.

I hope that Kerry does write a book in the way that John McCain did. I think this would be more valuable than another policy book. He is a great writer, but I wonder if he would want to go through all this stuff again. (Some of that stuff seems kind of difficult to go review.)

full of uncertainty but intensely private. At times, it seemed he was trying to put things down that he was seeing and feeling to help himself put these things together in a coherent way. Given all the discussion of his reserve, I'm really surprised that he gave Brinkley permission to use them without any control. (Now the Republicans know he is scared of snakes - I'm surprised after the first debate, Bush didn't come in with a slithery little friend. Or if this were a novel, the youthful hatred of snakes would be fore shadowing of certain snakes he would face in his sixties)

It really annoyed me when the slimers used the fact that he was not gungho on the war to say he wasn't really a hero. I thought him more a hero because he obviously kept his crew as safe as he could while fighting people fighting him as effectively as possible and because of his anti-war activities where he led and helped others.

I had heard, over the years, that Kerry had primary historical material, but I never thought it would see the light of day in his lifetime. (I just didn't.) He actually didn't talk about his war experiences that much in his Senate campaigns. (Except for when it was questioned, then he spoke about it.) But it just seemed too personal and I really thought this stuff would only be opened years from now in some University archive or something.

Brinkley must be a very persuasive guy. His account of how he came to write Tour of Duty and focus on Kerry was almost as fascinating as the book. I like his detail of Kerry pacing, pacing, pacing while Brinkley read his letters from so long ago. Must have been difficult to go through and wonder if someone is going to 'get' what you meant. Turns out, Kerry had reason to worry. Tour of Duty pissed off Hoffman which led to SBVT. Sigh! No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

I loved his documentary as well, even though parts seemed like a campaign film. Kerry's very open when someone is a long-time loyal friend.

It was fun for me to see what Kerry's like when he DOESN'T like the interviewer, or at least doesn't trust him. I think it was a CNN profile, where the interviewer asked about the Vietnamese with the grenade launcher and Kerry told him bluntly they were NOT going there.

And again when the interviewer asked him about, oh I'm not sure, probably the divorce or some other lose, asking him if he learned anything from it all. He said "I learned many things about myself, none of which I'm sharing with you."

I don't know why, but I kinda like it when he gets testy like that.

who was a friend of Kerry's. (His book of photos was great as well.) The Tour of Duty book was by Doug Brinkley who is the Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and also a history prof at the University of New Orleans.

His book used Kerry's journals, letters, and many hours of Kerry interviews, in addition with extensive interviews with over a 100 people who were involved at some point with Kerry. Kerry had no control over the book at all. Brinkley had an academic reputation to protect. He did interview Hoffman and Elliot, so their sides of the story were presumably taken into account.

It's clear that he was very impressed with Kerry, both as a person and as a writer. The book really should be considered as an independent piece of scholarship rather than a Kerry campaign book. Oddly, the fact that an independent scholar came away so impressed with Kerry almost made the book less useful than if he would have found more to criticize.

It was the "B's" I tell ya.

as a historian, he obviously gave far more credence to the naval record and Kerry than to Hoffman et al.

From the Washington Post article that someone posted on an earlier thread, Hoffman was apparently angered by his portrayal, so he joined the attack on Kerry. (There was a comment by his wife saying that he was surprised because Kerry was "never nasty to him". So I guess the fact that Kerry in later years treated him in a civil manner caused him to be surprised to see Kerry's view of the war from the journal's he wrote as a 25 year old. The funny thing is that the personal comments weren't Kerry's, but seemed the consensus of the other people Brinkley interviewed. (The only one named was the Rep Congressman from AZ - who had the quote about him being like the guy in Apocalypse now).

and he didn't exactly mince his words. He called Hoffman a war criminal and said that Hoffman's plans and actions in setting up Operation Sealords in Vietnam was foolish and designed to gather glory to Hoffman at the expense of the lives and safety of others. The whole idea of a Free Fire zone was anathema to Kerry and he saw it as a war cime and against the Geneva Convention. Hoffman saw it as a way to rack up more 'enemy kills.' (And any dead civilian in a free fire zone was a VC, and a great kill.) Bastard, burn in hell.

the fact that Brinkley had looked at this as a historian. From the book, it seems he came away tremendously impressed by Kerry. Although the book did bring Hoffman and the others out of the shadows, I know there were people who read it and came out not just for Kerry, but adamantly for Kerry. Also, it did bring Rasmann to the campaign, which I think helped.

The sickest thing (among many sick things) the slimers did in their book was to try to turn it around to make Kerry the war criminal. Probably the most curious story in the Brinkley book was the story on page 271 mainly from Skip Barker's information that Kerry saved 42 villagers (mostly children, women and older men who were thin from starvation) who were in the free fire zone in an earthen mound. After they saw a person run into the mound, Kerry left his boat, got the people out onto the shore and called the larger boat to give them his location and to say he had 42 civilian detainees. Per the account he was repeatedly asked how many KIA to which he kept repeating none. He then ordered them onto the boats and took them to the larger ship and insisted on getting them fed and medically treated. They were then but back in the swift boats and taken to one of the towns. Barker said that Kerry "caught hell from his superior officers". It's curious, because it sounds like Kerry was ordered to commit a war crime and not only didn't, but insured that the civilians did not remain in the area to be killed by the next mission to come through or to die of starvation.

So there may be some truth to Kerry not following orders. I liked his comment that "for an afternoon it felt good to be really helping the Vietnamese instead of destroying their villages" and that they shared their food with them and used ponchos to shield them from the sun. In addition to the Vietnamese, this day might have been one of the few days some of the sailors could look back on and feel good about themselves.