Kevin,
This is the speech that should have been given in front of Congress at the same time Kerry gave his. Even back then, the liberal media controlled all news events.
If we don't learn from our mistakes, we are damned to commit them again.
The Unheard Speech
I have come to speak for peace -- a just and lasting peace in Southeast Asia. On the basis of almost three years spent in Southeast Asia, I believe the best way to achieve peace and end the American involvement in the Vietnam war is through the President's Vietnamization policy.
From the text of testimony given to this committee by Lt. John Kerry on the 22nd of April, 1971: "I am here as one member of the group of 1000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."
I am a Vietnam veteran. As a matter of fact, I served in the same unit as Mr. Kerry, Coastal Division 11, while I was in Vietnam. On the basis of our shared experiences, I would like to make a few observations. 500,000 Vietnam veterans have joined the VFW and American Legion. Does Mr. Kerry speak for them? Over 1 million of the 2-1/2 million Vietnam veterans remain in the Armed Services. Does Mr. Kerry speak for them? NO - Mr. Kerry speaks for no one except himself and his embittered little group of 1000 out of a total of 2-1/2 million Vietnam veterans.
Mr. Kerry speaks of "...crimes committed on a day to day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." I served in Coastal Division 11 for a year. I never saw one war crime committed by Allied Forces. I served for much of the prior two years in waters adjacent to Vietnam. I never saw one war crime committed by Allied Forces.
That is not to say that there are no war crimes committed in Vietnam. While serving in Operation Seafloat in the Mekong Delta, I saw kidnappings of minors and assassination utilized almost daily by Viet Cong forces in the area.
Even among Allied Forces, there are certainly war crimes. In the city of Boston last year, there were 129 murders. Any group or city has psychotics. To say murder is part of the public policy in Boston is a lie. To say war crimes are commonly committed in Vietnam as a matter of policy is also a lie.
Mr. Kerry said: "The country does not know it yet but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men... who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal... we are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."
I am not angry. I have not been betrayed. I believe in America. I believe in the principle of self-determination, and from my own experiences, I believe that the Vietnamization policy of the President is the correct way to achieve this goal. So do the great majority of Vietnam veterans.
We don't often come to Washington. We have schools to attend, jobs to work at or maybe we're still in the Armed Services far from home. The President does our talking for us, as with most Americans. Mr. Kerry certainly does not.
According to Kerry's testimony: "We can not consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia."
When I belonged to Coastal Division 11 and earlier when Mr. Kerry belonged to Coastal Division 11, everyone there including he and I were volunteers for Vietnam. We always had a rule -- if you objected to a mission or to the unit itself -- you could submit a request and be assigned elsewhere. He never left the service and neither did I. I am proud and not ashamed of my service. Many of those who served in Coastal Division 11 in 1968, 1969, and 1970 are back in Vietnam. Those men, better men than either Mr. Kerry or myself, are certainly not ashamed.
Mr. Kerry went on to say: "We found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take the fight against the threat."
The unit Mr. Kerry and I served in does not exist any longer. The waterways we once patrolled and fought on are now patrolled by South Vietnamese. To paraphrase Winston Churchill "Give them the tools and they will finish the job." The continuing efforts of the brave South Vietnamese men who fight on the same rivers and canals we once fought on rebuts Mr. Kerry far better than I could.
Finally, John Kerry testified that, "We found all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies."
In March 1970, while operating in Operation Seafloat, we had a very slow moving American tug, escorted by a South Vietnamese swift boat. It was ambushed by the Viet Cong from heavy bunkers on the river bank. The South Vietnamese swift boat could have easily avoided the ambush. Instead, it turned and beached and assaulted the bunkers. This was the single most heroic act that I have witnessed during almost three years in Vietnam and it was done by South Vietnamese risking their lives to save American lives. This is not an isolated example.
It is also interesting to take a look at Mr. Kerry's solution to Vietnam -- he wants those same South Vietnamese to die in those same rice paddies for want of support from their allies -- the United States.
I could go on and on through the testimony of Mr. Kerry and others who appeared before this committee and find the same sort of misrepresentations. There is one that particularly concerns me. This is the use by the anti-war movement of the American dead to justify their cause. We all remember the demonstration last November. I knew so many people from the Naval Academy and Coastal Division 11 who died in Vietnam. Ken Norton, Hal Castle - a lot of people. How much more perverse, how much more morbid can you get than to use the dead for purposes they never intended. Can't they allow them to rest with their sacrifice stand-ing alone as mute testimony to their love of America?
Shall a radical minority govern the complacent majority? Shall South Vietnam be governed by the 10% who sympathize with the Viet Cong because they are willing to throw bombs? Shall the government of the United States be dominated by 250,000 people because they are able to appear in Washington? Shall Mr. Kerry and his little group of 1000 embittered men be allowed to represent their views as that of all veterans because they can be mustered anywhere and appear on every news program? I hope not, for the country's sake.
John O'Neill
April, 1971
