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http://www.newswithviews.com/Craig/roberts.htm

WHAT JOHN KERRY DID TO ME
Craig Roberts
October 18, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

There�s an old saying: �What goes around, comes around.� Simply put, what 
one does to others eventually comes back to haunt them. It is normally used 
in a negative context. In these last few weeks before the election of 2004, 
John Kerry is beginning to reap the rewards of the above statement.

Besides the various groups that have come forward to condemn him, there is 
another group that the media ignores as much as it can. It is the group of 
�guys like me,� Vietnam vets who have been forced to live our lives under 
the stigma of negativism, hate, and total disrespect normally reserved for 
enemies of the country. It is the guys like me that, from the very day we 
returned from Southeast Asia, have had to launch into the rest of our lives 
and drive on, trying as much as possible to suffer the slings and arrows of 
the communist-backed anti-war crowd and the continuing aftermath of all 
they have done. Kerry was a leader in this movement.

For each and every one of us who survived Vietnam, where we simply did our 
jobs and tried to serve our country with honor, it has been a continuing 
battle ever since to live through the atmosphere of condemnation and 
accusations cast upon us by such as John Kerry, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden and 
their gang of communist misfits.

It is rather late for Kerry to step forward, render a salute and announce 
�reporting for duty.� Kerry now is trying to use his Vietnam service as a 
political springboard, and the sad thing is that there are many people who 
think this automatically qualifies him as a hero. The problem lies with us 
veterans who know the truth. Four months in Vietnam does not qualify one to 
tout a great deal of combat experience. In fact, four months in the 
infantry barely qualified one to stand watch alone or take point on a 
patrol. Kerry, using the �Three Heart Rule� wherein one could be 
transferred out of the combat zone after three Purple Hearts were awarded, 
found a way to leave the country as soon as possible, leaving his crew and 
shipmates behind. The Swiftboat Veterans for Truth have already addressed 
this issue and the lack of evidence clouding the issuance of the medals 
themselves.

I am more concerned with what he did after he came home. It is in those 
days and weeks and months that he stabbed me and every other Vietnam vet in 
the back and twisted the knife whose blade was forged on the anvil of 
deceit and beaten with a hammer of lies. Then he left the knife in our 
backs where it remains to this day. It is the same knife that is still in 
the backs of our children who are serving today, a legacy directly 
traceable to the anti-military movement of the 60s.

I was a young Marine grunt in 1965-66. I landed with the famous 9th Marine 
Regiment at Da Nang in July of 1965, and served as an automatic rifleman in 
an infantry company until February 1966, when I then became a sniper�a job 
I didn�t really want at the time, but Marines do not question orders. I 
finished my �tour� with a medevac flight back to �the world� at the end of 
May of 1966 and spent six months in the hospital in San Diego recovering 
from wounds. It was here that I saw a daily infusion of real heroes, guys 
who were missing limbs, suffered grievous and paralyzing wounds, and barely 
hung onto life while fighting tropical diseases we didn�t even have names 
for. My own wounds consisted of a punji stake in my right calf, shrapnel 
wounds in both legs, coupled with amoebic dysentery and ulcerative colitis 
and malaria. No one there had received Purple Hearts for scratches, nor did 
they want any.

We were the generation of baby boomers that grew up after World War II on a 
diet of gung ho patriotic �John Wayne� movies, who used to dress up in our 
dad�s old uniforms and medals and play �army.� We saw the Victory at Sea 
series showing the ticker tape parades and brass bands and smiling and 
waving crowds that our parents experienced in 1945. But now it was 
different. There were no bands, no parades, no ticker tape, and no smiling, 
cheering crowds. It was like you were in the jungle or rice paddies one 
day, then home a couple of days later where no one seemed to know there was 
a war going on or at least didn�t seem to care. Still, we were glad to be 
home and did the best we could to get on with our lives. We could live 
without bands and parades and heroes welcomes�

Then along comes John Kerry.

I remember when I first heard of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and 
wondered who in the heck these morons and cowards were. Obviously they must 
be draftees, dope smoking hippies from San Franciso that got drafted and 
sent to Vietnam, whining and complaining all the way there and back. So who 
wants to listen to them?

Evidently Congress did.

John F. Kerry, wearing a green utility shirt with a couple of rows of 
ribbons, sporting long hair, managed to worm his way before Congress where 
he could feather his political nest with the lies and false examples of 
things that either never happened, or were so rare as to be footnotes in 
history and not worthy of national attention. 

He accused those of us who had been there, and those who were still there, 
of atrocities, murder, torture, wholesale slaughter, and war crimes so 
heinous it reminded one of the sacking of Rome or the Nazis assault on 
Warsaw. He used terms like �free fire zones� and �armor piercing bullets� 
and �search and destroy missions� like they were the equivalent of 
Auschwitz and the Bataan Death March. In actual fact, the only people in 
designated free fire zones were the enemy. 

Everyone else knew better than to be there as we warned the population with 
leaflet drops, patrols with interpreters, and other means. Search and 
Destroy missions�later renamed Search and Clear missions--are typical 
counter-guerrilla warfare tactics and are being used today in Iraq. 
Mentioning armor piercing bullets means nothing as no one wore armor, and 
any bullet pierces human flesh. The recipient couldn�t care less about 
whether it was armor piercing, tracer or full metal jacket ammunition. He 
was still hit, and he was taken out of action.

To add insult to injury, Kerry fueled a huge anti-war movement, threw a 
handful of ribbons over a fence in a photo-op gesture, and then travels to 
Paris to meet with ranking officials of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong! 
All of this while our POWs are being tortured and murdered in North 
Vietnamese prisons.

So, Mr. Kerry, to sum it up, I won�t forgive you. And I won�t vote for you. 
Besides what you did to the POWs, and to the other Vietnam vets, and to 
Congress, and to the American people, you personally attacked and hurt me 
and my family, and what you did has altered my life and forced me to 
continue fighting the battle of Vietnam for over three decades, just trying 
to get the truth out.

Lieutenant (jg) Kerry, it�s a little late to now �report for duty.� Your 
war record is coming back to haunt you.

What goes around, comes around.

� 2004 Craig Roberts - All Rights Reserved

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Craig Roberts has lived a life many people only dream about. He is an 
internationally published author of over a dozen books, has written hundred 
of magazine and newspaper articles, appeared in several shows on The 
History Channel, written for Time-Life books, hosted a radio talk show and 
appeared on scores of radio talk shows. He is a US Marine Vietnam combat 
veteran, where he served in a line company and as a Marine sniper--hence 
his extensive writing on marksmanship, sniping, weapons and the 2nd 
Amendment.

He is also a career police officer, having retired in 1996 with over 26 
years of service with the Tulsa Police Department, where he served in 
patrol division, undercover assignments, SWAT (Special Operations), and as 
a police helicopter pilot with the Air Support Unit for 14 years. He has 
had a dual career, while serving as a police officer he continued his 
military career in the reserves where he completed 30 years total service 
in 1999 as an infantry and intelligence officer.

He retired at the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. Craig is 
a highly decorated combat veteran, and holds four medals from the police 
department including the Tulsa Police Department's second highest award, 
the Medal of Valor. Craig is the author of The Medusa File: Crimes and 
Coverups of the US Government, Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza, 
and One Shot--One Kill: America's Combat Snipers among others.

Websites: www.riflewarrior.com and www.chouteautel.com/~centurion007/ E-
Mail: craig@riflewarrior.com







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