The Last Word—Commander’s Column

Last month, John Kerry was appointed Secretary of State of the United States.  Personally, I am appalled at this appointment, consider it to be an insult, and would like to share with you my reasons.

Kerry was a self-promoting naval officer with political ambitions who, under questionable circumstances, took advantage of a regulation to cut his tour of duty short.  While still in uniform, he became a high profile spokesman for the radical organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).  He traveled to Paris on several occasions to meet with representatives of the North Vietnam Communist Party as well as the Viet Cong’s People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice.  There is speculation that one or more of his visits occurred while he was still in uniform, an issue that might be clarified if he would release his military records, including all records pertaining to his discharge.

No one did more to create the image of the Vietnam veteran as a war criminal than John Kerry.  It was the VVFW and Kerry who conducted the infamous “Winter Soldier Investigation” that was a total sham.  The perjuries “testimony” undermined the morale of the military and served to embolden the enemy and prolong the war, resulting, no doubt, in an increase in the number of KIA’s.

As a decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry’s opposition to the war became the cornerstone of his political ambitions and career.  In a cold and calculating manner, Kerry continued to slander Vietnam veterans by organizing “Dewey Canyon III”, a “limited incursion into the country of Congress.”  As the chief spokesperson for VVAW, Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and “confessed” to having committed war crimes and continued to slander Vietnam veterans, accusing them of atrocities and abuses of civilians.  In a candlelight march around the White House, Kerry threw his military medals over the fence, “disposing of them in the face of the government that had betrayed him”.  Years later, after his election to the Senate, Kerry’s medals turned up on the wall of his Capitol Hill office, and he confessed that the medals he had thrown away were not his.

With hundreds of thousands of US military personnel still in Southeast Asia, Kerry and his followers continued to violently oppose the war and provide propaganda to the enemy.  Some of Kerry’s quotes from his Senate testimony were used by the North Vietnamese in their interrogation of POW’s.  Ho Chi Minh had said, on many occasions, the Vietnam War would be won by the North Vietnamese on the streets in the cities of America and not on any battlefield in Southeast Asia.  History has proven that to have been spot on, and John Kerry was one of the leading proponents of that anti-war sentiment.

For his personal ambitions, John Kerry attempted to steal a vitally critical legacy of so many brave and honorable Vietnam Veterans, their valor.  Surely, there are other more highly qualified and deserving Americans to represent the United States as our Secretary of State than the contemptible John Kerry.