The one thing I don't understand about the Bush-haters is... well... why they hate Bush so much. It's not like the guy went around trampling people's flowerbeds and keying their cars. It's also not like he set off, with malice aforethought, to ruin the lives of innocent people who had done nothing to deserve it.

Unlike certain other candidates.

Peter (who you will remember from these 2 posts) has given me permission to post some more material from one of his recent e-mails to me. Before I read it, I had a detached, impersonal distaste for John Kerry. Afterwards, what I had was a seething urge to see that man's eyeballs on the ends of my thumbs.

But maybe that's just a "me" thing. Tell you what, YOU read it and decide for yourself:

I'm pretty angry right now. I'm no hero. I went where I was sent and did what I was told. I had a lot of fairly safe duty and a couple of tough assignments, that's the way things happen when a small town kid signs up in the Big Green Machine for a ticket out.

I spent some years with some awfully good guys, though, as well as the usual assortment of pricks, far outnumbered by the good guys. Oh, and a few, just a few, genuine heroes. My war had far more to do with being tired, bored, lonely and homesick and sometimes terrified, sometimes heartbroken at the loss of a friend than anything to do with a John Wayne epic.

I saw a whole lot of frightened young men suck it up for fear of letting down their buddies.

What I didn't see was rape and murder. I saw a sergeant, oh late twenties, early thirties, married with a couple of kids, we used to eat the broken cookies they sent, buy the farm trying to herd some Viet kids out of the line of fire in an ambush in a ville that I never knew the name of. That man's kids heard that 'testimony'. He was one of John Kerry's baby-killers. His children, and mine, grew up hearing that crap. My daughter, yes, daughter asked me about the rape over there. My teenaged daughter was taught in school that her daddy was a rapist. There's a conversation I never thought I'd have.

The other week I got a call from a veteran's wife, she was distraught because, for the first time in years, her husband was having Those Dreams, waking up pouring sweat and tears.

All I could think of to do was to go get him drunk enough to talk, and to cry while he was awake. Hope it's enough.

It's bad enough, that crap from almost thirty-five years ago. He's putting us through it again.

Harvey, I don't have a Blog, being computer illiterate and all. I depend on the kindness of strangers to lend me their soapboxes. I'm not fit to speak for veterans, just this one. There are so many that did far more than I did, there are so many that sacrificed far more than I did.

All I can do is tell my little story and to scream my outrage that so many men, from the ordinary to the finest I've ever been privileged to stand besides, were slimed as a political gambit. I want this to be over. I want those men to have their honor back. Then I want to go back to being just a guy writing witty comments on funny Blogs. I want to be Gramps again, plotting visits to the kids so as to teach my grandkids the words their mamas don't want them to know.

Until that day, the fight is on.

I read that, and I get quiet and still, and parts of my soul that I rarely hear from start to ache.

I just keep going back to that one section:

"My daughter, yes, daughter asked me about the rape over there. My teenaged daughter was taught in school that her daddy was a rapist. There's a conversation I never thought I'd have."

and my bones start to throb with rage.

I will tell you this - no more "fair and balanced" for THIS Sailor. No more "benefit of the doubt", no more "maybe we should at least hear what he has to say". From here on out, you can put me into the "frothing-psycho-moonbat right-wing fanatical Kerry-hater" column. This doesn't mean that I'm turning my entire blog into the Republican version of the Democratic Underground, and I'm not going to go around hijacking comment threads screeching about how Kerry should be strung up & flayed.

I'm just saying don't expect me to show my usual level of tact & diplomacy on matters Kerry. If you want to say something nice about the guy, say it on your own damn blog, because there's no room for it here anymore.

Final note: I'm of the opinion that the blogosphere would be a better place if Peter had a blog where he could post regularly, and the rest of us could stop by, read, comment, and link to.

What say you?

Posted by: Harvey at 08:48 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 868 words, total size 5 kb.

1 I agree with you, Peter needs a soapbox. I don't care if it's movaable type, blogger, mu.nu or livejournal, This man needs to be heard. I'm going to link this post from my piddly little livejournal site because i know 5 of my 6 readers are hardcore democrats and it wouldn't do them harm to read this. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart Peter adn Harvey for sharing this with us. Tommy.

Posted by: tommy at August 30, 2004 09:35 PM (MAoAh)

2 Peter, Your email so touched my heart. I am so very sorry your service was put into question by the machinations of a political opportunist. I pray that somehow, when this is all over, you are given the respect and honor for your service that you have always deserved.

Posted by: michele at August 30, 2004 09:36 PM (beN4P)

3 Yes, Peter needs a blog. Very much so. The section you brought up the second time rips my heart out and has been the basis of my anger all along. My only hope is that when this damn election is over, and Kerry is shown as the, whatever, he is - that there will finally be peace for those that have had it destroyed. That there will be healing. Peter - I'm speechless. Absolutely speechless.

Posted by: Tammi at August 30, 2004 09:46 PM (4Ls5e)

4 I've already warned Peter that he's your newest project Harvey *grin*. On a more sober note - this is exactly the kind of thing that I already "knew" in my bones had happened to these fine people. It's why I don't try to be fair and balanced. I try not to fly off the handle and rave - but Kerry has never gotten one iota of support from me and never will. Because whatever else he did - whatever else he "stands for" - back in the early 70's he was a war protester. Even a heartfelt apology would have a tough time winning me over. Since Kerry hasn't even attempted that - the rest of his platform is a moot point to me.

Posted by: Teresa at August 30, 2004 11:08 PM (nAfYo)

5 Hey Peter. It doesn't matter how "Computer illiterate" you are. That can be fixed, and there are many people out in the blogosphere who are willing to help out with the technical stuff. Most of it is knowing how to drive a keyboard, and you can definately do that. It's not as difficult as you might think, and you don't alway's have to talk about the same subject. You need to be a "blog brother". Just take the plunge, Blogger is waiting.

Posted by: Johnny - Oh at August 30, 2004 11:10 PM (Nl2WO)

6 Harv--I'm sure Pixy would be willing to welcome Peter to munu, which is not solely a refuge for the bogsplotted anymore. And the "tech" help for blog design is there. If he can type an email, he can blog--and we know he can work email! Plus, there is also a new blogging system Pixy is playing with, attached to the forums at munu--folks can create their own blogs there. I think we need Peter in Munuvia...

Posted by: Susie at August 31, 2004 01:02 AM (aRlto)

7 Some time, in the last 30+ years, John Kerry could have publicly denounced his prior attacks on his comrades in arms and apologized for his unconscionable speech in 1971. Most would probably have forgiven him. That time is long since past.

Posted by: physics geek at August 31, 2004 10:28 AM (Xvrs7)

8 I'm where you are Harv. I won't turn my blog into a preachy place all Republican, but my hatred for Kerry is more than I have felt for one human in years... it suprasses that of what I feel about Clinton, as I said in my Post last week.

Posted by: Boudicca at August 31, 2004 11:36 AM (/hhVq)

9 Glad to hear that Peter didn't rape anyone during the War. Most Americans didn't. And as anyone who isn't so brimming over with hatred that they can no longer read or hear will know, neither John Kerry nor any other politician from any party has ever intimated that every soldier over there committed crimes. Not even the Vietnamese, who are mighty bizarre and fanciful in their politics, made claims that absurd. When I lived in Germany, I met many nice Germans who never harmed a Jew. In the South, many nice white folks always thought the world of their upstanding black neighbors. I'm sure lots of enlisted Japanese soldiers never met a comfort woman, and I'm sure others turned down their services with shock and horror. Dimes will get you dollars that most of the good folks in the Sudan don't actually kill their neighbors. Net impact on the historical reality of horrors and atrocities committed? Zero. A returning soldier once spoke of the plight of men coming home after serving their country with honor and pride in a war that turned out to be a brutal and terrible mistake. He told us that in the future we would see the monstrous sorrow of "men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." We see it now.

Posted by: Linus at August 31, 2004 12:01 PM (Bf+TD)

10 Tact and diplomacy are highy overrated. Lock and load Harv

Posted by: Graumagus at September 02, 2004 10:11 AM (KYLsc)

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