Terrible Soldier
Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:05 pm
This is a letter sent to Columnist Bob Lonsberry from a reader.
Hey Bob,
I must have been a terrible soldier. After serving 364 days in Vietnam in 1969-70 with the USMC, I returned uninjured, undecorated, with no magical abilities and no instincts to hang-out with Jane Fonda.
John Kerry on the other hand, in Vietnam only 4 months, managed to get himself injured on the average of once every 40 days, won a Silver and Bronze Star for bravery and 3 Purple Hearts ( for which he nominated himself) even though none of his wounds required hospitalization.
After 364 days I had not witnessed any atrocities against the Vietnamese people or committed any myself, unlike John Kerry who witnessed enough in 120 days to then sit in front of Congress for hours upon hours relating to them all the horrors, then in future interviews admitted to committing a few himself. I lacked higher social and moral conscience and as soon as I got home I didn't protest against my fellow soldiers still there. Having not received any medals I couldn't throw them over the White House fence in protest and then make them magically reappear on my office wall at home.
I must have been a terrible soldier -- unlike John Kerry who somehow saw more, won more, was injured more, and protested more all in the shorter period of time than any solider in history. The guy just must be magical, and I'm the kind of soldier he now tells to sit down and shut up because I voted for George W. Bush
David C. Taylorsville, Utah
- by Bob Lonsberry (C) 2004
Hey Bob,
I must have been a terrible soldier. After serving 364 days in Vietnam in 1969-70 with the USMC, I returned uninjured, undecorated, with no magical abilities and no instincts to hang-out with Jane Fonda.
John Kerry on the other hand, in Vietnam only 4 months, managed to get himself injured on the average of once every 40 days, won a Silver and Bronze Star for bravery and 3 Purple Hearts ( for which he nominated himself) even though none of his wounds required hospitalization.
After 364 days I had not witnessed any atrocities against the Vietnamese people or committed any myself, unlike John Kerry who witnessed enough in 120 days to then sit in front of Congress for hours upon hours relating to them all the horrors, then in future interviews admitted to committing a few himself. I lacked higher social and moral conscience and as soon as I got home I didn't protest against my fellow soldiers still there. Having not received any medals I couldn't throw them over the White House fence in protest and then make them magically reappear on my office wall at home.
I must have been a terrible soldier -- unlike John Kerry who somehow saw more, won more, was injured more, and protested more all in the shorter period of time than any solider in history. The guy just must be magical, and I'm the kind of soldier he now tells to sit down and shut up because I voted for George W. Bush
David C. Taylorsville, Utah
- by Bob Lonsberry (C) 2004