John Kerry - The Insidious Traitor of Vietnam

I was not in Vietnam! 

It would be ten years before I was to learn what happened to the 101st Airborne Division soldiers that I served with for three years from 1962 to 1965.  I found out the gruesome details, in a chance meeting with a fellow trooper, who was on a recruiting assignment in Beckley, West Virginia.  I was traveling on business for my company at the time. 

In February of 1965, I was the Staff Legal Non-Commissioned Officer for the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, a unit of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army.  I had previously been a training NCO for the Battalion and because of these two assignments, I was well known in the outfit, and I knew most of my fellow troopers at the time. 

Lyndon B. Johnson had decided to upscale the Vietnam War, and at this moment in time, practically every NCO in the 101st Airborne were given orders to be part of a new outfit.  this outfit was to be ready to go to Vietnam on or about August 1965.  The new outfit would be made up of half of the 101st Airborne and of the 1st Division in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

At the time, we thought the name of the outfit was to be The 1st Air Cavalry, which had a ringy-dingy sound to it.  Also the new outfit was going to recover the 2nd Division Colors and insignia from the Korean War – the only American Division to ever surrender, I think I read somewhere, at the time. 

As it were though, I was going to be part of either the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division or the 1st or 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment.  That is if my orders were to be fulfilled.   In a moment in time when either luck or destiny was on my side, it was discovered that I was too short in time left in the Army, to be sent to an overseas assignment.  As it were, I was scheduled to separate from the 101st Airborne Division, on July 8th, 1965.  I was fifteen days “too short” to deploy to Vietnam. 

My orders were changes and I was given an assignment TO LIVE! 

Fast forward to a summer day in July 1975,  I am in Beckley, West Virginia, at the Holiday Inn having lunch with our local branch manager for General Electric.  I casually glance across the room and see a man in an Army uniform, a Sergeant E-7; I know him instantly.  We were Training NCO’s together in the 101st Airborne Division.  He had a baby face like me then and hadn’t changed a bit. 

After some small talk, he told me some sad news, some news that shook me to the core, and that made a grown thirty-three year old man (me) cry on the spot.  He said, “hardly anyone you knew lived.”  It seems his outfit, command by future Lt. General Hal Moore, was cut to pieces in the la Drag Valley in November of 1965.  It was an ambush and a four day battle that took many lives, many of which I had known, in the 101st Airborne. 

It could have been me. 

I just missed being killed by a bus in Chicago once while stepping off a street corner (I felt the cold steel of the bus as it went by me) and I missed la Drang Valley.  I feel very fortunate – destiny was on my side thanks to fifteen days. 

The battle of la Drang Valley was made famous many years later in the Mel Gibson movie “We were Soldiers”, based on the book, “We were Soldiers Once – and Young” by General Hal Moore.  I own two copies of the movie and I cry every time I watch it even today. 

John Kerry, for personal and political gain, besmirched the honor, integrity and the patriotism of all who served in Vietnam.  No one I knew in the “Enlisted Men” ranks wanted to go to the John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy contrived war in Vietnam, or at least, except for a few rare individuals.  They went because it was their duty. 

Only officers wanted to go off to this worthless war.  They needed the war to make rank, to put a check-mark on their records, to write a bunch of medal citations for themselves and their buddies.  The truth about those medals and check-marks are spelled out completely in the book “About Face” written by the most decorated officer in Vietnam, Colonel David Hackworth.

www.hackworth.com/biography.html

John Kerry was one of those officers.  Now don’t get me wrong, there were some very fine officers, with the highest of integrity and honor, who went off to war in 1965.  I served with some of the best, with my own commanding officer at Fort Campbell, Colonel Olan E. Smith making General over there.  Our Executive Officer 1st Lt. Albert A. Griffith, a graduate of Penn State and ROTC, was the finest officer I knew in my time in service.  I still remember, and laugh, at his humorous relationship with his Nittany Lion Dictionary. He carried it everywhere with him, and instantly drawled it out as if a 45 Caliber Pistol, whenever the meaning or spelling of a word was in doubt.  

John Kerry was, and is, a “dirtbag”! 

He came home, threw his phony medals over the fence at the White House, and called the common soldier in Vietnam all sorts of scurrilous names and base accusations, all of which were untrue, and proven so later.  He testified before Congress in 1971, testimony that was filled with lies, so much so that he should have been charged with treason on the spot.  The attached video will sum up John Kerry the traitor of Vietnam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWlHojVRH7g

At no time did this specious traitor mention that his fellow Democrats started the phony war in Vietnam for personal and political reason, and they perpetuated it, after the death of John F. Kennedy.  He just blames the American Soldier, who had nothing to do with this devastatingly disastrous, and purely political action, that killed over 58,000 Americans.

John Kerry should not even be a United States Senator!  He aided and abetted the enemy after his return to the United States.  He should have been charge with treason, and either shot, or imprisoned for life. 

To make this incredibly Un-American, self-serving liar, the Secretary of State is to drive a stake right into the heart of all the friends I served with, of over 58,000 dead American GI’s, over 300,000 who were wounded in Vietnam, and all who served faithfully in the military past and present.  He is no better that the mythical “Man without a Country” of fictional literary fame.

This must no happen! 

JimWalker

Formally Sergeant James M. Walker – Regular Army 19 669 379

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