Collected Thoughts

I found this interesting. (couple months old) I'm sure there is many more like it out there. I tried to verify it, however I couldn't prove that it was false. Anyhow, it does have it's good points about John Kerry.

A Texas Soldier's Letter to Senator John Kerry
By Michael Connelly
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 4, 2004

Dear Senator Kerry,

Since it has become clear that you will probably be the Democratic nominee for President, I have spent a great deal of time researching your war record and your record as a professional politician. The reason is simple, you aspire to be the Commander in Chief who would lead my sons and their fellow soldiers in time of war. I simply wanted to know if you possess the necessary qualifications to be trusted in that regard.

You see, I belong to a family of proud U.S. veterans. I was a Captain in the Army Reserve, my father was a decorated Lieutenant in World War II; and I have four sons who have either served, or are currently serving in the military.

The oldest is an Army Lieutenant still on active duty in Afghanistan, after already being honored for his service in Iraq.

The youngest is an E-4 with the military police. His National Guard unit just finished their second tour of active duty, including six months in Guantanamo Bay. My two other sons have served in the national guard and the Navy.

In looking at your record I found myself comparing it not only to that of my father and my sons, but to the people they served with. My father served with the 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion in Europe. They landed on Utah Beach and fought for 317 straight days, including the Cherbourg Peninsula, Aachen, the Hurtgen Forest, and the Battle of the Bulge.

You earned a Silver Star in Vietnam for chasing down and finishing off a wounded and retreating enemy soldier. (A violation of the Geneva Convention)

My father won a Bronze Star for single handedly charging and knocking out a German machine gun nest that had his men pinned down.

You received three purple hearts for what appears to be three minor scratches. In fact, you only missed a combined total of two days of duty for these wounds.

The men of my father's unit, the 87th, had to be admonished by their commanding officer because it had been brought to his attention that some men were covering up wounds and refusing medical attention for fear of being evacuated and permanently separated from their organization...

It was also a common occurrence for seriously wounded soldiers to go AWOL from hospitals in order to rejoin their units.

You, however, used your three purple hearts to leave Vietnam early.

My oldest boy came home from Iraq with numerous commendations and then proceeded to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, and from there back to Iraq again. My sons and father have never had anything but the highest regard and respect for their fellow soldiers.

Yet, you came home to publicly charge your fellow fighting men with being war criminals and to urge their defeat by the enemy. You even wrote a book that had a cover which mocked the heroism of the U.S. Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.

Our current crop of soldiers has a philosophy that no one gets left behind; and they have practiced that from Somalia to the battlefields of the Middle East.

Yet, as chairman of a Senate committee looking into allegations that many of your fellow servicemen had been left behind as prisoners in Vietnam, you chose to defend the brutal Vietnamese regime.

You even went so far as to refer to the families of the POWs and MIAs as Professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists, and dime-store Rambos.

As a Senator you voted against the 1991 Gulf War, and have repeatedly voted against funds to supply our troops with the best equipment, and against money to improve our intelligence capability.

I find this particularly ironic since as a Presidential candidate you are highly critical of our pre-war intelligence in Iraq. However, you did vote to authorize the President to go to war, but have since proceeded to do everything you can to undermine the efforts of our government and our troops to win. Is this what our fighting men and women can expect of you if you are their Commander in Chief? Will you gladly send them to war, only to then aid the enemy byundermining the morale of our troops and cutting off the weapons they need to win?

Our country is at war Senator, and as has been the case in every war since the American Revolution, a member of my family is serving their country during the war. Now you want me to trust you to lead my sons in this fight.

Sorry, Senator, but when I compare your record to those who have fought and died for this nation, and are currently fighting and dying, the answer is not just no, but Hell No!

Sincerely,

Michael Connelly
February 14, 2004
Dallas, Texas

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D-Day Remembered:
"The campaign to invade France -- and begin the march toward Berlin and the toppling of the Third Reich -- was what Eisenhower and numerous military historians have described as the greatest military undertaking of all time.

At dawn on June 6, 1944, more than 5,300 vessels sat off the Normandy coast, with gunships and destroyers bombing fortified German positions and thousands of landing craft bearing down on the shore, filled with invading soldiers.

More than 175,000 soldiers, sailors, Air Force officers and Marines took part in the invasion, supported by 50,000 vehicles of all types, ranging from tanks, Jeeps and transport trucks to the collapsible bicycles brought ashore by British soldiers. More than 11,000 Allied aircraft -- bombers, parachute planes, transport gliders and fighter planes -- also participated.

The U.S. Army estimates that 4,900 soldiers perished on the first day of battle. While Americans made up the majority of the dead, every country that contributed soldiers -- the U.K., Canada, France, Poland and Norway -- suffered losses as well.

In some divisions, particularly at Omaha Beach, where U.S. Army infantrymen were pinned down by machine gun fire from the right and left and mortars from above, more than 90 percent of those who landed in the opening half-hour of battle were killed or wounded.

Plans for the attack, coordinated by Eisenhower, took more than a year. Allied forces were already seizing control of Italy; two days before the D-Day invasion, occupied Rome fell to U.S. and British forces. "

Transcript
French President Jacques Chirac

France will never forget. She will never forget that 6th of June, 1944, the day hope was reborn and rekindled. She will never forget those men who made the ultimate sacrifice to liberate our soil, our native land, our continent from the yoke of Nazi barbarity and its murderous folly. Nor will it ever forget its debt to America, its everlasting friend, and to its allies -- all of them -- thanks to whom Europe, reunited at last, now lives in peace, freedom and democracy.

Sixty years ago, the fate of France, of Europe, and of the world was played out on these Normandy beaches. Here, on Omaha Beach, on bloody Omaha, today as we stand in respectful silence, our emotion is undimmed at the spectacle of these rows upon rows of crosses, where your companions, your brothers at arms, fallen on the field of honor, now rest for all of eternity. Our hearts are indeed heavy as we contemplate their courage, their self-sacrifice, their generosity. And our spirit is indeed uplifted by the absolute ideals of these youngsters who offered up their last breath to save the world.

President George Bush

Twenty summers ago, another American President came here to Normandy to pay tribute to the men of D-Day. He was a courageous man, himself, and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom. And today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan. (Applause.)

Mr. President, thank you for your gracious welcome to the reunion of allies. History reminds us that France was America's first friend in the world. With us today are Americans who first saw this place at a distance, in the half-light of a Tuesday morning long ago. Time and providence have brought them back to see once more the beaches and the cliffs, the crosses and the Stars of David.

Generations to come will know what happened here, but these men heard the guns. Visitors will always pay respects at this cemetery, but these veterans come looking for a name, and remembering faces and voices from a lifetime ago. Today, we honor all the veterans of Normandy and all their comrades who never left. (Applause.)

On this day in 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the American people, not with a speech, but with a prayer. He prayed that God would bless America's sons and lead them straight and true. He continued, "They will need thy blessings. They will be sore tired by night and by day without rest, until victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war."

The generation we honor on this anniversary, all the men and women who labored and bled to save this continent, took a more practical view of the military mission. Americans wanted to fight and win and go home. And our GIs had a saying: The only way home is through Berlin. That road to V-E Day was hard and long, and traveled by weary and valiant men. And history will always record where that road began. It began here, with the first footprints on the beaches of Normandy.

Twenty years after D-Day, former President Eisenhower returned to this place and walked through these rows. He spoke of his joy of being a grandfather, and then he said, "When I look at all these graves, I think of the parents back in the states whose only son is buried here. Because of their sacrifice, they don't have the pleasure of grandchildren. Because of their sacrifice, my grandchildren are growing up in freedom."

That difficult summit was reached, then passed, in 60 years of living. Now has come a time of reflection, with thoughts of another horizon, and the hope of reunion with the boys you knew. I want each of you to understand, you will be honored ever and always by the country you served and by the nations you freed.

When the invasion was finally over and the guns were silent, this coast, we are told, was lined for miles with the belongings of the thousands who fell. There were life belts and canteens and socks and K-rations and helmets and diaries and snapshots. And there were Bibles, many Bibles, mixed with the wreckage of war. Our boys had carried in their pockets the book that brought into the world this message: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

America honors all the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes, and America would do it again for our friends. May God bless you. (Applause.)

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