WINTER SOLDIER: The basis for the new swiftboat liars ad

[Bozita]

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/winter2_20040302.htm

WINTER SOLDIER: John Kerry's turning point


March 2, 2004


BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER




Thirty-three years ago this winter, more than a hundred Vietnam War veterans from around the United States gathered at a Howard Johnson hotel in Detroit's New Center.

In a second-floor ballroom, before an audience of hundreds of long-haired youths and conservatively dressed older people, the vets confessed to atrocities they claimed to have witnessed or committed in Vietnam, where hundreds of people on both sides still were dying each week.

That largely forgotten conference, called the Winter Soldier Investigation, has come under national scrutiny in recent weeks because one person who attended was a Navy veteran named John Kerry, then 27, who is now closing in on the Democratic nomination for president.

The painful stories Kerry heard at Third and West Grand Boulevard had a major impact on his life. For him, Winter Soldier proved to be a key event in his evolution from wounded war hero to antiwar protester.

"Detroit was the great eye-opener for John Kerry," historian Douglas Brinkley, author of the 2004 Kerry war biography, "Tour of Duty," said in a recent interview.

more...

[Bozita]

1. Complete transcripts from Winter Soldier Investigation

A lot of this stuff is beyond mind-numbing.

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_entry.html

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. That is some of the saddest,

most horrific stuff I've ever read. Damn. I saved the link to read more at a later date. Thanks for posting it. So damn sad and depressing.

[ParanoidPat]

3. Funny, www.wintersoldier.com is hosted on the same server as......

......www.freerepublic.net which has the same webmaster as the swift boat liars. Free Republic Network is a group incorporated as a 501(c)(4) non profit organization. Their Board of Directors are all freepers.

See this thread, Does anyone know what the "Free Republic Network" is???

and this one. Handy info graphics on Swift Boat Vets: NYTimes

[Placebo]

4. "Free Republic" is the funniest political Oxymoron...

I've heard in a long time.

[LibraLabSoldier]

5. The subtle flavor of Hell

is what war is. Even the best of intentions go bad in war. I have heard the stories, and seen the pictures. I have a friend I work with right now who still has a piece of schrapnel from an IED imbedded in his back. He had most of his NCO splattered all over him, and he still has nightmares. He switched out of Combat arms to the medical field to get away from it while still serving his country honorably. I am scared that this war is gonna become like Vietnam. Soldiers doing their best to stay alive, a political machine running the war like it is a computer game, and then troops getting insulted and abused when they get back by a less than welcoming public.

I have never been to "combat"...but i have been in some scary, tense situations. I have two family members who have come back from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. My stepbrother who has been to both(he is a Marine, and volunteered for both tours) is showing all of the classic signs of PTSD. We are trying to get him help, but he is too proud and stubborn to accept that he has a problem. The Bush camp is alienating veterans from every war by attacking us all. The VFW i belong to is openly endorsing Kerry....