Re: Did Ken Fortenberry actually say this? Or was this forged? Does he admit to writing this and maintain that today he still means it?

On May 21, 12:54 am, sacha <p.smy...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We need a military, most of them do a good job, its decent and honorable
enough I guess, but there are other folks who deserve more respect, IMO..

O

Well said Octoad!


Of course there are others that do important, critical, dangerous,
even life threatening jobs, for less pay than soldiers. The list is
long. They of course deserve credit and lots of it. They too are
heroic in their eforts and serve their country well and they and their
families and most reasonable people should be proud to share a country
with them.

But how in the hell does that somehow lessen what the "grunts in the
foxholes" do?

They deserve more respect? Ridiculous. They all deserve respect, this
isn't a contest. It's a realization that there's a difference between
those that risk their lives for the good of their country at work
everyday, and those that go to their accounting offices everyday to
eek out a paycheck. Nothing against acountants, just plucked a random
occupation to make a point.




Agreed. Heroes are heroes but there are too many Lt. Calleys, Ollie
Norths, Bill Caseys and Cheney/Rummys and their torturers at all
levels of the US military also. And there is nothing honorable about
them.
And the same can be said of self styled patriots, as Samuel Johnson
said:

"Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not
flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which
are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the
external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities;
as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight."
Johnson: The Patriot

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/mylai.htm

My Lai:
My Lai village had about 700 residents.  They lived in either red-
brick homes or thatch-covered huts.  A  deep drainage ditch marked the
eastern boundary of the village.  Directly south of the residential
area was an open  plaza area used for holding village meetings.  To
the north and west of the village was dense foliage.

By 8 a.m., Calley's platoon had crossed the plaza on the town's
southern edge and entered the village.  They encountered families
cooking rice in front of their homes.  The men began their usual
search-and-destroy task of pulling people from homes, interrogating
them, and searching for VC.  Soon the killing began.  The first victim
was a man stabbed in the back with a bayonet.  Then a middle-aged man
was picked up, thrown down a well, and a grenade lobbed in after him.
A group of fifteen to twenty mostly older women were gathered around a
temple, kneeling and praying.  They were all executed with shots to
the back of their heads.  Eighty or so villagers were taken from their
homes and herded to the plaza area.  As many cried "No VC! No VC!",
Calley told soldier Paul Meadlo, "You know what I want you to do with
them".  When Calley returned ten minutes later and found the
Vietnamese still gathered in the plaza he reportedly said to Meadlo,
"Haven't you got rid of them yet?  I want them dead.  Waste them."
Meadlo and Calley began firing into the group from a distance of ten
to fifteen feet.  The few that survived did so because they were
covered by the bodies of those less fortunate.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0020627....
Irangate
US political scandal in 1987 involving senior members of the Reagan
administration (the name echoes the Nixon administration's Watergate).
Congressional hearings 1986–87 revealed that the US government had
secretly sold weapons to Iran in 1985 and traded them for hostages
held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian militias, and used the profits to
supply right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua with arms. The
attempt to get around the law (Boland amendment) specifically
prohibiting military assistance to the Contras also broke other laws
in the process.

Arms, including Hawk missiles, were sold to Iran via Israel (at a time
when the USA was publicly calling for a worldwide ban on sending arms
to Iran), violating the law prohibiting the sale of US weapons for
resale to a third country listed as a ‘terrorist nation’, as well as
the law requiring sales above $14 million to be reported to Congress.
The negotiator in the field was Lt Col Oliver North, a military aide
to the National Security Council, reporting in the White House to the
national-security adviser (first Robert McFarlane, then John
Poindexter). North and his associates were also channelling donations
to the Contras from individuals and from other countries, including $2
million from Taiwan, $10 million from the sultan of Brunei, and $32
million from Saudi Arabia. The Congressional Joint Investigative
Committee reported in November 1987 that the president bore ‘ultimate
responsibility’ for allowing a ‘cabal of zealots’ to seize control of
the administration's policy, but found no firm evidence that President
Reagan had actually been aware of the Contra diversion. Reagan
persistently claimed to have no recall of events, and some evidence
was withheld on grounds of ‘national security’. The hearings were
criticized for finding that the president was not responsible for the
actions of his subordinates. North was tried and convicted in May 1989
on charges of obstructing Congress and unlawfully destroying
government documents. Poindexter was found guilty on all counts in
1990. Former defence secretary Caspar Weinberger was pardoned in 1992
by President George Bush to prevent further disclosures. In December
1993 the independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh published his final
report. It asserted that Reagan and Bush were fully aware of attempts
to free US hostages in Lebanon in 1985–86 by means of unsanctioned
arms sales to Iran. The total cost of the Irangate enquiries came to
$35 million.

.

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