Great InterviewWith
Mary Jane McManus, the wife of former Vietnam POW Kevin McManus. Mrs McManus was featured prominently in the anti-Kerry film, Stolen Honor, and appeared in one of the later Swift Boat Vets ads.
Does anyone honestly believe that American soldiers committed 200,000 "murders a year" in Vietnam? Or that official policy ("at every level of command") allowed any GI to "rape, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turn up the power, cut off limbs, blow up bodies, randomly shoot at civilians, raze villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghenghis Khan"? John Kerry got away with that statement (his verbs were in the past tense), was elected to Congress & the Senate, and ran for President. No one questioned his free speech rights.
Nor do we. But we do question the accuracy of his and others' statements.
We believe our members earned the right to contest that testimony by taking bullets and taking torture. Unfortunately they weren't here to combat Kerry's testimony; most of them were in cement cells they wouldn't leave for another nearly two years.
Next, we can cover the issue of facts as distinguished from opinion or falsehoods:
The January 1971 "Winter Soldier" investigation in Detroit, financed by Jane Fonda brought some 120 Vietnam Veterans against the War, including a then-Lt. (jg) Kerry, to report (and film) recollections of the atrocities and war crimes they had themselves witnessed or committed. Part of that film was shown in Stolen Honor. (And the whole film, "Winter Soldier," released in August of this year, is now making the rounds at art theatres throughout the country, accompanied frequently by some of its stars who moderate a discussion afterwards.) Not one "testimony" has yet been proved; not one "testimony" was under oath. Several testimonies, as well as several "veterans," however, have been proven false. Their leader, a man claiming to be an Air Force Captain and pilot in Vietnam, turned out to be (as documented on Meet the Press in 1971) not a pilot, not a captain, not an officer, never in Vietnam. And he wasn't alone in such deception.(Minor correction: Kerry was never elected to Congress; he lost in a primary caucus in 1970 and was defeated in the general election in 1972).
Mrs McManus and the wife of another POW were the shining stars of Stolen Honor. She's an absolute treasure and has some interesting and terrific observations. Highly recommended.
