Random Thoughts of Tuesday Night

Our dear friend, John Kerry received some bad news today. Apparently, a group of Vietnam veterans who served with him has a not-so-nice opinion of the fledgling presidential candidate. The veterans, including some of Kerry's former commanders and shipmates, have formed an organization, called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and called on Kerry to authorize release of all his service records, including medical records.

“We feel it is very, very important that the American people get the actual truth about that three or four months Kerry served in Vietnam since he has made it a center piece of his biography”, said John O'Neill, who took charge of Kerry's boat and crew after Kerry left Vietnam. "Second, we resent very deeply the false war crimes charges he made coming back from Vietnam. ... We think that those have cast aspersion on those living and dead.”

O’Neil further stated, "We think he knew he was lying when he made them. We think they are unsupportable. We intend to bring the truth about that to the American people. Third, we believe that based on our experience with him, he is totally unfit to be commander in chief." (read article – here)

Not a very good endorsement, is it?

As unbelievable as it sounds, the Democratic National Committee put out a statement attacking the public relations company used by the group as having Republican Party connections.

That’s right. They don’t defend the candidate. They attack those horrible Republicans!

That tells you more than enough about Kerry’s suitability for being Commander and Chief.

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Also, on the John Kerry trail, comes a commentary in the National Review, by Byron York. Apparently, Senator Kerry’s doctor at the medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay, where Kerry was injured, said:

I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.

John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a band aid.

For this injury, war hero John Kerry, was awarded the Purple Heart.

No wonder he threw it in the water (which he said he did, and didn’t, and did again, and has them hanging up on his wall).

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As an American, I am appalled at what appears to be serious abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called it "totally unacceptable and un-American". But to hear the Arab press talk about it, you would think America is the most criminal country in the World for doing what they did. I heard on the radio today a former POW, who was captured in the first Gulf War, say that if his captors had just treated him the way the Americans treated these prisoners, he would “have been elated”.

Now I’m not trying to excuse it and I know that the U.S. is bound by the Geneva Convention (although the terrorists aren't), but I just can’t get too emotional over it. I agree that those who were responsible for it need to be severely punished. However, what they do to our citizens is far, far worse than what we have done to theirs. The Arab news agencies (as well as many Western outlets) need to stop being so hypocritical and stop trying to portray the Arabs as victims.

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Yasir Arafat has always maintained that there is no evidence that Jewish people have ever had any connection to Jerusalem, where the Temple Mount and Western Wall are located. In fact, in a statement issued December 10, 1997, the Palestine Ministry of Information claimed that archaeological excavations in the Old City have found "Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others, but nothing Jewish." The Ministry also falsely claimed, "there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces/remains in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."

I wonder then, what the “Nobel Peace laureate” meant, when he said, after reviewing Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, that the movie was "historic and impressive?" He also said that he did not feel that the movie was anti-Semitic, nor was it too violent, by adding, “I liked it very much. It was not that violent. I mean, believe me, I've done, I mean, I've seen worst."

Yes, he most certainly has.

And I guess he figured the Jews were just brought in to crucify Jesus and then bussed back to their own countries.

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Just a quick note regarding the movie 10.5 which was on NBC Sunday and Monday…

What a horrible waste of time THAT was. Now I’m not sure they meant to plagiarize every disaster movie ever made, but I was waiting to see Bruce Willis from Armageddon and Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith from Independence Day. I mean, how transparent was that plot?

Besides the obvious characters (the politician who is separated from her family. The doctor who is battling his own feelings of insecurity, the black guy who somehow finds his family among the thousands of people who have been evacuated and the boy/girl team who save the day, and supposedly discover feelings for each other), could the fact that the rushing water stopped short of killing everyone be more pathetic?

Yuck.

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One last thing, for those of you who watched the finale of Nashville Star --- wasn’t that great? I’m telling you, the talent exhibited on that show is far, far superior to anything they’ve done on American Idol.

Well, that’s it for now. Pretty soon, I will be launching a new website at www.shaynezucker.com that will host the commentaries that I have submitted to various magazines, e-zines and newspapers. I know it takes a long time to get published, and maybe I never will, but I gotta try. Maybe my heart is telling me to do it. After all, it was somebody else’s once. Maybe it knows something I haven’t figured out yet. These stories of people who have heart transplants always weird me out, but who knows.

Later.