From The QandO blog:
"Operation RAW" deal
Posted by McQ
Reader Becky comments on the Kerry testimony before the Senate in 1971 by asking:
Okay, guys. Could you PLEASE just read the ENTIRE transcript of Kerry's testimony instead of a few random quotes from someone's article?
Kerry emphatically stated, at the beginning of his testimony, "...I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony...."
He was speaking on behalf of a group of Viet Nam vets he met with in Detroit.
Not an unreasonable request and not an unreasonable assumption, if you only limit your research into Kerry’s anti-war, anti-military activities to his testimony. But there’s more .... much more that makes the case that Kerry was indeed indicting the entire military through his activities in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). His testimony was only the most visible of these activities and certainly not the most damning.
As an example of his other activities, let’s start with “Operation RAW” which began on Labor Day, 1970. Organizing flyers seen here and here were sent out.
Note who is among the organizers and among the speakers. As you can see they planned on “forming an infantry unit of company strength” comprised of “Vietnam vets, active duty GIs and other war veterans” and staging a 4 day march from Morristown, NJ to Valley Forge, PA where they’d have a mass protest. On the surface, it sounds pretty benign, doesn’t it?
But the devil is in the details.
There was a reason they formed an “infantry unit of company strength”. It was so they could portray American infantrymen, every day soldiers, as brutal butchers. Now, the words sound hyperbolic, but they’re not. As Operation RAW moved through each town they enacted their version of a “search and destroy” operation”. As described in one of the flyers, the purpose of this unit was to “dramatize as authentic a picture of a US Army search and destroy mission to the American people as practical."
How did they do this? Well read it straight from the horses’s mouth. As it proclaims in the cite: “This story is taken from material saved by Joe Urgo-VVAW AI. Joe was one of the marchers, a former national officer of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and the first Vietnam vet to travel to Hanoi in support of the revoluntary struggle of the Vietnamese.”
It was Labor Day weekend 1970. At 10:30 a.m. in Doylestown, PA a company of infantry swept into town, seizing and occupying the center of the city, setting up road blocks and taking civilian prisoners. Anyone fleeing was killed, the rest were tortured and then killed for just being there. The younger women were particularly mauled and abused before being killed. At 10:45, once again on alert, the company marched south of town, leaving a trail of bloody bodies and survivors standing in their yards and streets, mute with shock, unbelieving eyes fastened on the departing soldiers. Leaflets lay in the streets like the one below.
Beginning in Morristown, New Jersey, 150 combat veterans marched through the countryside toward Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The veterans, who held 110 purple heart medals between them, had enlisted the help of the aptly named Philadelphia Guerilla Theater Company to go ahead of the march and plant themselves in the villages and towns along the march route. Sweeping through the rural back countries of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania, the vets wore as much of their combat fatigues and battle gear as they had been able to scrape together. Their "infantry company" was realistically armed with toy rifles.
As the column of veterans passed through the communities, they cordoned off the villages, "interrogated," "tortured," and "shot" the actors posing as civilians, and in general tried to recreate the brutal realities of war. The towns and roads were mapped out in advance and the skits were pre-arranged so that as the company surrounded a home or a village--with walkie-talkies screaming and vets running all over the place, blood capsules bursting on library steps or in front of stores--there was a sense of realism in the air as these safe rural hamlets were "invaded." The veterans terrified and shocked some people, challenging many others. Of course, some patriots thought that the vets were "disgracing the uniform of the U.S." to bring their message to civilian Amerikkka. One thing was certain: there was no business as usual for those communities on the day the column of vets marched through.
"Amerikkka". No agenda in that spelling, is there?
The flyers they left laying in the street as they departed said the following:
A US INFANTRY COMPANY JUST CAME THROUGH HERE
If you had been Vietnamese
--We might have burned your house
--We might have shot your dog
--We might have shot you
--We might have raped the women
--We might have turned you over to your government for torture
--We might have taken souvenirs from your property
--We might have shot things up a bit
–We might have done all these things to you and your town
If it doesn’t bother you that American soldiers do these things every day to the Vietnamese simply because they are “gooks”, then picture yourself as one of the silent victims. Help us end the war before they turn your son into a butcher or a corpse.
Signed,
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Becky claims Kerry’s focused on the “leadership” of the military, not the soldiers.
Now, before you get all crazy...keep in mind one very important thing. Kerry NEVER blaimed the vets for the atrocities comitted. He blamed our LEADERSHIP. Read the whole thing. Read it 3 times. I read it 5 times.
Operation RAW certainly didn’t do that, did it? It was talking about American soldiers. In particular infantry soldiers. It was saying “American soldiers do these things every day”. It said we were the butchers. It said we raped and murdered “every day”.
You know, just another day at the office.
Listed on the organizing flyers for Operation RAW is a partial list of the event sponsors, including Jane Fonda and John Kerry. Listed as an information and transportation sponsor in Boston is John Kerry. Listed as speakers are Jane Fonda and John Kerry.
So I’m sorry Becky, I can read it 50 times, which I most likely have in the last 35 years, but it is only a part of what John Kerry has responsibility for ... and its high time that all of it was exposed. In Operation RAW the only purpose of their “theater” was to paint everyday soldiers in Vietnam as stone-cold butchers and rapists. As war criminals. And nothing could have been further from the truth. That’s what the 2.5 million Vietnam Vets are finally saying.
Read this stuff 3 times, 5 times. It doesn’t matter. The conclusion is inescapable. John Kerry and the VVWA purposely and viciously painted a whole generation of soldiers as baby killing rapists through actions such as Operation RAW.
I haven’t forgotten it and I haven’t forgiven it.
Becky concludes with:
I am angry. I am VERY angry. And that you people can sit back and condemn Kerry for speaking out against an unjust war, for bringing to light the atocities of war that our LEADERSHIP condoned in the name of freedom -- in the name of MY country....I have no words for you, either.
Well I’m very angry as well, Becky.
I’m angry that a nation treated its soldiers the way it did 35 years ago. I’m angry that actions of John Kerry led to that dishonorable treatment. But more than that, I’m angry that now that we who were maligned and smeared by Kerry and the VVWA want to speak out about it, people like you want us to shut up.
Well we’re not going to shut up.
We kept quite about it for all those years and we’re damn tired of living with the lies Kerry and others told about us. We’ve as much right to speak as John Kerry. And we’ve got as much right to tell you and others he was full of crap as any other citizen of this country.
Its not just YOUR country. Its OUR country as well. And this is about how OUR country treated us because of the lies people like John Kerry and the VVWA spread.
When Kerry grows the balls to stand up and tell the Vietnam Vets that he was wrong, he lied and he portrayed them falsely and that he’s sorry for doing so, then perhaps, some real healing can begin.
Until then, I agree with John O’Neill ... he’s unfit for command.
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