Oh, snap!! WWII vets just SLAMMED the RW swiftboaters against Obama's great uncle!!!

[beachmom]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/29/12757/9330/971/524828

You know it's silly season when Republican wingnuts start questioning the service of veterans, and start arguing that some Nazi concentration camps weren't all that bad (since the deaths were merely in the tens of thousands).

And now it's become even funnier. This idiot right winger Steve Gilbert, hot on the trail of the "truth" regarding Obama's great uncle's service liberating Buchenwald, wrote to WWII vet Raymond Kitchell and his son Mark Kitchell, who together run a site dedicated to the 89th Infantry.

What has ensued is a total pwning and smack-down the likes of which only a WWII vet can deliver.

Here was Gilbert's letter:

—– Original Message —–
From: Steve Gilbert
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:14 AM
Subject: Any Record Of Charles W Payne?

Mr. Kitchell,

As you may have heard by now, Barack Obama has claimed that his great uncle Charlie Payne was a member of the 89th Div that liberated Buchenwald.

According to records his full name is either Charles W Payne or Charles T Payne (most likely the former), and he was born in 1924 — and he is still alive today.

He most likely was from Kansas at the time of enlistment.

Do you have any record of this gentleman?

Thank you,

Steve Gilbert
sweetness-light.com

PS - If you go to my website, you will see that I was probably the first to note the error in Mr. Obama’s first claims about his “uncle.”

The response by WWII vet Raymond Kitchell:

Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.

Good day

Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div

BOOM!!! Man, don't piss off WWII vets, I guess. But this right winger idiot wouldn't shut up, and gets slammed again:

To: Steve Gilbert
Subject: Re: Any Record Of Charles W Payne?

I don’t claim to represent anyone. You are the one who came to my son and I asking for information.

Please spend ample time chasing down the lies fed to you by chickenhawks Bush & Co. Like 90% of this administration, they don’t have the foggiest idea what we went through or what we saw at Ohrdruf.

The Wingers still give them trouble, and say they have the politics of "Cindy Sheehan". Then the full smackdown from Kitchell:

Concerning the service of Mr. Charles Payne: C.T. Payne was a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division. He served in the 355th Infantry Regiment, Company K. The 355th Infantry Regiment was the unit to liberate Ohrdruf. Mr. Payne was there.

For those who seek to minimize the horrors of Ohrdruf since it was a 'work' camp and not a 'death' camp, we have but one word: shame. Ironically, this argument has been made to us time and time again by various Holocaust-deniers and other pro-Nazi groups. We will let the testimony of survivors and veterans speak for themselves.

"It has been recorded that in Ordruf itself the last days were a slaughterhouse. We were shot at, beaten and molested. At every turn went on the destruction of the remaining inmates. Indiscriminant criminal behavior (like the murderers of Oklahoma City some days ago). Some days before the first Americans appeared at the gates of Ordruf, the last retreating Nazi guards managed to execute with hand pistols, literally emptying their last bullets on whomever they encountered leaving them bleeding to death as testified by an American of the 37th Tank Battalion Medical section, 10 a.m. April 4, 1945.

Today I'm privileged thanks to G-d and you gallant fighting men. I'm here to reminisce, and reflect, and experience instant recollections of those moments. Those horrible scenes and that special instance when an Allied soldier outstretched his arm to help me up became my re-entrance, my being re-invited into humanity and restoring my inalienable right to a dignified existence as a human being and as a Jew. Something, which was denied me from September 1939 to the day of liberation in 1945. I had no right to live and survived, out of 80 members of my family, the infernal ordeal of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ordruf, and its satellite camp Crawinkle and finally Theresinstadt Ghetto-Concentration Camp."

Rabbi Murray Kohn

You gotta love the Greatest Generation. They don't put up with NOTHING.

[grassfed]

1. rec'd - thx for this

[Zodiak]

2. Wow...these assholes don't know when to quit digging

Chickenhawk bastards accusing WWII vets of having "Cindy Sheehan's" politics? That'll win you friends.

[beachmom]

6. This is the sort of thing that the wingers are saying:

May 29th, 2008 at 10:35 am
"SG: 1) nothing in Hitler’s Europe was "just a work camp"."

I am a student of World War II, which is why I noticed the Obama gaffe back about having an uncle who liberated Auschwitz when everyone else was chortling over his "seeing dead people."

I did not mean to diminish the suffering endured by those at camp Ohrdruf. Far from it. But there was a tremendous difference between the treatment of prisoners in work camps versus those in death camps.

The bodies found at Ohrdruf, which the survivors said numbered around 3,000, mostly died from a combination of disease, overwork and starvation. Though of course the Germans executed a number of prisoners for various reasons.

The prisoners at Auschwitz were there to be killed. And the final death toll numbered anywhere from 1.5 to 5 million.

My point is really that it is quite a difference in scale and purpose. And for Mr. Obama to treat them as interchangeable is a bit of a scandal in itself.

I mean, holy crow -- in order to knock Obama they are diminishing what happened in those camps (many of the people in Buchenwald had been death marched from Auschwitz), belittling the survivors, and putting down our own soldiers who liberated the camps which were not named Auschwitz.

[Windy]

15. Lets take up a collection and send this asshole to Dachau

I just returned from Germany 2 weeks ago. We visited Dachau, a "work" camp...

working people to death, starving them, making them stand in a field for "roll call" for hours and hours and being picked off by guards... Shooting them in the neck, experimenting on them.. purposely giving them malaria, purposely performing "underwater" and "high altitude" tests on them.. putting a thousand into a barracks made for 200...

incinerating many many bodies of the dead in creamatoriums...stacking the bodies up outside the crematorium until they could be taken through the "assembly line". Dumping bodies in mass graves..

need I go on?

what the hell is wrong with these people!! This is precisely why the holocaust could happen again...

[beachmom]

18. The thing is they KNOW this. If politics weren't involved they wouldn't

be spinning like they are. Their EXTREME PARTISANSHIP is a cautionary tale to us all. One needs to keep their intellectual honesty; otherwise we are all lost.

[TahitiNut]

47. The "veil of ignorance" is supposed to relate to one's self-interest, not the facts.

Sadly, reich-wingers and zealous partisans PERVERT Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance" and DENY facts when they don't serve their zeal and appetites. It's a gross perversion of reason and is devoid of integrity.

[ann_american2004]

114. WORD

beachmom, you are wise.

[grannylib]

85. I was there in '73, and I'll never forget it. If that was a "work" camp

anyone would prefer permanent unemployment. It was a hell hole of torture, starvation, and mass murder.

[kestrel91316]

115. Wasn't Dachau that Aryan paradise where Anne Frank got such

kind treatment?

[roguevalley]

19. They are a great generation and those vets are dying at a rate of

3000 A DAY. God bless them and their fearless service. God bless this man and his site.

[ginnyinWI]

53. my mother-in-law's husband died two weeks ago tomorrow.

He was in the Navy serving in the Pacific during WWII. Was one of the sailors who landed the Marines at Iwo Jima. Passed away at the age of 85, one month away from his 86th birthday.

He never wanted to talk much about the war. Worked as a mechanical engineer his whole career. Married to his first wife for 38 years until she died of cancer, then was married to my mother-in-law for 22 years. Loved to watch sports on TV, and spend summers up at their lake place, staying active by cutting dead trees for firewood and fixing holes in the roof. A good man.

[AnnieBW]

76. I know one that died last month

Was an aircraft mechanic in the Pacific, but only because you had to have a college education to be a pilot at that time. He also taught a lot of those college boys how to fly. Joe was 84 years old, a perpetual student, taught many people in Maryland to fly, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of all things aircraft-related. He was killed by a drunk driver who crossed the center line doing 80 MPH and hit this gentleman head-on.

I miss you, Joe Susi.

[Lasher]

96. We have two WWII vets left in my neighborhood

And I just found out today one of them has multiple malignant brain tumors. :cry:

My father served aboard a diesel sub in the Pacific during WWII. He died of cancer in November 2006.

[Kaylee]

26. ......

:wtf:

What the hell is wrong with these people? If you starved to death your suffering has no merit? I mean what the hell?

[crickets]

50. Good grief, because they think starving to death is somehow not as meaningful?

What the effing hell is wrong with them? That is just warped, sick thinking. "difference in scale and purpose"? Death is death, you morons.

[POAS]

58. Death by starvatoin only meaningful

if your a brain dead and named Schiavo and they can score political points!

[beac]

55. "the Germans executed a number of prisoners for various reasons"

Probably all justified in that Repuke's view.

My husband is a history professor and I know he'd give this tool an "F" for "F-ed up beyond all belief world view."

[rockymountaindem]

64. WHAT THE FUCK???

That is beyond the pale. I hope whoever wrote that gets schooled real quick.

[Frisbee]

65. I may catch hell for saying this, but WTF....

I sincerely believe that left to their own devices, many people of the * administration and many of the most extreme evangelicals (Hagee, Parsley and others of their ilk) would eventually work their way to a similar outcome. The worst of the fundamentalist are capable of equally horrible things. Funny thing, I'm pretty sure Rev Wright would never act in such a way.

[noiretextatique]

68. you won't catch hell

if the rw could enslave us all, they absolutely would. and they are trying to do just that.

[psychmommy]

84. that's why there are so many jails.-off topic

the 3 strikes rules, mandatory minimums-that is to fill our prisons for slave labor. anytime they privatize prison there must be money to be made. companies contract business to prisons. before the call centers were exported to india-that used to be prisoners who took your credit card numbers.

[Alameda]

89. Actually prison labor is cheaper.

[psychmommy]

90. america was outraged when they found out

prisoners were taking their credit card numbers. hence outsourcing to india, so strangers there can use our credit card numbers unscrupulously.

[JDPriestly]

70. Strange thing is that no one mentions or seems to realize

that Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians, not by the Americans.

In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its satellite camps. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march to the city of Godzilla in the western part of Upper Silesia. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. More than 15,000 died during the death marches from Auschwitz. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered.

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/auschwitz/

So, no Americans were present at the liberation of Auschwitz. Americans liberated the camps in the western portions of what the Germans then called the Reich.

Americans need to study the history of WWII before they talk about it.

[msallied]

79. That is not really the point of the discussion, but thanks for the history lesson.

:eyes:

[beachmom]

80. But look at the time difference. The Russians liberated Auschwitz in Jan. '45,

and the Americans entered the first concentration camp in Germany in April '45. There were Auschwitz survivors in those camps in April in Germany, because they had been death marched there. As shown in your link, only the sick and old and dying were left at Auschwitz while everyone else was forced on the long hellish death march to Germany, before the Soviets arrived. So, the thinking of the wingers is nuts on many different levels -- the industrialized genoicide that had taken place in Auschwitz was already done with by the time the Soviets came there. The last time the gas chamber was used was October 1944. My point in bringing this all up is that I don't see a big difference between liberating Buchenwald and Auschwitz, since neither was a death camp at the time of liberation. The only way the Allies could have stopped the killing was to bloody hell bomb Auschwitz, which for whatever reason, the U.S. chose not to do.

[JDPriestly]

110. Another history lesson:

The allies left the Jewish prisoners in the NAZI camps for around a year after the camps were "liberated." The prisoners could not be released into the German countryside. That would have been too dangerous. The many, many prisoners rotting in the camps with no safe place to go after the war was a major consideration in allowing Jews to go to Israel and eventually in the establishment of the Israeli state.

People who criticize Israel conveniently forget that many of those who survived the prison camps were children. I realize this is off topic, but it irks me to see so many people opining about the prison camps without the slightest basic knowledge about what really happened. This is an opportunity for people to learn the truth about a misunderstood part of history. The prison camps were much worse than people can imagine. And nursing those who had been placed in them back (and who survived after the liberation) to health was a much greater challenge than anyone can imagine today.

[frogcycle]

104. "no one mentions or seems to realize"

except for the jillion or so who jumped on it five minutes after the misstatement

[Maraya1969]

78. What that person said is reprehensible. It's disgusting. I can't believe

I just read it.


"My point is really that it is quite a difference in scale and purpose. And for Mr. Obama to treat them as interchangeable is a bit of a scandal in itself."

[grannylib]

86. Every time I think these scum can't sink any lower, we get some

shit like this.
I've done the same thing numerous times, telling family stories to my grandchildren; I know I'm misremembering details, or telling the story I THINK I was told, about this bit or that of family lore...the stories are true in their essence, but I'm sure I've botched the details many times.
This is a NON ISSUE. But the Reich Wing Nuts are desperate.

[AlbertCat]

106. Ummmmmmmm.....

The bodies found at Ohrdruf, which the survivors said numbered around 3,000, mostly died from a combination of disease, overwork and starvation. Though of course the Germans executed a number of prisoners for various reasons.

The prisoners at Auschwitz were there to be killed. And the final death toll numbered anywhere from 1.5 to 5 million.


So by this logic, being deliberately worked to death, without food or medical attention is not as bad as deliberately being marched to the gas chamber.

Oh yeah.... that makes sense! I guess because of the time it takes to starve to death in a work camp, the numbers are ONLY 3,000. Huh.

This "every opinion is equal" game GOPers play is old and tired. And hopefully the entire population (save that strange 20%) will be sick of insane BS by the time the election comes.

[wurzel]

112. It may be a matter of where the survivors went.

In England Belsen and Buchenwald were better known than Dachau and Auschwitz. This may be because the Belsen survivors went to England while the ones from Auschwitz came here to America. And had nothing to do with the relative horrors of any particular camp.

[ann_american2004]

113. WHAT???!!!???

Good God they're idiots.

edit: reply is to #6

[George II]

108. Correct. And THEY are the ones that say WE (Democrats) "hate America"!!!!

God Bless the 89th Infantry and the truth!

[YOY]

3. Bam!

Love how the swiftboaters act like their all peacey lovey dovey with this shit.

[appal_jack]

4. k&r!!!

This is what America needs to hear to head-off any attempt at Swift-boating Obama's great uncle.

-app

[Faygo Kid]

5. I am so sick of these chickenhawks. Again and again they do this.

I think this is why McClellan spoke out - he just couldn't live with the disregard for human life that characterizes the Bush Administration, its supporters and their right-wing Hannity/Limbaugh cronies.

[Cha]

27. Hey, that's the only good likeness I've ever seen of

limpbaughs.

[politicasista]

7. K&R

:kick:

[Cheap_Trick]

8. I saw a Hillary "supporter" perpetuating the meme

that Ohrdruf was "just a work camp", or in his exact words "administrative satellite sub camp of that camp". Boy does that sound like it came straight out of the right wing talking point memo, which all good hillbots have a subscription to these days.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x33261

What a pathetic, sick motherfucker.

[beachmom]

10. I don't think most Hillary supporters feel that way. I put that person in the category

of "Hillary zealot", who are so far gone, it is pointless in even arguing with them.

[Cheap_Trick]

14. I certainly hope not

that's why I used quotation fingers around the word supporter

[beezlebum]

59. zealots vs freepers

i'm sure there are some hillary zealots perpetuating such nonsense, but i put most of them in the operation chaos category.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. There were four or five of them.

They still haven't been banned yet.

You know, I know the mods are under instructions to have a hands off approach for GD:P, but when DUers butt heads with the Holocaust Museum, it's probably time to bring in the ban hammer.

[madrchsod]

56. i think one "left" today.....or maybe it was just a time out

[FVZA_Colonel]

95. The only Clinton "supporters" who would even discuss that post at Hillaryis44.

They're not even supporters, a bunch of god-damn cultists.

[Inuca]

9. Wonderful

the whole episode is beyond pathetic

[yellerpup]

12. i LOVE this...

Please spend ample time chasing down the lies fed to you by chickenhawks Bush & Co. Like 90% of this administration, they don’t have the foggiest idea what we went through or what we saw at Ohrdruf. K&R! :kick:

[panAmerican]

44. I had a heavy lunch. That line woke me right up!

[yellerpup]

49. Glad you're awake.

Here's something new that we need to stop...http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x362521 I'm getting ready to call my reps on this right away. Not trying to hijack the thread, but this is urgent. Wall St. won't finance it, so Joe Lieberman is going to make us do it. :hi:

[reflection]

13. Now THAT'S "truth to power". n/t

[rateyes]

16. booyah!

[Swamp Rat]

17. k&r

!

[Barack_America]

20. .

:patriot:

What more is there to say? My dear grandfather served in WWII, in the Pacific. To think of anyone trying to diminish the sacrifices he made in serving this country. The stories he can bear to tell me are horrific. I can only imagine the unspeakable horrors he experienced.

God bless these men and women.

[pipi_k]

73. That goes for my dad, too

He served in France and Belgium during WWII.

He told me some stories, but not all, I'm sure. In any event, I'm sure that the horrible things he saw/lived through went a long way toward making him the anxious and depressed man he was for the remainder of his life.

Some time ago after that whole flap over Bush and the TANG thing (where we all just know he went AWOL from a creampuff assignment when hundreds of thousands of his peers went to Vietnam) I got very angry. Extremely angry.

See, because my dad had just died, at the age of 77. After serving four damned years in one of the worst places in the war...I think I remember him saying he was in, or near, the Battle of the Bulge, but anyway...he had just died, and you know what he got at his funeral? A taped bugle rendition of "Taps". And a taped 21 gun salute.

I understand the problem the military was, and is, having with finding enough buglers and riflemen to attend all the Vet funerals, but my main issue was that my dad gave four years of his life...was physically and emotionally wounded in war...and all he got was a cheap little military funeral and burial in a Veteran's Cemetery.

That bastard Bush...when he goes, he's going to probably get the whole goddamned shebang even though his "service" was nothing but a pathetic JOKE.

I wrote this on a RW forum board and was immediately attacked by at least one Bushie who snottily accused me of being "bitter" and didn't even have the common human decency to offer condolences.

Well, that was in 2002. I'm over it now, but looking at Bush and thinking of all the men and women who died, both in Vietnam and in Iraq, it's all I can do not to vomit. January 20, 2009 can't come soon enough for me. Hopefully the little puke will fade into the dark recesses of the crack in History's ass never to be heard from in public again.


PS...and I just want to repeat what you said....

God bless those men and women, whatever war it was.

[Robyn66]

21. This just proves WHY the Greatest Generation is so great!!!

You still shouldn't mess with a WWII vet!! They won't take the crap! They make me proud to be an American!

[beachmom]

22. More info about Obama's great uncle here:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/5/29/12757/9330/352#c352

Charles IS the uncle (the term "uncle" has in fact been used even for great-uncles in that family) who served in the Army in the 89th Infantry during WW II and suffered severe enough PTSD that, after coming back from the war, he isolated himself at home for some time.

Charles recovered, attended college and to this day is an active, mentally vital, 83 year-old resident of Chicago.

This information was obtained tonight from a member of the Payne family and is being posted to correct the mis-information that is swirling around the internet.

CORRECT info:

1. Charles' middle initial is "T", not "W";

2. he did have what is now termed PTSD; and

3. he was so traumatized by what he encountered during the war, that he in fact did isolate himself at home for a lengthy period of time.

Charles is the second of the four Payne siblings:

1. Madelyn Lee

2. Charles Thomas

3. Margaret Arlene

4. Jon Virgil, (born 1937, which is why there is no listing for him in the 1930 census. This census is the only source cited for "Payne sibling info" by all of the genealogical sites used by the "spinmeisters.")

Since all of these siblings are currently living, any further vital information about them is considered personal and private.

J Straight....

Source(s):

1. Phone conversation with Payne Family Members on

the evening of May 28, 2008.

Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham is Senator Obama's grandmother, known to Barack and his sister Maya as "Toot," and she too is still living.

As various people have noted, the Holocaust Museum has an extensive on-line exhibit about the Ohrdruf camp and its liberation by US troops. I'd also point everyone to a find book by Robert Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps (1987), which also has a lot about Ohrdruf and the impression it made on Generals Eisenhower and Patton. One can only imagine how it affected a young soldier from Kansas, now an old soldier in Chicago.

Guys, this guy has been completely swiftboated. I feel awful that this had to happen, and I'm sure Obama does, too.

[Cha]

30. I think the Swiftboat Obamaranged

right back in their weasely chickenshit heads.

[beachmom]

31. True, but I still wonder if this caused some unpleasantness

for Obama's great uncle, re-remembering everything. This attack was wrong in so many ways.

[Cha]

32. Yes, you're right , of course..but that's de rigeur

for the swiftboat mentality but this time is different.. and the Greatest Generation will be a part of our Victorious Campaign For Change.

[K Gardner]

23. Recommended reading for the admins and mods of DU who allowed horrible posts from

CLINTON SUPPORTERS to stay up, post after post after post.. about Obama's uncle and the Camps.

Shame on everyone who participated in this and did not have the guts to stand up and say ENOUGH.

[Cha]

24. As we shouldn't either! Thanks beachmom.

"You gotta love the Greatest Generation. They don't put up with NOTHING."

[Hope08]

25. Pictures of Ohrdruf

Warning: photos are graphic.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=fr&ModuleId=7&MediaId=2797

Here is more history about the camp, along with more graphic photographs:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/EasternGermany/Ohrdruf/OhrdrufNord.html

[beachmom]

28. Thanks. Of course, the wingers who want to diminish Buchenwald

aren't going to look at the pictures, as it will undermine their arguments. Another good diary on the topic posted yesterday worth reading:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/28/131734/481

"It was ONLY Buchenwald ..."

Snarky but on the money.

[Forkboy]

29. Kick for the piece of shit DUers trying the same thing.

Two unadulterated shitbags especially, who know full well who they are.

[beachmom]

33. Yeah, it was disheartening to find people on this board pushing this RW smear. nt

[Forkboy]

42. Just the usual responsible irresponsibles.

Who should be shitcanned from DU on principle. I defend the mods and admins a lot, but they missed the boat on this one big time.

[DerekJ]

34. A kick for the same reason.

[blm]

52. Yep - TeamClinton loyalists seem to join RW smears against the few honest Dems

who come forward with the truth over the last 8 years.

[Forkboy]

54. I doubt the ones who took part in this smear are even Dems, let alone Hillary supporters.

Even Hillary supporters spoke out on that one.

[blm]

67. Feh - McAuliffe and Carville are Hillary supporters and they sabotaged 2002 and 2004 for Democrats

so TeamClinton earned my cynicism in regard to the level they will sink to in their efforts to smear other Democrats.

I believe the botched joke where Hillary sided with Bush is another example of their willingness to stoop THAT low.

[Forkboy]

71. I was only speaking of a couple people here on DU.

That was Team Clinton I was referring too. Sorry for the confusion.

[blm]

72. Not confused - but I've had it up to here with those many Clinton supporters who

joined the smears against Kerry just so they can prove that Hillary2008 was the salvation of the Dem party. It was always a load of horseshit to me. Ever see Clintons actually OPPOSE BushInc to benefit the 'Dem party' since 1993?

[Chulanowa]

35. ...Did someone actually TRY the "just a work camp" line?

I wish I could say "That's unbelievable!" - But I can't. Miserable carbuncles upon the collective anus of humanity is what these wingers are.

[beachmom]

38. Yes, they are. See my post here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6172416&mesg_id=6172480

[martymar64]

117. Ooh, don't mention carbuncles!

I just had a big one cut out of my thigh today. and man, does it hurt!

[SoonerPride]

36. Keyboard warrior vs. real warrior. It ain't pretty.

[ray of light]

37. Thanks for bringing this forward Beachmom.

[NotThisTime]

39. This Victim's story brings tears to my eyes.... How anyone could question what these men did is

beyond me.... saying that our men were hero's is an understatement.

[beachmom]

41. Yes, and it really opens up the discussion again on "swiftboating vets".

I think that there were several ways people blamed Kerry in '04. You know the drill: "he didn't fight back", "he shouldn't have run on his Vietnam record", "he shouldn't have said 'reporting for duty' in his convention speech", "it was because he protested the war", and finally: "it was because this was the Vietnam War". Well, we are finding out now, that none of that was true. The only thing John Kerry did wrong was that he was a Democrat running for president. Or now, if you are simply related to a Democrat running for president.

[suffragette]

40. K & R

That's telling them.

[ProSense]

43. Excellent. n/t

[fishwax]

45. k/r

:kick:

[Douglas Carpenter]

46. that surely puts those right-wing creeps in their place!! Kicked and Recommended!!!

[glitch]

51. Unfortunately they are too stupid to realize it.

I wish they'd all crawl back under their rocks.

[dcindian]

48. Now it is time to turn the tide.

Get this out to the media. Time to tie the swiftboaters and the Chicken Hawk republicans with holocaust deniers.

[madrchsod]

57. besides those guys actually being there

they ain`t going to take any shit from some who never fought in the war...hell there`s guys who still hate the japanese and won`t buy their products...

[tblue37]

60. My dad was like that. He was a 19-year-old airman at Pearl Harbor, and

he never forgave the Japanese. I never brought any of my Japaense friends homw--or even mentioend them in his presence. He could not be budged from his hatred and rage about the Japanese, no matter how much time had passed.

[MessiahRp]

63. John McCain is like that with the Vietnamese

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/hongop.shtml

On his campaign bus recently, Sen. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."

Rp

[MasonJar]

61. And just how does the fact that Obama's uncle liberated a work camp

instead of a death camp in any way diminish the service he gave to the country and to the world? And what is the point of the wingnut differentiating about the liberation. These idiots lose me. Thank God!

[jberryhill]

62. My Father Was At Ohrdruff With The 89th Division

My first knowledge of the Holocaust was when I was in about first grade, and I found my father's photo album from the war in a cabinet that I wasn't supposed to get into.

It started with pictures of him in his ROTC uniform, moved on to photographs of France, hanging out with friends on leave, and so on.

And then there were pictures of what they found at Ohrdruff. Small sepia-toned black and white photos on black pages in a photo album of things so unspeakable I could not imagine what they were, but they gave me nightmares for weeks and I kept out of cabinets that I should not go into.

[Tatiana]

66. Bless you and your dad.

:hug:

I don't have any words for those who actually lived through, fought, and survived such horrors. I can only thank them for their service.

:patriot:

[jberryhill]

91. He never once talked about it

...which is why I had no context for the photographs until reading an independent account of the history of the 89th Division. But it put in context a number of views he had.

After the war-to-end-all-wars, he signed up for reserve duty in exchange for a bump up from Lt.II to Captain.

When Korea started, he was recalled and put in command of an African American unit at Fort Benning - this was just prior to integration of the army.

Two things he wanted to make sure I never supported - war and racism.

[Kukesa]

83. Thank you for the post and the photo. n/t

[frickaline]

69. further info

This blogger discusses the entire controversy and is an interesting read. This was his conclusion:

I contacted the webmaster of the 89th Infantry Division site to see if I could get more information. He simply said that the site stands by its previous statement that Obama’s great uncle, Charles Thomas Payne, served in Company K of the 355rd Regiment of the 89th Infantry Division.

The sad thing is that people are taking this seriously as some sort of horrible sin committed by Obama. If you count this somehow as evidence that Barack Obama will make a bad president or that he is some sort of gaffe machine, I can only conclude that you’ve been comatose for the last decade.

http://hanlonsrazor.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/obamas-great-uncle-and-the-shameless-nay-sayers/

Not to mention a post from the devil himself admitting fault in this:

# cigarskunk
May 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

OK, here’s the verification he provided - I recomended that he scan and post the page from the book on his website so folks will stop pestering him -

From: [e-mail]
To: cigarskunk
Subject: Re: Searching for Charles W Payne
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 20:25:32 +0200

I confirmed it from actual 89th Division documents. The list is in the book linked below. As you know, there is no centralized database on WWII units. Most of the records were lost in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis in 1973. Everything I am reporting is in this book, which is a compliation of offical (wartime) 89th documents.

Sorry but if you are going to persue this to verify you are going to have to actual research with original source documents. Thats what I have done.

http://cgi.ebay.com/WWII-UNIT-.....18Q2el1247

So now all we’ve got to do is find the book and confirm he’s telling the truth.

[NotThisTime]

99. If they are pestering the webmaster of the 89th web page imagine what they are going to do to the

Uncle when they find him... The man is still alive...

[frickaline]

101. I shudder to think ... they have no shame

The poor guy is in his 80s and probably still suffers from mental illnesses related to this.

[wryter2000]

74. K and effing R

:wow:

[AnnieBW]

75. Now THAT

is what I call "PWNED"!

:patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

[Honeycombe8]

77. Wow. Strong stuff. Good post. nt

[Hart2008]

81. Liberation of Buchenwald by Harry J. Herder, Jr., an eyewitness to the event

I too have a relative who was there, but he doesn't want to talk about it...

Over fifty years ago, I went through a set of experiences that I have never been able to shake from my mind. They subside in my mind, and, then, in the spring always, some small trigger will set them off and I will be immersed in these experiences once more. The degree of immersion varies from year to year, but there is no gradual diminution with time. I note, but do not understand, that the events occurred in the spring, and the re-immersion seems to be always in the spring. This year I set those memories on paper, all of them, or at least all of them I recall. I hope for the catharsis. I do not expect a complete purging -- that would be expecting too much -- but if I can get these memories to crawl deeper into my mind, to reappear less vividly, and less frequently, it will be a help.

We are as we are, we saw what we saw, and we remember as we remember. So be it. These are my memories. It is enough for me that I feel what I do feel, and I am now attempting to thin those feelings out. And I use you, the reader. I must purge these feelings on someone, and if I have readers, it is they I am using. I apologize to you, and I ask for your understanding.

This all happened to a group of us on April 11, 1945. The things we found then were grotesque enough without knowing some of the other things we did learn later. As a P.F.C. in the U. S. Army, there was no way that I could learn the origin of the orders that started it all. In fact when we started there was no way for those of us at the bottom of the ladder to have any idea at all where we were going or what we were up to. What I do remember is that we eventually drove up some gentle valley where there were trees on either side of us, when we made a sharp left turn, so sharp that those of us on the tops of the vehicles were grabbing things to keep from falling off. By the time we had regained our balance, there it was: a great high barbed wire fence at least ten feet high. Between us and the fence and running parallel to the fence was a dirt road, with high guard towers every fifty yards or so. Beyond the fence were two more layers of barbed wire fence not quite as tall. There seemed to be about five yards between those fences. The barbed wire in those fences was laced in a fine mesh, so finely meshed no one was going to get through it. Our tanks slowed down, but they did not stop; they blew straight at and through the barbed wire. Those of us riding the top scurried quickly to get behind the turret, while those vehicles just continued to charge. When we broke through the first of those fences we got a clue, the first clue as to what we had come upon, but we had no real comprehension at all of what was to assault our senses for the next hours, the next days.

http://remember.org/witness/herder.html

[beachmom]

92. Thanks for posting that link. I read his entire account, and there are no words ....

[Kber]

82. The story told in Schindler's list took place mainly at a work camp

So I guess it wasn't really that bad, right

[jeff30997]

87. K&R!!!

6 Years! Rabbi Murray Kohn spent 6 years in hell.OMG! I have tears in my eyes!And those scumbag Holocaust denying Repukes make me sick!:cry:

[madmom]

88. When they say "work camp", you have to think of what their definition of "work" is!

[MannyGoldstein]

98. To Work People To Death

The goal was to maximize the monetary value of work done as they starved to death.

[madmom]

102. I know that, I'm talking about the repugs definition of "work" , for them work is getting out of bed

[Rosa Luxemburg]

93. the RW Swiftboaters have lost their moorings in 2008

will gladly see them being pushed out to sea

[Blue State Bandit]

94. Thanks ain't enough.

[mwb970]

97. This is as sick as everything else from the right.

They are really disgusting, aren't they? I would not have believed that America could harbor such virulent sickness. When, when, when will these awful jerks be Raptured?? Please Jeezaus!!

[Mad_Dem_X]

100. A most excellent smackdown!

God bless him! :patriot:

[SteveM]

103. A reason "swift-boating" has worked...

The vast majority of conservatives (and liberals) have never served in the military. For better or worse, wars after Vietnam and before Iraq have been short and involved comparatively few troops. The definition of "patriotism," therefore, no longer features veteran status at its center; in fact, someone's combat experience (being secondary) is no longer beyond question and even subject to attack, like any other part of a person's character. The GOP knows this, and feels no qualms about attacking a vet (Payne, Kerry, McGovern, etc.). Non-veteran GOP "patriots" appealing to a non-veteran GOP "patriot" constituency to vote against a "fudging" combat veteran. Despite the stark irony these guys are comfortable with their tissue-thin, bumper strip patriotism. It's all they've got.

[Coexist]

105. .

[DollyM]

107. OMG!

How can anyone discount the service of a WWII vet? My father was shot down over Austria and spent 8 months in a German POW camp before they were liberated. He came out malnourished, had worms, dysentary, skin rashes, not to mention the psychological horrors they endured on a daily basis. My father related the story of seeing a fellow soldier "lose it" and run toward the fence. He was shot and his dead body was hung up on the fence for days as an "example" of what would happen to them if they tried to escape. My father never completely recovered from this experience but he was proud to serve his country and we were proud of him.

[thewiseguy]

109. McCain and his folks will be slammed in the fall by veteran groups.

[BrklynLib at work]

111. K & R...for all those who perished, and for those who survived.

[mythyc]

116. K&R.

I rec'd this yesterday, and here's my :kick: