AP article being honest about Kerry (incredible)

[Mass]

This is a good article about where the Vietnam War Vets in the US senate are about the Iraq War.

The article is very good by itself, IMHO, and honest about Kerry (which is good)
Sehttp://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=334050&Category=23

Iraq debate seen through prism of Vietnam by senators who fought in that war
Saturday, February 3, 2007





WASHINGTON (AP) - Four of the senators who will vote next week on putting more troops in Iraq bear the scars of another war in another time, in a place called Vietnam. Three will vote against sending more troops. One will vote the other way.

John McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, was captured by the Vietnamese, tortured and imprisoned for more than five years. Knowing what it's like to have fought before and lost, he's with President Bush on sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

Chuck Hagel, an infantryman in Vietnam, was seriously wounded by an enemy mine explosion beneath the armored personnel carrier he and his brother were in. He opposes the troop increase.

So does Senate newcomer Jim Webb, an ex-Marine who speaks Vietnamese, who opposed the Iraq war from the outset and campaigned for the Senate wearing the combat boots of a son who recently went off to the war.
...

Webb, 60, a Democrat from Virginia, was wounded while commanding a Marine rifle company during some of Vietnam's bloodiest fighting, in the An Hoa Basin west of Danang. He had shrapnel lodged in his left knee, left arm, back of the head and right kidney. Webb said the experience changed him.

...
John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran as well as a Vietnam war protester, also opposes sending more troops into Iraq.

This part puzzles me. Can somebody remind me what this is about? Is it about VietNam?

the
Webb returned home from Vietnam a decorated _ and still wounded _ hero, and came face-to-face with an anti-war movement he found puzzling at first, then infuriating. He bitterly denounced "the rhetoric of the anti-war Left."

Among those he singled out for criticism by name was then-Rep. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., now Webb's colleague in the Senate and a presidential hopeful.

Here is the piece about Kerry.

Kerry, 63, a Democrat from Massachusetts, won recognition for bravery fighting in Vietnam and for his passion in protesting the war once back home.

In 1969, Navy documents show, Kerry's swift boat was steaming down the Mekong River with four others when an underwater mine exploded under one of them, injuring its crew. Kerry's boat was then hit by an explosion that knocked an Army Green Beret into the water. Kerry turned his boat around and, with his injured right arm, pulled the soldier aboard.

Back in the U.S., he became a protest leader and electrified a congressional hearing on Vietnam with the words, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Kerry invoked those words again, just last month, but this time he was talking about Iraq

[ginnyinWI]

1. someone's doing their job at AP

I wonder whether they've been leaned on by the rightwing before--they have not always been fair to the left.

They even got JK's age right. :)

[ray of light]

2. the part you said puzzled you is..

just poor and sloppy writing by the author. They included extraneous and useless info.

[blm]

3. Sounds like AP is trying to make up a bit for the swifts coverage - too little

too late, eh?

[Inuca]

4. Good & informative article, thanks

I did not know that Hagel was severely wounded, and also learned more details about McCain ordeal, it probably explains much of his mental imbalance, can feel compassion at a human level, but it's also an argument against having him in a position of powerful decision making, the Senate is already bad enough. And Webb has a great way with words, from the short citations in the article. Has anybody read any of his books?