- What happens during those ellipses is SBVFT members talking about Kerry's accusations in these terms: "Just devastating." "It hurt me." "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnamese prison camps took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us." "Betrayed us." "Dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out."
Note well: These bait-and-switch artists don't dare say that Kerry's statements were false. The anti-Kerry crusaders issue classic non-denial denials. The subtext of their outrage against Kerry is simple: They are still averse to facing the awfulness of the Vietnam War. What they are really saying with their slanders is that the truth hurts.
Americans old enough to have lived through the Vietnam War, even those who were lucky enough not to have to fight in it, still carry the wounds of that period. The war was violently supported and violently opposed, and even more than 35 years later feelings on both sides run hot. But the feelings of veterans who still support that war remain radioactive.
The first round of SBVFT allegations, an attempt to destroy John Kerry's credibility as a war hero, were just a prelude to their current, much more deeply felt accusations. The fury expressed by supporters of the war back in 1971 lives on, and is finding its expression in an attempt to kill the original bearer of a message they still cannot bear to hear.
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