Smoke on the Water: John Kerry, #10 G.I!

August 06, 2004

John Kerry, #10 G.I!

Another nail in the coffin of the Kerry campaign.

If a Vietnamese ever describes something or someone as being Number Ten!, be assured that it's not a compliment.

And recently it seems, the VietNamese-American population has rated John ("hey, did you know I served in Viet Nam?") Kerry as Numbah Ten! Or worse.

While perusing my blogroll this morning, I was reading this from Doc Russia's superb blog. He mentions having seen a TV report about the American-VietNamese vote beign overwhelmingly in favor of President Bush. And though Doc didn't have a way to link back to a TV story, one of his well-informed readers did.

Many thanks to Doc Russia's reader Kilabe for providing this link.

Cali Today, News Analysis,
Translated by Andrew Lam, Jul 29, 2004

Prior to the Democratic national convention in Boston, journalists in both mainstream and ethnic press queried Vietnamese in the United States and in Vietnam on their views of the two presidential candidates. The contrast is startling.

Indeed, it is.

Let me tell you a story from my youth. In the summer of 1975, I was taking an advanced history class in Summer School, so that I could graduate early in my Senior year of high school (class of '76). This was a four-hour a day class, lasting as I recall about four weeks. Pretty intensive, but it was going to be well worth the effort.

At that time, I was attending a small Christian & Missionary Alliance church near my home in San Diego, CA. The C&MA has a strong history of working in Asia, and still does. I'm no longer a member of that fine group, but I'll unhesitatingly vouch for their works.

With the fall of Saigon, the first wave of Viet Nam refugees began to arrive in the United States. Our congreation sponsored a group of seven of them, helping them to settle into American life quite successfully. With absolutely no government assistance, I might add.

These seven men were forced to flee with their families, leaving behind homes, careers and their beloved Viet Nam. As I recall, one gentleman was a former F-5 pilot, another a Saigon police officer, a dentist and his son and a merchant. I can't recall what the other three men's occupations were.

Only the F-5 pilot and the police officer spoke any useable English, but that was enough to make this work.

And where does that high school class come into this, you ask?

I walked away from it, flat out forfeiting several weeks of effort. And I had only three days remaining to complete the course. Which obviously meant that I had to take the whole course in my Senior year, which I subsequently did.

Why'd I make such a rash decision, you ask? I did so to go backpacking in the Sequoia Mountains with our Pastor, a few other members and these seven men, newly arrived from Viet Nam.

They had only been on American soil for a month at this point. It was easy to see that they were pained beyond words, knowing what all they'd left behind, and fearing the worst (justifiably, as it transpired) for their homeland, and facing a most uncertain future in an overwhelming and awesome land.

So, it was decided to give them a break from the proceess of assimilation, and to show 'em a bit of America, mountain style. They saw the General Sherman tree, and a grand vista of the Sequioa National Park from elevations exceeding 9,000 feet. We hiked two days up, encamping at a remote lake right at timberline for three days, before making the long trek back.

Among our party were not only our Pastor, but a former Naval officer and a Marine home on leave. And it was with rapt attention that I listened to the fascinating conversations which ensued at rest-breaks and around almost every campfire.

I learned that these men from Viet Nam were fine men. Good men, men who loved their families, their homes, and the nation they'd been forced to flee. I learned that they shared the incredulity with that sailor and marine, as to how the United States ended up on the losing side of a war that was being won, and that, convincingly.

And most importantly, I witnessed the abject disbelief which these seven men proclaimed, being dismayed beyond words that we in America had so caved in to the anti-war protestors rhetoric, distortions and lies.

Even then, they knew which American political party had cost them the lives they'd had to leave, merely in order to survive.

Back in the United States, however, residents like Pauline Tran in Fairfax, Va. said that she would vote for Bush. Kerry, she said, was an anti-war activist and was part of the reason why South Vietnam was defeated. Others said they will vote for Bush to punish Kerry.

And I'm not wrong in attributing the appellation of #10 G.I. to John ("hey, did you know I served in Viet Nam?") Kerry.

That's because only one-in-ten Viet Namese Americans favor that traitorous sonofabitch.

In a Cali Today poll, 90 percent of Vietnamese Americans said they would vote for Bush, and only 10 percent said they would vote for Kerry.

To be blunt, I think this is actually more damning than the reports of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. Already, the mainstream *hack, spit!* meida are attacking the veracity and motives of those fine men. And mark my words here; the media will succeed in making them into the bad guys before this is over.

Unimpeachable though, are those who fled from the living hell arranged for them in no small part due to the efforts of one John F. Kerry. They are the jury who are perhaps the most entitled to judge him.

I wouldn't waste any time watching for the Kerry-Edwards circus to roll into a Little Saigon district anywhere during this campaign.

But I'd love to see it happen.

Posted by Jim on August 06, 2004 | Permalink

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Comments

This doesn't surprise me in the least: I spent most of 1975 and 1976 working with a group of Vietnamese refugees, getting them settled, employed and adjusted. They were fine people, good people, who didn't deserve to be chased out of their homes and their country. Knowing what Kerry did to slime his fellow veterans, and then to render South Vietnam politically untouchable... how the Democratic party could even imagine he is electable is beyond me.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom | August 06, 2004 at 01:45 PM

http://cafeshops.com/vietcong4kerry

Well, some Vietnamese like Senator Kerry...

Posted by: Blog Reader #237 | August 06, 2004 at 07:28 PM

Post 1975 or so, I grew up around the children of a number of Vietnamese refugee families. Ran around with them, went to school with them, had dinner with their folks when we were hanging out at their houses [and vice versa when they hung out at mine], later went to college with other ones... this doesn't surprise me a bit.

In the Little Saigon areas of Oak Cliff, Democrats, Liberals, and Leftists were almost universally hated by the Vietnamese I knew. They blamed the 60's and 70's era liberals and anti-war activists not just for their forced relocations, but for the deaths of families they had to leave behind. *shrug* Probably one of the reasons I always felt comfortable around them: they're like cherokee in one respect - they hate long, hard, and deep.

I wonder how large a voting demographic that is, Jim?

If it's large, and they turn out in numbers to vote this fall... that could be a rude shock for the Kerry campaign.

Posted by: Ironbear | August 07, 2004 at 11:58 PM

I love you.

Thanks so much for helping out the Vietnamese in a time of need. I'm thankful for people such as yourself - my own family wouldn't have made it this far in America without the support of Americans like you.

Posted by: Hieu | August 08, 2004 at 02:18 AM

Not a Viet, but do blame the anti-war crowd and John Kerry for the fall of Viet Nam, unchecked atrocities by the Khmer Rouge, the degradation of Laos, and the fall of Burma to a Communist military dictatorship. Thailand was spared, only because of American in country presence. Didn't escape unscathed though, the place was racked by Communist insurgents for years to follow, up until the late '80s early '90s. The insurgents now shift their strategy, now mainly active in the south, they aligned themselves with the disenfranchised muslim southerners, and looking to plunge the region back into Hell. The anti-war punks, including that smug self-aggrandizing Kerry, had a big role in keeping the region unstable. Forgive the punk? I don't think so. The dead in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", those who "disappeared" while being interred in the reeduating camps in Laos, Viet Nam, and the multitudes who died under ALL the Communist regimes in the region ain't gonna let me view him in ANY positive light any time soon. BTW, Michael Moore is either massively naieve, stupid, or a true traitor, not just to America, but to humanity. There's a film out there being produced called "Remembering Saddam", by people interviewing those who were tortured by this piece of human garbage. This should be a counterpoint to Moore's piece of trash, like to see how many theatres would carry it though.

Icepick, (sorry if the post got off topic, just a tad angry today)

Posted by: icepick | September 18, 2004 at 05:29 PM