Marines publicly dissed Kerry

[Team Sergeant]

That's going to leave a mark...

DEM'S MARINE MISFIRE

By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN


July 31, 2004 -- SCRANTON, Pa. — John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
Kerry was treating running mate Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, to a Wendy's lunch in Newburgh, N.Y., for their 27th wedding anniversary — an Edwards family tradition — when the candidate approached four Marines and asked them questions.

The Marines — two in uniform and two off-duty — were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir."

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

"He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]."

A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager" to go and serve.

The Marines — all of whom serve at nearby Stewart Air Force Base — wouldn't give their names.



It wasn't an auspicious start to the senators' "Believe in America" bus tour — a 22-state, 43-city tour that will cover roughly 3,500 miles over 15 days in an effort to carry some of their momentum out of the Democratic convention.

But the rest of Day One went smoothly, as massive crowds — including what Kerry said were up to 20,000 in Harrisburg, Pa., — greeted him, Edwards, their families and Ben Affleck at the tour-kickoff event in Boston and at two stops in the Keystone state.

"Ninety-seven days [left in the campaign]; let's make it happen," Kerry told hundreds of bleary-eyed but upbeat supporters who showed up at a 7:30 a.m. rally on the shores of Boston Harbor — less than nine hours after Kerry finished his acceptance speech.

Kerry also employed Paul Revere's famed midnight run and imagery of Bunker Hill to bash President Bush over U.S. intelligence failures.

"These are the places where people dared to stand up and put their lives on the line — to take a risk — for something they believed in very deeply," Kerry said of the Boston neighborhood where he was speaking.

"One if by land, two if by sea, and the message was right. Come to think of it, they had better intelligence than we do today about what's going on," Kerry continued, drawing the loudest applause of the event.

In Harrisburg, Kerry noted that there was more bad news coming out of the financial markets yesterday, with oil prices reaching new highs and economic growth limping along at three percent.

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/25935.htm

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally posted by Team Sergeant
That's going to leave a mark...

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

I don't know what it is about politicians when they meet service folk, especially when you know what they say just is downright ingenuous. We have three of the worst low life, pond scum sucking politicians in the country up here. When I first got to Vermont right about Memorial Day '93 there was a letter in the local paper describing how all the old vets up here were thinning out of the ranks and some that made it a personal mission of carrying the colors for the the Fourth and Memorial Day parades needed some help. So I showed up on the Fourth in class "A"s and offered to carry the national colors. What I did not know was that Senator Leahy was to be the grand marshall and as such rode in the convertible behind the colors. I did all I could to ignore the SOB and at the end of the parade he made it a point to come over to the four of us. He looked me over and made some stupid comment about his service to the country as a senator and that we all serve in our own way and as I tried to break contact tactfully without puking he addressed me directly and asked what I thought of the days festivities and the fact that the small town of Randolph would have one to the two senators as its grand marshall. Well I did the best I could to not tell him to go f*** off and instead I told him, "Pat (I refused to call him Senator) I found it quite refreshing and a real pleasure to have a democrat follow me for once rather than me having to follow him."
Then I called the color guard to attention and dismissed them.

Jack Moroney

[Kyobanim]

Damn, Colonel! You need to come down here and liven things up a bit. I would love to have seen his face.

[The Reaper]

Hey Sir, that was pretty good, but I think the VeeP summed it up in his comments to Leahy a bit more succinctly.

TR