posted October 27, 2004 12:38 PM            

In the name of my childhood friend Marty Finn, who died with his fellow Marines and the famed Four Chaplains among the 900 people who went down in the sinking of the Dorchester on February 3, 1943 ...

In the name of Leo Oster, Byron Lindsley, Marty Gelshannon, Paul Pugh, the Marine who took my place, and all my fellow Marines of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 26 Marines, 5th Marine Division who died on the sands of Iwo Jima ...

In the name of our 47,410 fellow Americans who died in battle in Vietnam, the 33,651 who died in the Korean War, and the thousands of other Americans who perished in all our wars I call upon my fellow Americans to reject out of hand the turncoat John Forbes Kerry, who betrayed his fellow members of the armed forces fighting in Vietnam, and especially those suffering in North Vietnamese hellhole prisons in a transparent effort to make a name for himself among America's liberal elite and assure a political future for himself.

The other night I watched "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal." It made my blood boil as I watched depictions of our fellow Americans being horribly tortured, often as a direct result of the treasonous activities of John Forbes Kerry, safe at home after his mere four months in Vietnam.

It's no wonder that Kerry has fought tooth and nail to keep us from seeing this devastating documentary. Not one decent American who sees this film could ever cast a vote for the man whose treasonous activities caused so much pain to American POWs and helped win the war for the North Vietnamese.

As Chris Ruddy wrote in NewsMax.com, Kerry’s campaign went so far as to lash out "when a small movie theater in suburban Philadelphia sought to show the film. ... The Kerry campaign sent an e-mail to local supporters calling them to action. Calls poured into the theater, and legal threats caused the owner to cancel the showing."

He will do anything to stop you from knowing the truth about what and who he is.

In the film, 17 distinguished, highly decorated Vietnam POWs - including two Medal of Honor winners - whose time in prison amounted to 109 years and three months share their horrific experiences, much of them directly attributable to Kerry's anti-war activities and his shameful lies about alleged American war crimes.

"This man committed an act of treason," George (Bud) Day says in the film. "He lied, he besmirched our name and he did it for self-interest. And now he wants us to forget," said Day, a former Vietnam POW and a Medal of Honor winner whose other decorations include the Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Leo K. Thorsness, whose decorations include the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, 10 Air Medals and two Purple Hearts, told how Kerry's accusations of war crimes against his fellow Americans were used against him and his fellow POWs. He described Kerry as "a guy that went to Vietnam, got scratched up, came home ... the things he said were devastating."

For 42 minutes the viewer of "Stolen Honor" is exposed to the story of 17 heroic Americans, sees the torture used to force them to confess to war crimes John Kerry had ascribed to them and their fellow members of the armed forces in Senate testimony, and hear their sense of rage at this man who dares to seek the nation's highest office, often using his scant and questionable service in Vietnam as a campaign gimmick.

As Pat Buchanan has said, "Kerry is a man who came home from Vietnam to slime the soldiers, sailors, Marines and POWs he left behind as war criminals. His conduct was as treasonous as that of Jane Fonda and disqualifies him from ever being commander in chief."

Any American knowing about John Kerry's treason who casts a vote for this modern-day Benedict Arnold not only dishonors our fellow Americans who fought in Vietnam, but by their vote also spits on the graves of America's war dead.