Through email from Russ, posted also at Old War Dogs.

I am troubled by tonight’s primary results, especially troubled by the prospect that I may be forced to vote for an unprincipled political chameleon like McCain in order to save our country from two politicians, Bill and Hillary Clinton, who are even more unprincipled, even to the point of felonious criminality. I wrote this piece this morning and tonight stand by it even more. Hillary just slapped my face and that of many other honorable veterans with her sneering, gratuitous reference to swift boating in her gloating victory speech. It just demonstrates how twisted their leftist thinking is when they use this term of honor as a pejorative.

I will follow the dictates of my old regimental motto: Honor and Country,

Russ Vaughn

Entertaining Considerations

I was afraid this was going to happen when McCain started coming on stronger in the primaries. To an even greater extent than John Kerry, John McCain possesses the ability to politically divide American veterans more than any other presidential candidate. With Kerry, a key determinant of which way veterans’ loyalties fell was party affiliation. I’m sure there were many liberal Democrat veterans, particularly Vietnam veterans, who held their noses and supported a man they viscerally disliked because he was their party’s candidate and represented their overall liberal positions. It was easy for those of us who were politically conservative Vietnam vets to take a hard, unrelenting stand against the man we knew had smeared us because he was the candidate of the party whose positions we opposed.

Today, this division among veterans in general and Vietnam veterans in particular has been turned by McCain’s candidacy into a family fight among Republican veterans that threatens our already diminished prospects for victory in November. While virtually all of us admire and respect McCain’s military service and POW sacrifice, there are millions of us who feel that is simply not enough for him to be able to command our political loyalties four decades later. Setting aside the fact that McCain sided with John Kerry in 2004 and denounced those of us who dared to question Kerry’s very questionable war record, there are many reasons why we do not see John McCain as being someone we can trust to represent the mainstream views of the Republican party. I will spare you a Sean Hannity, rapid-fire recitation of the litany of McCain’s transgressions against his own party because I think there is a single issue far more compelling.

Go ahead and Google “McCain switching parties?” and look at the pages of hits which take you to articles from every sector of the media examining whether or not John McCain was preparing to switch parties as far back as 2001 and continuing into the 2004 campaign. The most chilling of all these reports is one from the Boston Herald in which McCain is quoted as responding to ABC’s Charles Gibson’s question as to whether he would even entertain the idea of running as John Kerry’s VP if Kerry extended such an offer,

“John Kerry is a very close friend of mine. We’ve been friends for years. Obviously I would entertain it.”
Boston Herald

That is a very telling quote. In his own words, to further his political ambitions, John McCain would have considered abandoning his party and his supposedly conservative principles to serve on the ticket with one of the most liberal candidates ever to run as a Democrat presidential candidate. Even worse, reading down, one reads that Kerry now claims it was McCain’s people who initiated such a proposal, not that we’d be inclined to lend too much credibility to that particular source. Some very close friends, huh? No wonder then that McCain was able to denounce his fellow Navy Vietnam veterans as “dishonest and dishonorable” when they dared to attack Kerry’s self-promoting war record. McCain was selfishly attempting to curry favor with the man and the party which could do the most for his personal political future.
McCain on Swift Boats Veterans - Salon

Now I ask you, just who was being dishonest and dishonorable here? Was it the sailors who served in combat with Kerry and raised issues with his war record that Kerry never successfully refuted and refused to release the Navy records which he claimed would do so? Or was it the self-serving maverick politician who was entertaining the possibility of forsaking his Republican party to fill the number two position on the Democrat ticket?

A good friend and fellow Old War Dog, Bill Faith, cites Mitt Romney’s contradictory and self-serving statements about not serving in Vietnam as proving Romney unworthy of his vote. To that I would respond that talking out of both sides of one’s mouth is congenital in politicians and that perhaps Romney might have gone AWOL on the issue. But Romney’s transgression completely pales against John McCain’s admitted willingness to “entertain” the possibility of full-fledged desertion to the enemy in the midst of political combat.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want a commander-in-chief who even entertains such considerations.

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

From Old War Dogs-”Not so Fast there, McCain!”:

Up front, as a Vietnam veteran, I will readily concede that I respect John McCain for his service to his country, first as a naval aviator and POW in Vietnam, then for his long years in our national Congress. I even will admit to the fact that I somewhat admire McCain’s desire to effect some sort of political reconciliation with the Democrat party. That being said, I must also make it very clear that I do not support certain decisions McCain has chosen on his pathways to political advancement.

Now that the Senator has won primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina and the network pundits are proclaiming he may well be the Republican “Comeback Kid,” I am reminded of an old Army joke about a platoon sergeant faced with the prospect of breaking the terrible news to one of his young charges, Private Jones, that the soldier’s mother has just passed away. The sergeant calls his platoon into formation and barks out the order, “All of you with living mothers take one step forward.” Then after a momentary pause, he mutters, “Not so fast there, Jones.” That’s my take as a veteran and a conservative Republican on this new political development: “Not so fast there, McCain.”

My first and biggest beef with John McCain is that when a very brave group of Vietnam veterans who had served with John Kerry stood up to say that Kerry’s self-serving portrayal of his war record was patently false, that his blanket charges of war crimes against them were absurd, and that his testimony in Congress was used by the North Vietnamese to further torture McCain’s fellow POW’s, Senator McCain airily dismissed these courageous men and sided with his Senate pal. Playing conciliator in the national media, McCain despicably denounced the Swift boat veterans’ ad as dishonest and dishonorable, hinting that they were pawns of George Bush and the Republican right.

Like all the leftists in the MSM, John McCain never gave these true American heroes even the least opportunity to defend their claims. As a veteran who had suffered more than most to defend our constitutional right of free speech, McCain inexplicably used his powerful office and national presence to ally himself with the repressive forces of mainstream media to suppress that right to men who had risked their lives in combat to preserve it. It was one of the bitterest betrayals the Swift boat vets and the millions of us Vietnam veterans supporting them would have to endure. We expected treachery from the MSM and Kerry’s campaign, but not from John McCain.

What I can never reconcile in my mind, my heart or my soul, is how this naval aviator, POW and true war hero, could so easily turn his back on his fellow sailors, combat veterans all. In the name of political expediency, and a sorely misguided attempt to lay to rest all the troubled ghosts of Vietnam that his treasonous Senate colleague was primarily responsible for creating, John McCain turned his back on the true heroes and sided with a phony vet with phony medals and a suspect discharge.

Never mind that I disagree with McCain on immigration, taxes and his unconstitutional McCain-Feingold bill; that’s all merely politics and has nothing to do with honor and loyalty to those who served bravely alongside you in combat. Nope, that’s not the issue. But I’m putting the Senator on notice right now; if you should somehow get the Republican nomination, you are gambling with the votes of millions of veterans like me unless you repudiate your reprehensible siding with the traitorous, treasonous John Kerry. I have never stayed home on Election Day in protest of a distasteful candidate, but this could be the first time for me and many Vietnam vets, again turning our backs on a fellow vet who turned his first.

The Senator should read the excellent recounting of how a determined few veterans, whom he disgracefully defamed, defeated his old buddy, John Kerry, in the 2004 campaign. In ‘To Set the Record Straight,” authors Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler, lay it out, page by page, what the concerted efforts of a few honorable patriots with an unrelenting resolve can accomplish in the arena of national politics.

Like the old platoon sergeant, I would caution, “Not so fast there, McCain!”

Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66

We Americans are a mix of birds,
Some soarers, others grounders;
And from their strong, enduring words,
More Eagles were among our Founders.
But different birds this domain share,
Some soaring, some just clucking;
While Eagles soar, patrol the air;
Penned Chickens wait for plucking.

Eagles have sharp, raptor eyes,
Not so in birds fear stricken;
An Eagle fights to own his skies,
Not so the hen-housed Chicken.
Feckless fowl, they placidly peck,
Flocking to their foolish fate,
Flashing blade on feathered neck,
Must they always learn too late?

That’s why we use the very word
To taunt those who won’t fight;
A Chicken is some fear-filled bird,
Whose fear provokes his plight.
Frightened fowl will surrender all,
Hoping for a peaceful ending,
Unmindful that their heads may fall,
Blind to bright blades descending.

But Eagles being bolder birds,
Seek our enemies in their lair,
Screaming Eagles, forgoing words,
Strike with deadly talons there.
Proud raptors who together fight
Know something Chickens never will,
Love of country and birthright,
A rara avis grounder skill.

The anti-war capons of Answer
And hysterical hens of Code Pink,
Let bird flu turn into fowl cancer,
And their pen is beginning to stink.
As they flock to the Mall in September
To disgrace and dishonor their nation
It would behoove them to remember
Watchful Eagles are on station.

Russ Vaughn
101st Airborne (Screaming Eagles)
Vietnam 65-66

I’m a soldier; haven’t been in uniform in forty years but the six years of active duty I did serve and the ensuing thirty-plus years I’ve spent working with the U.S. military, instilled in me certain qualities and beliefs that have grown and persisted within me all these decades and provide me with the basis for my stance on the war on terror. I may now be only an armchair warrior, but I’m still a soldier. As such, I understand the value of a rapid counterattack when your enemy has struck and badly hurt you. I say this as a brief, prefatory explanation of why I believe the Bush Administration has done the right thing in carrying the war on terror into the heart of terrorism itself. Yes, I know there are legions of liberals, so blinded by their certainty that the Supreme Court cheated Al Gore out of the presidency that they actually profess to believe that there were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. To them I would say consider this: Syria had ties to Al Qaeda; Jordan had ties to Al Qaeda; Egypt had ties to Al Qaeda; Yemen had ties to Al Qaeda; Somalia had ties to Al Qaeda; Saudi Arabia had ties to Al Qaeda; the various Gulf monarchies had ties to Al Qaeda; Iran had ties to Al Qaeda; Pakistan had ties to Al Qaeda; Indonesia, the Philippines, North Korea and several of the former Soviet satellites under Muslim rule had ties to Al Qaeda.

But not Iraq.

That’s right, according to Democrat politicians and the liberal Left in America and Europe, only one country in the Middle East, Iraq, a country under the iron-fisted control of an absolute dictator who had reason to hate the American government far more bitterly than any of the leaders of the above nations, and yep, sitting smack dab in the middle of all these other terrorist harboring countries, only America-hating Iraq, was lily white clean according to liberal Democrats when it came to affiliation with Al Qaeda.

Excuse me folks, but Old Sarge’s bullshit detector is going off like a Geiger counter at ground zero in Chernobyl.

Now, of all the countries listed above, one of you Democrats, real quick, tell me which of them is absolutely known to have used weapons of mass destruction against a foreign enemy and dissident elements within its own borders. Hmmm, only one? Really? Only Iraq? Imagine that…chemical weapons used in conjunction with modern weapons delivery systems against Iranian forces and rebellious Kurds? Trust me folks, Old Sarge’s specialty in the Army was chemical, biological and radiological warfare and he knows quite well that the use of lethal, disabling and disfiguring gases in bombs, rockets and artillery warheads constitutes the use of weapons of mass destruction under the rules of land warfare. Never mind that Saddam Hussein blew the world a huge raspberry as he was gassing his enemies without and within. Nah…this guy didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. Ask any Bush-hating Democrat.

So, contrary to all these liberals, whose only chance of seeing the light is when some proctologist’s probing proctoscope finally manages to locate their deeply-embedded eyes, this old grunt sees the value in hitting our enemies smack-dab in the middle of the threat; and that central target, folks, in this war on terror, just happened to be Iraq. And yes, Iraq has become a killing field, but far more so for radical Jihadists than for America and her allies. Potential bombers of Western cities flock like flies to the flypaper of a martyr’s death, not in New York or London, but on the killing field we have created for them. Remember one thing very well, Senators Reid, Durbin and Schumer: every single jihadist who dies in Iraq will never have the opportunity to die in one of our cities taking hundreds if not thousands of your potential voters with him.

And for all you armchair, liberal strategists who continue to throw up that canard that our military efforts should be entirely focused on capturing or killing the Al Qaeda leadership, Osama bin Laden and Zayman Al Zawahiri, in Afghanistan and Pakistan; may I inquire as to where you obtained your advanced degrees in military science? Madam Chair, would perhaps that have been at Berkeley’s famed War College? We know Congressman Murtha obtained his multiple military degrees from a rural Pennsylvania diploma mill, established and funded entirely by earmarks in federal legislation, but that’s a topic for another essay.

So, a simple question: did George Washington seek to capture King George? Did Abraham Lincoln focus all his military strategies on the capture or elimination of Jefferson Davis? In WWI, if we were hell-bent on capturing the Kaiser, why did we spend so many months in the hellish, intransigence of those trenches? Why on earth did MacArthur spend all that time and those American boys’ lives to move systematically up the Pacific archipelago in WWII if all we had to do was focus on capturing Emperor Hirohito? Would modern-day Democrat strategists label Eisenhower a fool and a loser for moving indirectly through Africa, Italy and the soft underbelly of Europe, Southern France, when all he had to do was attack Berlin directly and put Hitler in chains?

The truth is, all you Democrat military geniuses, is that none of those enemy leaders was captured until the fighting was over and the respective war was won; truth is, most of them never suffered any ill effects other than the ignominy of losing. Hell, if we did capture Osama, you liberal turkeys would be clamoring for the Bush administration to give him a fair and speedy trial, afforded all the rights of a U.S. citizen, and the ACLU would be appealing his conviction long beyond his natural death.

So what does this show America about its Democrat leadership? Well, it shows this old combat infantryman that you liberal wienies don’t know jack about fighting wars. It’s a far cry from forging voters’ registration certificates, stuffing ballot boxes and buying minority votes to standing solid under fire and defeating a lethal enemy on the battlefield. But since so very few of you have ever even worn the uniform, much less served in combat, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that would you, ladies? I’ll make a wager right now: the average, enlisted, American military volunteer has more courage, integrity and patriotism than the U.S. congressman who supposedly represents him.

Hell, forget the bet; that’s not even a contest.

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101st Airborne Division

Vietnam 65-66

From Old War Dogs by Russ Vaughn, sent to me through email. God bless you, Russ!

Wild Irish Rose - by Russ Vaughn

What is that stench wafts ‘neath the nose?
Is it ABC’s Wild Irish Rose?
Must we endure this big broad’s ranting,
That has the liberal loon’s all chanting?
Dubya brought those towers down,
Claims this crazy corpulent clown.
Is our rotund Rose blatantly batty,
Or just hates the world ‘cause she‘s a fatty?

Appears that ABC has found
Ratings come cheaper by the pound;
Need someone hot, to blow and blab?
Hire a has-been encased in flab.
If its controversy that you like,
Broadcast a belligerent blowhard dyke,
Who hates the world because she’s fat,
And a dyke-by-default due to that.

Rose once played with Irish boys,
But boys don’t stay with tubby toys,
So Rosie pinned her heart to girls,
And men became just dogs and churls;
Especially men who act like men,
So Rosie’s out to do them in.
It’s sad to see such intelligence
Warped by hate, no common sense.

I take no pleasure in rhyming odium,
But I lack Rosie’s national podium,
No broadcast forum for rants and raves,
No applauding audiences, witless slaves;
Why denounce her deviance, excess weight?
Because they’re the roots of this Rose’s hate
Of a system where she’s never fit,
And she attacks our nation because of it.

A Rose by any name smells sweet?
Not this bulbous blossom of fatuous heat.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Editor’s note: Jane Fonda and Cindy Sheehan are going to be at the Washington protest on March 17th. The group Gathering of Eagles was started in order to defend our Vietnam Wall against those mealy mouthed anti-war leftists who don’t give a damn about our boys or the Iraqis. You can get this poem on a t-shirt, and I would suggest getting one in honor of this occasion even if you can’t make the protest on March 17th. See what it looks like, here. The reason for this is-it’s going to cost about $25,000 according to organizers and they’re going to need every dime they can raise. Russ isn’t making a dime from this.

Fly High you Eagles, soar (a poem)
by Russ Vaughn

Fly High you Eagles, soar
On you we all depend.
To serve, to stand, support our war,
Our fallen to defend.
Stand firm, stand brave before our Wall;
Deal those a sorry fate,
Who answer Fonda’s hateful call:
Our nation they must hate.

Fly high you Eagles, soar,
Your keen eyes see below,
The leftist fools oppose this war,
To them no low’s too low.
They seek our Wall to desecrate,
To enhance their losing cause;
They seek to doom our nation’s fate;
They see nothing but our flaws.

Fly high you Eagles, soar,
Above those who seek defeat,
Who seek submission, nothing more,
To a terror they can’t meet.
They falter when the course is long;
They’re weak-willed, failed and bitter;
Got it all entirely wrong,
So typical of a quitter.

Fly high you Eagles, soar,
Stand proud before our Wall;
You are the nation’s heart, the core,
The essence of us all.
Know that we stand there with you,
In spirit and in soul,
America’s not lost, not through,
We’ve a long, long way to go.

Fly high you Eagles, soar, from your lofty, special station,
Know this is true forever more; you’ve the blessing of your nation.

Russ Vaughn
Vietnam Veteran

This has been published elsewhere, but Russ sent it to me today, and it just seemed to ‘fit’.

Teherani Johnni

The gift that keeps on giving,
That’s what John Kerry is;
As long as that fool’s living,
He’ll keep us blogs in biz.

Big John’s too dumb to ever get
His big foot from his mouth;
So at ease, relax, you Swiftvets,
His campaign’s headed south.

He began his long tradition,
While still wearing Navy blue,
Of practicing sedition,
Against vets like me, like you.

As a second john in Paris,
He courted Madame Binh,
Who hooked her nail in his naris,
And sent her songbird home to sing.

And now he’s right back to it,
Lurching into media light;
Again he says he’ll do it,
So damn sure he is right.

He’ll go see Imawhackjob,
To plan how we’ll surrender,
Another stab us in the back job,
The only plan Big John can render.

They’ll fete him sure in Teheran,
Perhaps with parades and floats,
A happy, winning, waving John,
So far from those Swift boats.

His treason will put a big smile
On the face of many a Teherani,
So proud of Imawhackjob’s guile,
In creating Teherani Johnni.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Thanks to Old War Dogs

by Russ Vaughn (emailed personally to me by Russ himself, posted here with permission and also posted at the American Thinker¹ and Old War Dogs²)

I have just read a mea culpa by Vietnam War protestor, novelist and poet, Pat Conroy³, who possesses the literary skills to express what I am willing to bet many other older American males, his former brothers at the barricades, also feel, but lack the skills and the honesty to articulate. It is left to men like the politically born again David Horowitz and novelist Conroy to speak for these old troupers of the Left’s long-haired legions, to reveal their long hidden recognition that they were possibly misguided in their protesting but more often than most will ever admit, motivated more by fear of serving in combat than by any sense of moral/political rectitude.

For that reason this is an issue that reverberates only within the ranks of male protestors of that era. For the braless, hygiene and make-up challenged young women of the movement, there existed no threat of death or disfigurement in combat, so the purity of their motives is questionable only in the intellectual, not the moral sense. They may have been naïve fools but they weren’t hiding a blushing personal cowardice behind the skirts of world socialism. This then, is an issue of character only for these now old, greying men who, like Conroy, must eventually face the moral consequences of their actions in those turbulent days.

As someone who, like most of us, has experienced events in my life where I now wish that I had shown more moral and physical courage, more honesty, and most importantly, more unquestioning love and understanding of family, I know how those failures live with you long after the memories of trying to do so many things right have dimmed. Many of my lapses involved nothing more than minor events where I failed to speak up, or stand up and be counted, or even stand up and be knocked down; but regardless of their minor nature, it is these life events that forever remain active in my psyche. In my mid-sixties now, I have learned all too well that it’s not the fights you won or even the fights you lost that keep niggling away at the edges of your conscience: it’s the fights you failed to fight when you knew damned well that you should.

Deceased author John D. MacDonald, who wrote the wonderful Travis McGee mystery series, once explained through his fictional hero, McGee, the way to make correct moral decisions and it is a simple wisdom that has stayed in my brain, but not always exemplified by my behavior, through the remainder of my life. It is nothing more than this: do the hard thing. When faced with tough choices, look to that course of action which is the one you want least to follow because it appears to be the most difficult for you; it may hurt personally, but almost always, it is the right course for you to follow for the good of others.

My belief is that a lot of Vietnam War protestors were rightfully fearful of the physical perils of combat, as were all those of us who chose to serve there; but where we tamped down those fears and continued the mission, they wrongfully used a contrived moral outrage against the war as convenient cover to conceal their cowardice. To buttress that theory one simply has to look at how the huge, angry protests diminished, and ultimately disappeared in a remarkably short time once Congress ended the military draft. As young, draft-age men, all those angry protestors were able at the time to righteously rationalize away their true motivation until Congress stole their alibi, and only now, with the awareness and self-accounting that comes with age, are they, like Pat Conroy, facing the truth of their personal cowardice. Sadly, too late, they have come to realize the truth of Conroy’s most perceptive quote:

“America is good enough to die for even when she is wrong.”

I believe those are words worthy of being carved into every war memorial in America. And I am thankful that I and all my brothers and sisters at arms who served then, and those who serve now, possessed then and now, but even in our callow youth, the intrinsic wisdom to recognize that truth. All Americans must die, but those who understand this fundamental reality about this very unique nation will die with their chins held just a few degrees higher than those who didn’t realize it when they should have, but now do, like Conroy and his legions, and sadly, those young people of today who still do not.

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

1. The American Thinker, “Good Enough To Die For”[back]
2. Old War Dogs, “Good Enough to Die For”, December 16, 2006[back]
3. Family Security Matters dot org[back]

Fasting Like They Fight - by Russ Vaughn

It is almost comic, nah, hell, it’s hilarious, to watch the Moonbats, led by their batty high priestess, Cindy Sheehan, undertake their new attempt to garner media attention. When I first heard about their planned Troops Home Fast, my immediate reaction was, “Hey, she can stand to lose a little weight and maybe if she lays off the tofu for a while her brain processes will clear up some.”

But now we see that Liberals approach fasting with the same half-assed dedication with which they defend their country. You boldly step up and volunteer to courageously go all out, or rather, without, for a whole twenty-four hours, at the end of which you pass the buck on to some other witless Moonbat while you sit around pigging out on Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked, soaking up the adulation of fellow revolutionaries around the world, smug in your sense of accomplishment, knowing your sacrifice will be hailed by the fifth column media. Boy, don’t you just feel so, like totally satisfied, so connected to all those other brave freedom fighters like Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, ready to take their places up there on the ramparts, in the vanguard of the proletariat, willing to sacrifice all for the downtrodden of the world? Well, OK, for twenty-four hours, anyway.

But there are some truly committed stalwarts in the Moonbat movement: Mother Sheehan is far too dedicated to the socialist revolution, led by her hero, Hugo Chavez, who, by the way, looks like he needs to go on an extended fast, to be diddling around with any of this Hollywood twenty-four hour, rolling fast business. Nope, none of that tentative, toe in the water stuff for the Earth Mother of the Revolution. Why, she’s now on Day Six of her total commitment to world solidarity, denying herself all sustenance until that evil Bush brings the Troops Home Fast; well, all sustenance that is, except an occasional Jamba Juice Smoothie or maybe some coffee with vanilla ice cream in it. Of course, should Mother Sheehan become so weakened from her denial of food to the point that she loses her ability to deliver her thundering rhetoric on the evening news in that adorable, teeny-bopper timbre we’ve all come to know and love, then her Code Pink handlers are standing by with protein-fortified juice drinks or avocado slices to help this brave woman through her ordeal.

And therein lies their problem: Liberals fast like they fight wars; it’s all about good intentions and appearances, all talk and no substance; and it must only be done in such a way that no one suffers real pain or true loss. It’s all about feeling that you are accomplishing something; and when you no longer feel that, perhaps there is some actual pain involved, then it’s time to pull back and put an end to that pain. Hey, how about a Ben & Jerry’s pig-out? That’s what the Democrats and the Moonbats (I know that’s becoming increasingly redundant) are offering the American public, a smoothie, ice-cream future free of the pain of fighting those misunderstood terrorists. Kerry, Murtha, Kennedy and their crowd feel your pain, America, and they know how to keep it at bay: just like liberal fasting, we’ll only fight terror till it starts to hurt then we’ll pull out and pig out on Ben & Jerry’s new flavor created especially for Democrats: DeMinted Delight.

Higher Education

Inspired by the Sean Hannity interview with Ward Churchill

We send our kids to college,
To get an education;
We send them there for knowledge,
Not to learn to hate their nation.

The billions that we pay,
These high priced institutions,
Should pay to teach our kids a way,
To seek life’s best solutions.

But Sixties losers from the Left,
Have seized the ivory towers,
So now our kids must sit bereft,
Absorbing agitprop for hours.

They hear not the words of Winnie,
A true Churchill of distinction,
But some phony Indian ninnie,
Who prophesies their extinction.

And while your kid can’t get in Yale,
Can’t make the grade or cut,
They admit a turbaned, Taliban male,
A terrorist from a hut.

So now he learns at our expense,
And no woman dare sit near,
How to worm his way past our defense,
Undermine all we hold dear.

What fools they are who claim to be,
The brightest in our nation;
Not even smart as you and me,
Despite their lofty station.

No common sense do they possess,
Or they’d teach our kids what’s right;
Their Marxist minds a muddled mess,
They’re fools won’t see the light.

Someday our warriors will return seeking higher institutions,
Should not surprise those so unwise, they may face retributions.

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

WaPo Weasels

Wanna draw a soldier, Toles? Here I am,
Back with all four limbs from Vietnam.
You wanna draw pictures of fighting men?
Just tell me where and tell me when.

I’ll give you a pose to impress any viewer,
Your punk arty ass comatose in the sewer.
Like all of your kind you don’t have a clue
Who fightin’ men are and what fightin’ men do.

That you, your kind, you effete panty waists,
With Hollywood morals, metrosexual tastes,
Would taunt a brave warrior’s fight for life,
Mock his loss, his pain, deride his strife;

And use his sorrow to support your screed,
With no concern for the warrior’s need,
Tells me you are clueless of the facts of war,
You’re a cut ‘n run, spineless, media whore.

Go to Walter Reed hospital, smug Mr. Toles,
To see those you’ve mocked, grave injured souls
View wounded warriors with bodies so broken
And think again of the message you’ve spoken,
So abysmally ignorant, so smug condescending
That even most liberals won’t waste time defending.

So Toles it’s a fact that your most famous work
Will proclaim you forever as a pitiless jerk.
And Washington Post you’re as bad as this weasel
You gave him the forum, provided his easel.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Force Multipliers

Wikipedia: force multiplier-a military term referring to a factor that dramatically increases (hence multiplies) the combat-effectiveness of a given military force.

In Iraq an IED explodes,
An American soldier dies,
But that blast will grow as the media blow
It up before our eyes.

And trumpet to the watching world,
These fifth column falsifiers,
Like sheep they bleat we face defeat,
Our foe’s force multipliers.

Osama and his minions know,
In combat they can’t beat us;
So they hope and pray will come a day,
Our own media will defeat us.

Ignoring all the good we’ve done,
Liberals focus on the gore,
On losses mounting and body counting,
To prove we’ve lost this war.

They disgraced us once in Vietnam,
So now these leftists feel,
That again they’ll win with media spin,
And make America kneel.

But defeatists aren’t the only ones,
Learned lessons from the past;
Back then we swore we’d lose no more,
This time we’re standing fast.

The Internet’s exposed them,
As elitist media liars;
They stand unclothed and widely loathed,
Our foe’s force multipliers.

Some day when all our troops return,
With Iraq on freedom’s path,
The liberal elite who sought defeat,
May face some Righteous wrath.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Paristine

With a nod to Joseph Farah at World Net Daily

Jacques and his frères are surely weeping
Les pauvres immigrès have caught them sleeping,
Paysans revolt, their emotions churning,
What’s that odeur? Is Paris burning?
Within the banlieues there’s no joy
Among les jeunes who are sans emplois
What, take a job? Not the way to go;
We’d rather riot, torch your Peugeot.

Ah, Mother France you took us in,
Then left us with no way to win.
We’re not ègal, not garçons blanc,
We’ve no real chance to earn a franc.
No, what we are, we’re useful fools,
For leftist dreams, just brown-skinned tools.
So the Rèpublique’s butt is in a crack,
Give your merci to Jacques Chirac.

We’ll breed you into minority,
Till only mullahs hear your plea,
And Shari’a rules throughout your land,
A Frenchman steals, he’ll lose his hand.
Your licentious lifestyle, long extolled,
Will leave your women stoned, dead cold.
But everything will turn out fine,
In the Muslim Republic of Paristine.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Infantry
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

A Useful Death

A mother’s anguish turns to ire,
Her liquid tears to spears of fire,
A useful fool for the liberal Left,
All hatred now, no more bereft.
The honor which her son embraced,
Is now dishonored, now disgraced,
As his mother stands atop his grave,
From there to shriek, from there to rave.

Yes, some are maddened in their grief,
And grief can surely change belief;
But this woman’s views, her family say,
Have long been held, long fore today,
Enabling Leftists to use her grieving,
For Moore deception, Moore deceiving.
I see this mother as a willing fool,
A useful Moorish Code Pinko tool.

As one who fought in another place,
I sorrow for this boy’s disgrace,
By a zealot mother grafting grief
Stealing his brave deeds, an honor thief,
Usurping his valor to claim her share,
Five minutes of fame in Media’s glare.
Her platform one you don’t see often:
A dishonored, flag-draped, soldier’s coffin.

I can hear Michael Moore muttering under his breath,
“Yeah, this was really a useful death.”

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Infantry
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Sent to me by Russ through email. Thanks Russ. Also posted at The American Thinker.

To the families of the brave Ohio Marines

Why was it my son had to die,
To preserve some truth? To hide a lie?
Why did my country ask of me,
To sacrifice my hopes so totally?
Why must one home give up so much,
Among the few to feel death’s touch?
Why was it my son had to die?
Please let me know, please tell me why.

Your son died in a valiant cause,
To save our way of rights and laws,
To keep the light of freedom glowing,
To keep the rights of freemen flowing,
To keep our tall torch burning bright
Against the terror, against dark night.
Your son gave up his valiant best,
To save our ways, preserve the rest.

True, politics is a darkened art,
Devouring lives of those with heart,
The heart to give their very best,
To serve, protect we helpless rest.
But, Lord, we’re thankful some will serve
We multitudes, who lack their nerve.
They take up arms and fight our foes,
Bearing bloody burdens for our woes.

Why was it my son had to die?
Why must I be the one to cry?
Because you are one of the few,
Who raised a son who truly knew,
Our freedom’s price is paid in blood,
Young men must die to stay the flood,
To keep the terror wolves at bay,
To save us all, preserve our way.

Why was it my son had to die?
Because your son was one fine guy.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Jihad Jane
With a hat tip to Ollie North for the title

What a prize to show for her life of toil,
A bus that runs on vegetable oil;
To keep it running will prove no strain,
Run a fuel line from her peanut brain.

As once again she shows us all
How wrong we are and how we’ll fall.
She’ll grant no quarter, cut no slack,
Get her picture taken on a camel’s back.

Jihad Jane will show us once again,
She’s smarter than all the President’s men;
I doubt Sun Tzu could tell us more
Than Jihad Jane when it comes to war;

She’ll save the world, bold Barbarella,
More wily and wise than any Army fella.
While she fancies herself truly Machiavellian
A more apt description is piggy Orwellian.

It’s true Jane could write an encyclopedia
On fooling the drooling mainstream media.
Prices of primetime breathlessly follow;
Sputum she spouts they eagerly swallow.

Trumpet her tripe as trustworthy truth,
Pushing her pap down the throats of our youth.
Reporters will climb right on down in that sewer,
Covering every mile of Jane’s veggie-fueled tour.

While wiser minds wait, holding their breath,
Warily wondering just how much death
All her agitprop antics will incite this time,
And whose lives will be forfeit for one fool’s crime.

In most scripts of life, we become wiser with age;
But this airhead actress cannot get to that page.
So she’ll be well remembered, as well she should,
As the dumbest damned broad in Hollywood.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Infantry
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Handmaidens of Terror?

Michelle Malkin notes, I believe with some error,
The politically correct are handmaidens of terror.
But handmaiden may be a too-mild appellation
For the worms at the core of the threat to our nation,
Who are far more concerned with our socialist purity,
Than commonsense measures for our nation’s security.
They’ll insist we don’t need anti-terrorist powers,
Till terror bombs blow down their own ivory towers.

More than mere handmaids in true servile sense,
They’re concubines of correctness in Jihadist tents,
Plying socialist sweetmeats to death-dealing masters,
Naively abetting more future disasters.
Respect our dark brothers say these hour is beguiling,
No need for your paranoid, racist profiling.
Forget swarthy males from the East caused our losses,
We must share their pain, understand their root causes.

These handmaids ignore their own reasoning powers,
Like no grannies flew planes into those twin towers;
Or why we’re not shown after a terror event,
Any mug shots of men of Caucasian descent.
They insist we ignore facts as plain as their faces,
Like Islamo-fascists tend to be certain races.
No, Michelle, dear, I fear that handmaiden’s in error,
Simply too mild a term for these true whores for terror.

Russ Vaughn

Inspired by Michelle Malkin’s column here

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . .
—John 15:13, 15

In honor of Memorial Day, there will be parades and flowers laid at gravesites of people who lost their lives serving our country all around the nation. There has never been a time that I have been more accutely aware of the problems before our honorable service men and women as they go about the notable duties of serving our country and protecting our God given freedoms. Too many people, it seems, are living in some kind of a fantasyworld where there is no war and there are no evil people.

But for some, on 9/11, that idea changed forever when 19 islamist crazies crashed the towers and hit the pentagon, hoping that in the process of taking their own lives, they would, in the spirit of Islamofacism, take many Americans with them and drive a sword straight into the belly of the infidel.

You can recognize fallen veterans and their families by joining with other Patriots placing flags at your nearest National Cemetery (generally done on Saturday before Memorial Day). Remember to pause at 1500 (your local time) on Memorial Day, and offer remembrance and prayer for these great Patriots.

Additionally, please show your support for our troops standing in harm’s way today by signing “An Open Letter in Support of America’s Armed Forces”

Today there are representatives of newer generations laying beside those who fought in Korea, in Vietnam, WWII, and WWI; they are those who have fought against the terrorists in the middle east who would see us destroyed just the same as their ideological brothers, the Nazis in the ’30’s. Let us pray that we are able to prevail over this threat, although much more sinister, as representatives exist in cells right here in the US, plotting our destruction, and imams and clerics call for our destruction in American mosques.

God be with all of our service men and women.

“Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Rough Men

There’s a character trait that’s decided by fate
Comes (sadly) to many, far too faint, far too late.
They won’t face the aggressor, stand up to his ire
They have not the will to fight his fire with fire.
So they bend over backwards to see all sides as fair,
Till they’re faced with dragon breath fire in their hair.
Like our brethren in France, who’d know better than we,
Yet seem never to learn, seem doomed never to see.

Yes, it seems there are some who’re determined by fate,
To possess not the courage to step up to the plate,
Who shrink from all threat because nothing’s worth war.
But how can they know lest they’ve been there before?
Thank God some have courage, the will, yes, the grace,
To stand for the shirkers, stand strong in their place.
Thank God we have stalwarts who’ll stand for us all,
Who will rise to the challenge at their nation’s call.

The faint-hearted, who fear, whose reaction is flight,
Have no comprehension of those who will fight.
To hide their own trepidation they attempt to demean
The rough men, who defend them, as barbaric, obscene.
Yet these rough men stand ready, hard weapons to hand,
To put placaters behind them, draw a line in the sand,
To preserve for the peaceniks what they won’t defend,
So their own unearned freedom won’t perish, won’t end.

To appeasers, rough men are coarse government tools.
To rough men, appeasers are dumb delusional fools.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Naught’s Solved by War?

A flickering dawn lights Islam’s hills
A faint emerging light.
Can the torch of Lady Liberty
Flare away Medieval night?
How fitting our bold symbol
Of all that’s good and right
Eyewitness to the Jihad’s wrath,
Stands forefront in this fight.

Her torch is not mere sculpted bronze,
To those in Mullahs’ chain’s;
But a lamp held high against the sky
Showing them that hope remains.
Their feudal sheiks view us with scorn,
So obsessed with earthly pleasure;
But one thing they fear that we hold dear,
Is that Bill of Rights we treasure.

We drove a tyrant from his throne,
Brought his people free election.
Think it concerns them overmuch,
WMD’s escaped detection?
Just behold those blue-stained fingers,
Like the Lady’s torch, held high,
So proud of their brave turnout,
Putting Liberals to the lie.

How say you now nay Sayers?
What of your dire predictions?
Like fools you swore naught’s solved by war,
Another of your Liberal fictions.
But now you face a hard clear truth:
A truth that you forswore:
This aborning Bush Democracy
Was midwifed by his war.

Within the womb of Islam,
Freedom’s heart so feebly beats.
Is it up us to make it thrive,
To birth it their streets?
What say you disbelieving Libs,
How now shall this thing go?
Shall we execute your exit plan,
Or stay and help it grow?

Russ Vaughn

Mad How Disease

Words recently read have just so made my day,
Some whimsical wisdom from sage Austin Bay,
Who points out profoundly and slick as you please,
The Democrat Party has Mad How Disease.

The infection most certainly is iatrogenic,
From too many visits to Dr. Dean’s clinic.
They should have been warned that they should be wary
Of getting too chummy with the Left’s Typhoid Mary.

With such manifest symptoms, diagnosis is simple,
That boil on their butt is now more than a pimple.
Diagnosing the pathogen’s really no chore:
Yellow streak down the back, an aversion to war.

Beginning mid-body there’s a leftward progression,
Higher levels of bile and mounting aggression.
Some victims of Mad How go totally postal,
Especially those diagnosed as being bi-coastal.

A most telling trait is a Roquefort stench
And delirious devotion to anything French.
Older victims on campus seem sallow and pale
With that sure sign of Mad How, a grey pony-tail.

Repetitive chanting, waving x-rated banners,
Are significant symptoms, as are infantile manners.
Shouts of “Vietnam!” and “Quagmire!” as foul epithets,
Could lead one to conclude this a form of Tourettes.

So what’s the prognosis for the Party’s infection?
That depends what is in the mad doctor’s injection.
If it’s more toxic serums of weakness and fear,
The fate of the victims is fatally clear.

Despairingly cynical, brimming with hate,
They’re likely to share the other dodo bird’s fate,
An ignoble end to their political journey,
A sheet over the face and Rove pushing the gurney.

Russ Vaughn