This is really a general question, but my experience as a neophyte around here tells me that most things I ask get bumped over here eventually, so here goes.
One thing that John Kerry said in his “Winter Soldier” testimony was:
The second part of that statement is factually incorrect. Where did he get that incorrect info? Was he ever challenged on it, asked where and by whom he was misinformed? Has he ever retracted it?
I don’t know the answer to the question, but are you certain that’s factually incorrect?
Google brings up this
Looks like the statement you quote can be interpreted to concern either percentage of troops or of the general population, and is true for one but not the other.
I can’t answer your questions, so this might be considered off-topic, but it could be useful to remember that Kerry didn’t go to Washington with the intention of speaking before the House Foreign Relations Committee and so didn’t have a speech prepared in advance. He was there simply as part of the 5-day Vietnam Veterans Against the War protests. He was only asked to testify the day before and couldn’t possibly have had time to look up specific facts and figures. He even says to the Committee:
The full speech, including the interesting comments of the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator J. W. Fulbright, can be found
here.
I urge everyone to read the entire page. The things that Kerry said have been taken so out of context and sliced up into sound bites that sometimes make no sense, that it really should be read, all the way through, by all voters, Democrat and Republican.
As mic84 has noted, there was a general perception throughout the period from 1968 throuh the late 1970s (when people went back and looked at actual numbers) that the war was primarily fought by the very young and by blacks. Two often repeated refrains were that Vietnam was the land where the “white man sent the black man to kill the yellow man to “defend” the land the white man stole from the red man” and that the “average age” of the infantryman in Vietnam was 19 (as opposed to around 26 for earlier wars).
As mic84 numbers indicate, the first is not true; I have also seen the “19 year old” claim refuted.
It is the sort of “common knowledge” that gets repeated to the point that it is accepted as true, even though there is no factual basis for the claims.
(I am not sure whether the numbers come closer to the mythology if we limit the sample to infantry line troops or if some other subset of troops might provide numbers that would suggest the myths. For example, could Air Force and Navy casualties have more old white guys that would push the overall numbers closer to the median values? However, as much as this point has been kicked around in the last ten years, or so, I’d have thought that the defenders of the myths would have done the homework to prove that point by now.)
Well, I have never had reason to doubt the veracity of Paul Hardcastle before. It may be, however, that I will need to produce an even more reputable cite to convince you.
Black men, 14.1% of enlisted men casualties to 11% of the population. What a lying bastard that Kerry is eh? :rolleyes:
But 14.1% is not the highest percentage of casualties. Maybe Kerry wasn’t using base 10. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that he ment the highest precentage of the casulties in proportion to their precentage of the general pop. I can’ t imagine that he thought (or thought he could make anyone else think) that >51% of casulties were african-american.
It’s very very very simple. Black male combat deaths were 20% ((14-11)/14) or so higher than the proportion of black males in the population. That is what ‘disproportionate’ means. What is there not to understand?
tagos, the original quote by Kerry was that “the highest precentage of casulties” were blacks. That is, more blacks then any other ethnic group. This is so obviously not true that I think we can assume he meant “disproportionate” even though its not technically what he said.
Oh - I see. You were taking the most obtuse interpretation possible despite the fact no one seriously claimed black males provided an ABSOLUTE highest percentage of casualties and Kerry clearly was not claiming that either.
Whatever - that’s a point to you. Very well done.
Straw man. We all knew at the time and know full well now what was meant. Black combat deaths were in excess of their percentage in the population. How is carping over the technical sense of words ripped from their context helping the Board Mission Statement?
Kerry was right. Blacks were carrying more than their share of the burden and all the nit-picking obtuseness in the world does not alter that fact.
The quote is in context. If you look at the original speach, the phrase quoted by the OP is the only thing that Kerry says on the matter, he didn’t say anything at the time to further clarify.
The OP claimed that Kerry was incorrect, and he was right. Myself and others went on to say that while he was incorrect, he almost certainly meant something different then what he said and that most people listening probably understood. Still, regarding the actual meaning of Kerry’s words and noting that they are wrong seems like a worthy observation in the struggle to fight ignorance.
English, I reckon. I can use the same sort of rhetorical Gordian knot to claim that you took the “highest percentage” of pizza because you took 3/4 of the sausage and olive portion.
Just a tad one-sided, isn’t it? I don’t exactly see much in the way of cross-examination.
Tagos, you have to realize that for many, being willfully obtuse is SOP around here.
I appreciate all the comments. Kerry words, whatever he meant, have been used by others to say “the majority of deaths in Viet Nam were from minorities”.
It may be right that he meant “disproportionate.” Thanks for the possible clarification. But Kerry may have been repeated a canard.
But even if we mean “disproportionate”, it requires further study.
One person posted that several forces were in play that “conspired” to create a higher percentage of black deaths. The “conspire” here can, of course, have several meanings.
In Dunnigan and Nofi’s well documented book “Dirth Little Secrets of the Vietnam War,” they show that the disproportionate black deaths early in the war were attributable to the fact that blacks were over represented at the time in combat arms and older NCO’s. He cites, for example, that toward the beginning of the war the percentage of black enlisted career military personnel was higher than the black population at large, and especially in some Airborne units (a volunteer unit; Jimi Hendrix comes to mind, btw).
When the war heated up (65-66), NCO’s in combat units suffered disproportionately, and these NCO’s were disproportionately black. As the war went and draft enlarged, the proportion of black casualties actually decreased.
These authors claim that the 12.5 death rate was about that of blacks in army over the course of war, and about that of black men of military age. (page 7)
The authors claim that the one population group that suffered most disproportionately was not blacks, but Roman Catholics, who comprised 24% of the US population at the time, but 30% of Vietnam deaths.
The average age of those killed, btw, was nearly 24 years old, and of enlisted men, the average age of those killed was 22. About 25% of the deaths were rank E-3 and below; the rest were NCO’s and officers.
I am not sure what this means, but blacks were 12.1% of combat deaths, but 14.6% of non-combat deaths.
Well, I see a problem with one of the statistics at least:
Not to take anything away from my white brothers out there, but ‘includes hispanics’ makes me go hmm. My dad (a hispanic) was in the service in Vietnam…and there were a LOT of folks that were hispanic or would be considered hispanic today that were there also. So, I think the ‘Caucasian’ casualties of 86.3% who died in Vietnam doesn’t really reflect reality very well either. Sorry for the hijack, but I thought I’d point that out.
Who cares what Kerry meant btw? What difference does it really make?
-XT
Well, it was a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. What you seem to be complaining about is that apparently the more conservative members of the committee decided not to show up for this hearing. I agree that if this was the case (as it seems to be since I doubt the committee had only 7 members), then that would indeed be disappointing, but who precisely should we blame for that?
Xtisme: I completely agree that Hispanics are left our of the statistical equation. Some research has been done regarding deaths of Spanish surname military personnel, but not enough.
Here is the reason it matters: Kerry has been accused of “treason”. I think that is too strong a word, at least legally.
But morally, for many vets (myself included, though post Viet Nam, 73-76), his testimony was not a recitation of facts, but a skewed presentation to make the U.S. military look at bad as possible.
In other words, the question of percentage of the deaths of black military personnel is highly complex. It really requires lots of research and study. Kerry chose to say things, simplify them greatly, to make the U.S. and the U.S. military look terrible. One is left to the conclusion, and many have made this conclusion, that blacks were intentionally sent to front line units to die in large numbers.
This myth still infects the rhetoric today, with activists claiming that combat units are disproportionately black, when the slightest research will tell anyone that combat units today are disproportionately white.
If I may give an analogy: George McGovern served in a B-24 bomber over Germany in WWII. Now, there is probably no group of Americans responsible for more slaughter of innocent civilians than the U.S. Army Air Forces in WWII. We don’t think of it as such, or hold them morally culpable, because of the context in which this bombing took place.
I have read Kerry’s testimony carefully, and I can pick apart every aspect of it. Was it out and out lying? Maybe not. Was it skewed to bring discredit and dishonor to American troops, many still fighting and dying: yes. It was not presented in moral context
I actually agree with so much of his social policies, but I find myself highly resentful of him for that and subsequent actions regarding Viet Nam. He held the U.S. to a standard to which he did not hold our enemy, and therefore did not present our actions in the context in which the war was being fought. I wish he would apologize, for he did act in excess. I had hoped he had apologized. I was hoping that maybe someone could point me to where he had apologized – maybe in his book, which I have not read.