Jim Webb's Mi Lai Moment

Boom, without having seen or read a wealth of his other interviews, or knowing what lead to the impetus of this one, I simply can't answer.

I can say that in a normally heavy Vietnam combat tour, you could probably easily write a book and still have stories left over.

Perhaps there is a political motivation aspect to this...that Webb felt this previously untold story would best illustrate his point.

I will say this...as long as the story is true (and believe me, there will be those trying to reach out to others who can back up his story) I care little about the political motivation behind it. I'd rather try and catch his message in the story than wonder why he's telling it.

But thank you for allowing me to debate this with you. Nice to have a civil discussion once in a while.

 

Dude. Did you even read the story? Because I did. And anybody who tries to make any kind of political issue out of it is a world-class jackhole.

And I might very well be the most Republican person here.

 

He's a first term Seantor from Virginia and a Vietnam Vet. A book publisher threw a bunch of money at him to do a book. The book is coming out now as primary season ends and the story is in the book and the excerpt is in Parade to help promote the book. What other motives are needed?

 

Tell us please how your vetting process came out on GWB's service in the National Guard.

 

C'mon, Spinning...you're playing the same "gotcha" game game some on the other side play. Don't do that, please.

 

Why not? Why should we be "above it" when they'll do whatever it takes to turn war heroes into criminals?

 

For the same reason we as a nation shouldn't condone torture, even though the other side does it freely. We're better than that.

 

I figured that CBS already had that vetting covered and did not need my assistance.

BTW - if George Bush wrote the same story I would have asked the same question.

 

Boom --
There are acres of distance between this and My Lai.
You know it, too.
You threw that into the headline to stir the pot.

 

No I don't know that - I read that Webb lead a platoon going around clearing villages throwing grenades into villagers bunkers. Story seems a bit to sanitized for me.

More from story for those too lazy to click on:

"We were in contact with the enemy, and night would soon be upon us. I walked through the village, setting up our defensive positions and calling in a report to our commander. A corpsman followed me, cradling the boy in his arms. He and I had now served together through seven months of hard combat. We had seen a mountain of tragedy, and we kept nothing from each other. He was insistent: “Skipper, if you don’t get this kid out of here right now, he’s going to die.”

I called for a medevac, but I knew what the answer would be. Emergency medevacs were available only for Marines. We were in a high-risk landing zone. Vietnamese civilians could only be given “routine” medevacs when landing zones were calm and all Marines had been taken care of."

What do you do now, lieutenant?

I couldn’t lie to my chain of command. There weren’t any wounded Marines. I made a case for the boy and lost. “They’ll only bring it in as a routine,” I told the doc. We knew this could take hours.

“All right,” he answered, clearly exasperated. “Then you watch him die.”

The doc put the boy on a wooden box next to our command post. Over the next half hour, as I spoke on the radio, the boy lay near me quietly, never making a sound, all the while watching me. Nor could I stop watching him. And as we stared at each other, he slowly died.

 

For the love of all things good and decent, man, step away from the computer and pour yourself a man-sized cup of STFU.

 

That's what the ReThugs do. They twist and distort and slap sensationalistic headlines on something in a pathetic attempt to turn good guys into bad guys for their own political purposes.