After returning from his four month service in Vietnam John Kerry became involved in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Kerry served on the executive board of the VVAW and traveled the country giving speeches in it’s name. On January 31 to February 2, 1971 the VVAW sponsored an event in Detroit called the Winter Soldiers Investigation. The purpose of the investigation was to expose the atrocities that had been committed and were being committed by the US Military in the Vietnam war. Much of the money for the investigation was supplied by anti-war activists Jane Fonda and Mark Lane.

At the investigation over 100 Vietnam Veterans gave three days of grueling testimony about the atrocities that they had committed and witnessed in Vietnam. The basic thread was that horrible atrocities were the rule rather than the exception in Vietnam and that this condition was both known about and approved by the upper levels of the military. The American soldier and his entire chain of command were painted as war criminals. The stories were recorded by the Detroit Free Press, who later tried to corroborate the stories.

Seven month later John Kerry testified to the Fulbright Committee, repeated the stories that he had heard at the Winter Soldiers meeting, and added his own testimony of witnessing and participating in atrocities. The Fulbright Committee was a Senate committee of anti-war senators with an agenda of trying to get the US out of the Vietnam war.

But getting back to the Winter Soldiers meeting, it is important to present the investigation into the investigation. The Detroit Free Press tried to contact many of the Veterans for further details about their stories. The US military began an investigation into the allegations.  Later, after Kerry’s speech, anti war senator Mark Hatfield also called for an investigation into the charges.

They found that eleven of the people who testified at the winter soldiers meeting about their military experiences in Vietnam had never been to Vietnam and never been in the military. Other Veterans from the meeting who were contacted by various journals testified that they had never been to the meeting. In fact, some of them testified that they had never been to Detroit, nor were they anti-war. Apparently some of the Winter Soldiers had testified by using the names of people that they knew to be Veterans. Along with the fraud that was committed in identifying themselves, none of the stories that the Winter Soldiers told could be verified by anyone. The times, places, and circumstances that were laid out were either too vague to investigate or they were simply untrue.

The head of the VVAW while Kerry was on the executive board was Al Hubbard.  Hubbard had claimed to be an Air Force captian and pilot who had served in Vietnam and who had been wounded in action. When the military investigated Mr. Hubbard it was found that he had only been a Sergeant and he had never been assigned to or served in Vietnam.  The fraudulent testimony of the Veterans at the Winter Soldiers meeting was made possible because the VVAW never asked for evidence, sworn testimony, or corroboration of any of the claims. The organization had a political agenda and anything that would serve that agenda was accepted without question.

While the objective of the VVAW was mainly anti-war, they also formed loose working associations with other groups like the Black Panthers and communist organizations like Student for a Democratic Society and the People’s Coalition of Peace and Justice. As the organization became more radical in nature Kerry actually took part in a meeting where the subject of discussion was the assassination of Senators and Congressmen who supported the war. And while Kerry did not support these plans, it nevertheless shows the kind of organization that he choose to associate himself with.

The aim of the VVAW and the Winter Soldiers Investigation was to get the US out of the war by turning popular opinion against it. To that end Kerry and the VVAW were willing to turn all of the men who had served, been wounded and died in Vietnam into war criminals. To that end they wanted to paint the entire chain of command, all the way to the President as war criminals. If they had to lie to get what they wanted, it never made them hesitate.  Because of the actions of men like John Kerry we lost a war that we could have won and the Vietnam Veterans were the first soldiers to ever return to the US to be scorned by their country.

The multitude of Veterans that returned from Vietnam listened to Kerry and the anti-war crowd and they knew that what was being said about them was a lie. Their experiences did not correspond to the picture of them as Ghengis Khan raping the country that Kerry painted. They were deeply offended. Yes attrocities occurred in Vietnam just as they have occurred in every war that has ever been fought. But they were the exception not the rule. And they were not authorized or supported by the chain of command as Kerry claimed.

From "America in Vietnam" by Guenter Lewy, pp.317:
"Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name." ----

Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison. The Navy pilot had been shot down in June 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war. During torture sessions, he said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as "an example of why we should cross over to [their] side." "The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," Galanti said, "because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington."

Steve Pitkin testifies how he was used by Kerry and the Winter Soldiers.

Here is a leaflet that Kerry and the VVAW published accusing our soldiers of being war criminals.