Question for Viet Nam vets re: Kerry filming himself

[Mixxster]

How many of you folks served with someone who had a movie camera with them? On another forum I frequent, we have this woman who insists that it's a big deal that Kerry filmed himself over there. I've already used the example of my father, who served in Korea and had a camera, but she perceives a movie camera much differently. While I realize that a Super 8 would have been much less prevalent, even during Viet Nam, was it really that rare for someone to have one?

[JuniperLea]

1. it's not the first i've seen

seems there have been many clips from such 'home movies' during that war.

funny how far people have to reach to discredit kerry.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[Chef]

2. Home Movies

Paleeeze! There are certainly a lot of people with an abundance of time on their hands. When I was in Viet Nam, one of the few benefits to being there was the availability of cheap cameras, watches and stereos through the PX system. There were many 16mm cameras in my group.

The bigger question is what kind of delusional mind would come up with a scenario that one would have the forethought to have the "rare" technology there to record events for future use in a presidential campaign. The idle mind is indeed the devil's workshop.

[EST]

3. My brother, who served two tours in 'Nam,

two tours in Korea, and two tours in Alaska, always had both a movie and a still camera with him and tool many, many films of himself as well as others around him. These pictures and films (8mm) had to go through some sort of censors when he sent them home, although they were very rarely clipped or cut. And yes, he also talked of atrocities, such as the time an aarvin who did not want to fight jumped on the skid of his helicopter and rode it up to cruising altitude. When this character stood up, one of the crew hit him in the face with his fist, knocking him off to his death, and this was a "friendly" (shudder).

[Old and In the Way]

4. As usual, they grasping at straws.

Lots of guys took camera's/Super 8's with them. Are we even sure that this was Kerry's camera? Or was he given the film footage by one of his shipmates?

Anyway, I'm waiting for Dimson to release movies/pics of himself while he was serving in the ANG.

[imax2268]

5. I know

many guys who were in Viet Nam who had cameras to take pictures and such...some made home movies and so on...

this is just some right wing meme to get them all fired up to try and discredit Kerry because their man has nothing to run on...so they discredit their opponent to make themselves look good...

it's truly pathetic that they have to grab at straws like that...

[henslee]

6. What, sir are you implying? That he is (gasp) an insidious camera buff??

Plent of folks have been shooting home movies since the 30's.

[shraby]

9. Fer cryin out sideways!

My dad was in WWII and had pictures of himself taken.

[billybob537]

7. GOP now stands for

Growing Overly Pathetic.

[DemoTex]

8. My commanding officer bought a video camera in Hong Kong.

It was the first consumer video camera any of us had ever seen. He videoed us. We videoed him. He videoed (or had someone video) company functions, day-to-day life, rocket and mortar attacks, and non-classified air operations. Others had 8mm movie cameras. It was certainly not "unusual."

Film and video are indispensable to military historians. Soviet film crews documented the Ia Drang battles from the NVA point of view. US film crews caught Lt. Col. Hal Moore waving helicopters out of LZ X-Ray during that bloody battle of mid-November 1965. That shot was used by Mel Gibson in developing his portrayal of Hal Moore in We Were Soldiers. Click here for some of those combat camera clips:

http://www.lzxray.com/combat_camera.htm

I wish I had taken a movie camera with me to 'Nam. I kept a audio diary on a cassette tape and took hundreds of 33mm stills (many with me the subject). Guess I won't be running for office. The repukes seem to be turning Vietnam service against us ... again.

[JohnKleeb]

10. This woman is wrong

Many veterans brought cameras with them, in fact thats how we have a fair amount of our footages from past wars, home videos.

[imax2268]

11. I'm curious...

30 years from now are we going to have to go through the same thing with some of the guys from Iraq...that may choose to run for President as a Democrat...are we going to hear this bullshit again...?

They have camera's and video cameras...

[DemoTex]

12. Roll that footage of Bu$h landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, please.

Especially that part where he struts around the deck with his nuts in the vise of his parachute harness.

Kerry spent a few bucks for some home-movie memories of the real thing. Bu$h spent untold millions for a fucking Rovian photo-op to prop up the myth that is Boy-Bu$h's sorry, chicken-hawk life.

[wicket]

13. He's a sock stuffer!

Those weren't nuts, those were socks! :evilgrin:

[Mixxster]

14. Thanks, everyone, for your responses. n/t

[noamnety]

15. documenting one's life

People have been keeping journals forever. Cameras and movie cameras are just a higher tech version of a diary.

Anyone claiming that documenting his life during a war makes him a bad person in any way needs to be prepared to make the same claim against Anne Frank.

[DemoTex]

21. It's another sign of intellectual curiosity.

Kerry realized that by being in Vietnam he was witnessing and living an important part of history. That was certainly my attitude. I tried to soak up as much of the culture and beauty of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people that I could, given the circumstances and the time constraints (365 days, in my case). Right or wrong, our individual experiences in the Vietnam war were, almost universally, extremely life-shaping. The astute sensed that fact when inhaling that first blast of tropical, shitburn-tinged air when stepping off the plane in Saigon, or Danang, or Bien Hoa, or Cam Rahn. It is the only thing that I have ever - when asked "what was it like?" - had to answer, with hesitance and respect, "You wouldn't understand." Bu$h and his cabal of chicken-hawk backers obviously do not understand. If they understood what it was like, they would never have smeared McCain, and Cleland, and - now - Kerry. Some things should transcend politics, but they don't understand or care about that, either.

[ibegurpard]

16. People who have movie cameras use them.

You could accuse everyone who owned a movie camera at the time of documenting events for future political office. This is ridiculous.

[Irishladdie]

17. I have many videos...

My Uncle was a Medic on the front lines and took many home videos. They are very common from what my Uncle has told me.

[SaveElmer]

18. No video, but lots of photos...many very gruesome

Was going through some of my Uncles slides he had packd away. Several with piles of bodies in the streets of what I assume was Saigon

[zulchzulu]

19. The Bible says that cameras (esp. film cameras) are evil!

"He who hath brought a device to burn images upon a material not made from the land naturally and enters a war to show he and the land he hath been on shall meet the maker of all evil and burn in the depths of hell."
- Book of Rove

[oasis]

25. "Book of Rove" That was a dandy.

:-)

[Demoiselle]

22. A Boston reporter viewed Kerry's "movies..."

..I can't remember his name now, but he was doing biographical work on Kerry and the Senator let him have the films. They are classic tourist movies...the repukes have been trying to describe them as "re-enactments of Kerry's heroic deeds" that he could use later in his political career. Utter nonsense. Just the standard issue standing in front of a palm tree with your buddies shot that many young men in strange places have filmed. (MAx Cleland said he had a camera too..took the same kind of movies.)

[Mountainman]

23. I had a movie camera in Vietnam

It was a 8mm that my dad sent me. I used it to film people and things in the last two weeks I was there for remembrance.

I think that if Kerry walked with Jesus the repubs would find a way to spin it to make him look bad.

[SayitAintSo]

27. If Kerry walked on water ..... the Pukes would wanna know...

why the hell he can't swim :shrug:

[VOX]

24. Having an 8mm movie camera around was not a rarity in the late 60s...

They were all over the place. My best friend's older brother did a tour in Saigon as an Armed Forces D.J., and he had a ton of home movies -- some taken by him, some taken *of* him wandering around Saigon. etc.

Just the old touristy "I was here" kind of thing. Disgusting (but not surprising) of the Repugs to make it out to be a shameful act for Kerry to have made home movies.

[ScreamingMeemie]

26. My uncle (ret Lt. Col. Air Force) documented much of his career in

the service via Super 8, and he never ran for office. These are people in a country for the first and probably last time in their lives. Of course one would take movies of friends, places, experiences...It's ridiculous for someone to even bring this up. But then, they're scrambling aren't they?