Reply #12: A step back in time...

[TexasLawyer]

...before the elections, when NC and Fayettville (home of Ft. Bragg) were deciding who should be president.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1576624p-7770117c.html

Published: Aug 28, 2004
Modified: Aug 28, 2004 6:57 AM

Most N.C. vets in Bush's camp
Many in poll question Kerry's service in Navy


By LYNN BONNER, Staff Writer

Military veterans in North Carolina solidly back President Bush's bid for re-election, according to a survey conducted this week for The News & Observer. Fifty-seven percent of Tar Heel vets said this week that they would vote for Bush, the Republican, while 35 percent prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry. And after weeks of public focus on Kerry's war record, 40 percent of North Carolina's veterans don't think he is being honest about his Navy service in Vietnam, while 35 percent believe him.

"The military veterans in North Carolina are much more conservative, more pro-Bush than in other parts of the country," said Del Ali, president of Research 2000, the Rockville, Md., polling firm that conducted the survey. In a similar poll Ali conducted in New York, veterans said they believed Kerry over his swift boat critics by a 2-to-1 margin, he said.

<snip>


The focus on the war -- who served, who was wounded and who dissented -- are an unwelcome intrusion for Orren Hightower, a veteran from Charlotte. <snip>
Hightower, a 56-year-old building materials salesman, was drawn into the presidential campaign when he was asked to attend a Kerry rally in Charlotte last week. Hightower calls Kerry a "brother in arms" but says Kerry's role as a prominent anti-war protester troubles him. "I just don't understand how Kerry could experience such a thing as Vietnam and then come home to protest the war," said Hightower, who said he voted for Bush in 2000 and is leaning that way again.



Vietnam vets in North Carolina who support Kerry see shades of Vietnam in the war with Iraq and say concerns about extended tours, struggling reservists' families and questions about an overextended fighting force will help sway voters to their candidate.

<snip>

But another veteran, Edward Parungo of Raleigh, said he believes Kerry's swift boat critics and also supports the Iraq war. "If all that's being said by the swift boat people is wrong, why does he not stand up and say it was wrong," Parungo asked. "He is not a commander. He is not leadership material." Parungo, a retired Marine who fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars, said reports on military deaths in Iraq are overemphasized. "I would rather, and will -- any day, any time -- go overseas and blow up their real estate and kill and maim their people than have them come over here and do that over here," said Parungo, 75. "This country has forgotten 9/11 a lot quicker than I thought they would."