electionMIKE CASEY: My name is Mike Casey. I was a medic in Vietnam. I served in Vietnam from 1970, ’71. I was getting—I got there toward the end of the war, so I was seeing the homicides, the suicides, the rampant drug addiction, heroin addiction, shootouts. We had assault helicopters. We had Cobra gunships. We had APCs. We had dusters. We had 155-millimeter howitzers. We had 175-millimeter howitzers. And we were killing people.
JEREMY SCAHILL: John McCain, of course, is also a Vietnam vet and is running in part on his war record. Your response?
MIKE CASEY: You know, he had twenty-three combat missions over Hanoi. I know what those airplanes hit. I have many friends that have walked into villages that had been bombed by napalm, that have killed hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. He bombed civilian targets, because civilian targets are military targets. You have to remember that. It’s the most important thing that you can remember. We kill innocent civilians on purpose. They are military targets. This Geneva Convention stuff is bull [blank]! And that’s what we’re doing in Iraq. That’s what we’re doing in Afghanistan. It’s what we did in Vietnam. It’s what we did in Laos, Cambodia, Panama. You name it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Both the Republicans and the Democrats refer to John McCain as a war hero.
MIKE CASEY: Bullshit.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Why?
MIKE CASEY: I got a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Am I a hero? No! I did—I made a difference in Vietnam, and I’m proud—to a large degree, I’m proud of my service, because I think it made the difference between helping a lot of people in Vietnam with their injuries, because, like I say, I saw injuries. I saw dead American soldiers taken off of helicopters. And, you know, gentleman, there is nothing worse than to see an American soldier take his last breath. And there’s nothing worse than seeing a dead Vietnamese civilian that was killed irresponsibly by an American GI.
I get so tired of this hero stuff. I was not a hero in Vietnam, end of story, Bronze Star or not, Combat Medical Badge or not. I did my duty in Vietnam. But John McCain riding on a hero status? Give me a break! You know, I get so tired of John McCain thinking he’s the only one that was damaged in Vietnam with his post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s funny that when he came back as a POW, they never interview the enlisted men that were in those camps. And I know some of those people that were in those camps.
