The veterans group released the following statement:
Vets for Freedom, America's largest nonpartisan orgaization representing the active duty troops and veterans of the War on Terror, called for an apology from Senator John Kerry for his remarks belittling U.S. troops. In a campaign stop in California yesterday, Senator Kerry told supporters, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Vets for Freedom strongly condemned Senator Kerry's remarks, which implied that the military was only for the lazy and uneducated. Vets for Freedom has called for Senator Kerry to apologize to the troops for his insensitive comments. Vets for Freedom's executive director, Wade Zirkle, who voluntarily joined the Marine Corps after earning a bachelors degree, said this about the remarks, "On one level, these remarks are insulting and disparaging, and Senator Kerry should be ashamed. One another level, the remarks are simply false. This is an all-volunteer military with overwhelmingly positive recruitment and retention numbers, and these comments are just baseless." Senator Kerry today refused to apologize, and instead projected the controversy by bizarrely insulting a radio host and White house Staffers. Said Zirkle, "Senator Kerry is out of touch with the trigger-pulling class of today's military. This military attracts the best and brightest individuals in America, and it is shameful that someone would try to publicly belittle us for any reason." Zirkle served two deployments to Iraq as a Marine infantry officer before being wounded in action.