South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country." After defining "Winter Soldiers" as a play on words from Thomas Paine, Kerry summarized the reason he and his supporting veterans were speaking out: "We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out." Kerry described the anger and betrayal felt by Vietnam War veterans, then moved on to political issues: "In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to use the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart." Kerry expressed his belief that nothing in Vietnam threatened the United States, and that the war was merely a Vietnamese civil war instead of part of a global struggle against Communism. He added: "We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw firsthand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong." Testimony 9 April 28, 1971. Testimony given by Jay Craven, Susan Gregory, John Scagliotti, Chip Marshall and Kathy Sister (all representatives of Students and Youth for a People's Peace) on the devastation of war