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August 05, 2004
Lt. Kerry, reporting for duty!
I've been somewhat reluctant to criticize Kerry for overly hyping his combat record in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam ended 29 years ago. Most US ground troops had left more than 30 years ago. In terms of national self-image, international prestige, and military capabilities, this ill-conceived war has already done more than its share of damage to US national interests.
However, (and you knew that a however was coming, didn't you?) Kerry set himself up for renewed scrutiny of his war record by essentially making his three and half months of duty aboard "Swift" boats during the tail-end of 1968 and the early months of 1969 his major qualification for becoming Commander-in-Chief.
Now a dissident wing of Kerry's much-heralded "band of brothers" has come out with a book arguing that Kerry was a glory-seeking, risk-avoiding politician-on-the-make in Vietnam.
As I've said previously, I can empathize with Kerry's position in Vietnam. On the one hand, as a recent Yale graduate with the initials JFK and deeply-held political ambitions, he was eager to volunteer for duty in Vietnam and earn medals to advance his future political career. On the other hand, as he learned more about the situation in Vietnam, he became increasingly worried that we were on the wrong side of a civil war with no clear heros or villains. Given this situation, it would be rational (and sensible) to try to salvage what one could in terms of glory and medals and get the hell out of Dodge before the bullet/RPG/mine, etc. with your name on it got you.
And so he did.
Now, I would be happy to let things rest there. I was only 11 years old in 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) Kerry was getting scratched by (inadvertently self-inflicted?) shrapnel in a Boston Whaler on a Vietnamese river. But Kerry's address to the nation accepting the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, which essentially said "vote for me because I am a strong warrior who has, can and will protect our nation but is still a Massachusetts liberal", placed the question of his military service front and center. Bush, in contrast, never ran for President based upon his record as a Texas Air National Guard pilot of F-102 interceptors. Instead, he said that he had a record as a two-term Governor of Texas of bringing together Dems and Republicans to advance the people's interests.
But by putting his military service thirty some-odd years ago front and center in terms of his qualifications to be President, Kerry has opened the door to a revisionist interpretation of his 100 or so days of service in Vietnam, so long ago.
Posted by Spart at August 5, 2004 11:05 PM
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