Did you know that John F. Kerry served in Vietnam?
Well, I certainly do, especially since I watched the Democratic Convention. Just about every speaker strategically mentioned how Kerry rhetorically said, “Send me, I’ll go [to Vietnam].”
“I am saddened that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign.” John F. Kerry said this in 1992, when defending Bill Clinton who dodged the draft.
Now he has not only inserted Vietnam into another campaign, but he has also made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, bankrolled by a top Republican contributor, are now calling Kerry to task for what they see as an exaggeration of his heroic actions. They are also enraged that he is conveniently ignoring his post-service time as a top Vietnam War protester.
Many in politics have tried to discredit the group. Considering that the vast majority of them served in combat zones in Swift Boats, been awarded nearly every medal in the book and have even been residents in the hellish Vietnamese POW camps, this is a futile exercise.
According to them, Kerry was an opportunistic Yale graduate who joined the Navy with the hopes of being the next JFK, since they share initials and the famous president served as PT boat commander in World War II. The Swift Boat Veterans claim that to achieve his goal, Kerry did everything under the sun to get his five service medals. He was eventually discharged after four months of service in Vietnam.
The majority of veterans against Kerry are not upset about his service in Vietnam but about his after-service allegations. War crimes did happen but Kerry grossly exaggerated the claims by comparing the soldiers to the likes of Ghengis Khan and portraying them as war criminals. Most of the testimony Kerry relied on to make these charges were proven to be uncredible sources of people pretending to be veterans or people with an axe to grind.
These men, as Kerry’s fellow swift boaters, have a right to question Kerry’s accounts for what happened in Vietnam. However, as far as the election goes, we need to get to the issues.
John Kerry is a hero for serving his country in Vietnam. George W. Bush is a hero for serving his country in the National Guard. So are the Starkville firefighters and even the so-called “paper pushing” military JAG Corps officer, which I hope to be one day. All of them serve our country in potentially dangerous ways.
There has been enough of this “my service is better than your service” politics.
Kerry made a mistake of making his service in Vietnam his perceived main qualification.
Others have noted John F. Kennedy didn’t run away from his service in World War II. But he didn’t make it the centerpiece of his campaign. Bob Dole was a certified war hero who was shot down in World War II and left paralyzed for months. His campaign revolved around his career in the Senate and as majority leader.
As I have said, John Kerry is a hero. As a hero, he should apologize to the other heroes who fought in Vietnam whom he broadly accused of committing widespread war crimes in his post-war protests. He should not apologize for his protests against the war, since that was his constitutional right and he was one among many Vietnam veteran protesters. However, if Kerry is to continue to brandish his Purple Hearts, he should apologize or amend his statements that have offended many veterans.
If he finally gets this out of the way, maybe we can talk about something that has not been mentioned at the DNC convention: namely, his 30 years of elected service.
Edward Sanders is a junior political science major. He can be reached at [email protected].