Kerry no hero in eyes of Vietnam-era veteran
By CHRISTOPHER WARD
ajc.com
Growing up in the 1950s, I was frequently exposed to the late-night discussions of my father and his friends, all of whom had served in World War II.
One of these men, Ed Fitzpatrick, served in the U.S. Coast Guard and was a launch driver during D-Day, delivering squads of U.S. boys to the beaches in France.
Rob Helb served as an Army Air Corps gunner and lost an arm over the oil fields of Turkey. After crashing, he asked a crew member to retrieve his bloodied and severed arm so he could remove from its wrist the gold watch his father had given him.
My dad, at 17, joined the Navy and served in the Pacific. Enlisting in mid 1943, he arrived in the islands as the war was ending and served in the supply section for the duration, rather than as an aviation gunner's mate, for which he was trained.
I often sat at the bottom of the stairs to my attic room late at night, listening (which was against the rules) to their stories as they sat around the kitchen table, drank beer and laughed about a lot of things I was still too young to understand.
These men respected each other, and no matter the circumstances of their service, each was considered a brother veteran; each was a member of what is now sometimes called the "Greatest Generation."
In 1970, during the Vietnam War, I enlisted in the Navy to do my part, as I believed was my duty. I assumed I would someday sit late at night around a kitchen table, recalling my experiences with my veteran friends as had my father.
But Vietnam was not WWII, and the vets who served during the '60s and the '70s drew -- and still draw -- a distinction between those who saw combat in Vietnam and those who did service elsewhere. Ours was a band of brothers divided.
I spent four years in Europe as an enlisted man working in signals intelligence. Those who served with me, and thousands of others who never saw combat, almost always refer to themselves as "Vietnam-era veterans," rather than Vietnam vets.
We draw a distinction between those who actually saw combat and those who served in other roles, and unlike our fathers, who thought all vets equal, we believe the title "Vietnam veteran" belongs only to those who saw service in the war zone.
But all those who served during the Vietnam years hold clear that each of us did our job and had, for the most part, no control over what position we were given or where we were stationed. Each who did serve is special and a brother veteran.
For this reason I find it difficult to understand why Sen. John Kerry's campaign is attempting to belittle the service of President Bush during the Vietnam conflict.
We all know the differences. Bush was a pilot in the National Guard; Kerry was a combat veteran. The Boston Globe recently pointed out that Kerry, in less than two months of combat, received the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts, which made him a hero and allowed him to request early termination of his combat duty.
But what happened next bothers me. According to the Globe, Kerry became involved in the anti-war movement upon his return, and asked for and received an early discharge from the Navy so he could continue those efforts.
How could Kerry so easily abandon his comrades in Vietnam, and then, 30 years on, call on those same men and women to back his presidential ambition?
Kerry now holds himself up as a war hero and asks for my vote. Yet, 30 years ago he stood with Jane Fonda and gave aid and comfort to an enemy still killing our brother veterans by the hundreds.
Bush's honorable service in the National Guard bothers me less than Kerry's abandonment of his brothers, his switching sides and his active contribution to an enemy's efforts to kill Americans.
Time often softens the dark edges of military service, leaving grown men the ability to sit around a kitchen table late at night to laugh about the exploits that left them less than whole. But the dramatic difference between Hero Kerry and Hanoi Kerry leave me to wonder who he might next abandon, and at what cost to America.
Chris Ward is a former newspaper reporter and editor living in Cumming |
