Oh, Did He Mention That He's a Vet?
By JODI WILGOREN
DURING a major speech in Seattle on Thursday, it was hardly surprising that Senator John Kerry referred to what he had learned in the Navy. Not because the speech was kicking off an 11-day focus on national security, but because <font size=4>Mr. Kerry, who commanded Swift boats on the Mekong River, mentions his military service every day, practically any time he speaks at any length.
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Earlier in the week, he invoked his time in uniform while unveiling his new red, white and blue campaign plane, saying the 757 would be his "freedom jet," a term American servicemen used for the buzzing aircraft overhead in Vietnam. Last month, he explained his devotion to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by recalling how he used them for barter in Southeast Asia.
On a recent visit to Jacksonville, Fla., virtually the first words out of his mouth at a riverfront rally were "great Navy town." He often spots someone in a crowd and wonders, "Is that a Navy jacket?" (No? Marines? I'm a Navy man, he reminds.) Talking about health care for veterans the other day in Little Rock, Ark., Mr. Kerry declared his commitment to the cause a moral one, "not just based on my service."
And when a local television reporter in Pennsylvania inquired how he would counter the sense that people would prefer to have a beer with President Bush, Mr. Kerry suggested, "Talk to the guys I served with 35 years ago."
The incessant reminders of his four-month combat tour are hardly accidental. They echo the core of Mr. Kerry's $25 million advertising campaign describing his "lifetime of strength and service," using what Democrats see as their best hope for neutralizing any advantage Mr. Bush has as a commander in chief during wartime.
Senator Kerry and his campaign were shocked to discover last year that half the voters in New Hampshire, despite decades of watching the Boston television stations that chronicled his career, did not know Mr. Kerry was a veteran.
"It's absolutely purposeful," Tad Devine, a campaign adviser, said of the steady stream of military references. "That experience is a central part of his life. It's really important that people come to know him and his whole story."
But Mr. Kerry typically mentions his short stint as a prosecutor only while discussing criminal justice. Stories of his starting a cookie company rarely pop up outside small-business forums.
Yet in ads and two recent speeches, Mr. Kerry talked not only of his own military credentials but of those of his father, who served as a pilot in World War II. (The campaign likes to point out that Mr. Kerry was born in an Army hospital in Colorado, a state they hope to capture in the fall.)
Several times this spring, opponents have tried to turn Mr. Kerry's military history against him, raising questions about whether he deserved his three Purple Hearts, and recalling his controversial antiwar statements and activities after his return.
But most people in the campaign did not seem to mind. USA Today published an article about whether Mr. Kerry discarded his medals at an antiwar protest, but it ran with a big graphic showing his Silver Star, Bronze Star and other honors.
Nearly every time Mr. Kerry's campaign plane takes off or lands, a dozen or so veterans turn up on the tarmac to greet him, their colorful caps and pins captured by the local news cameras. Many an audience includes a questioner who begins with, "Welcome home, brother," a familiar veterans' greeting.
Even without veterans in the audience, Mr. Kerry will not be stopped. "One thing I learned in the Navy," he said in Seattle, "is that when the course you're on is headed for the shoals, you have to change course."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
