Here is good news for Kerry. New Republic Easterblog
PT 44: The name John Kerry and the word Vietnam are about to make big news. The December Atlantic Monthly cover story is an excerpt from Douglas Brinkley's forthcoming book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Kerry gave Brinkley, a historian, complete access to the copious pages of diaries, letters, and notes that the presidential candidate wrote while serving in Vietnam. The material, mainly concerning Kerry's disillusionment with failed policies and needless killing, is relevant to the situation in Iraq, and potentially controversial.
Because the excerpt has not yet been released I won't quote directly, but will assure you there are sizzling passages. In materials written during his Vietnam tour, Kerry says South Vietnamese forces deliberately gunned down civilians to make numbers to add to the body count. Kerry's notes say an unnamed Green Beret stood by as a South Vietnamese unit knifed to death a helpless old man who may have supported the Vietcong. Kerry's notes from 1968 discuss whether instead of trying to win over the civilian population of South Vietnam by improving daily life, United States forces were only making civilian lives worse by destroying things.
Kerry's writing from Vietnam shows him as a man of honor and patriotism who was deeply concerned about whether his country was behaving honorably. Everything in the Atlantic Monthly excerpt reflects very favorably on Kerry; some has clear bearing on current debates about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Publication of these letters and notes may remind the public of Kerry's distinguished war record, while making him seem an intelligent, thoughtful man who was way ahead of what would eventually become the widespread national feeling about what went wrong in Vietnam. The Atlantic Monthly excerpt and the Brinkley book on which it is based may project Kerry back into the national limelight.
Forty-two years ago, America fell in love with John Kennedy partly owing to the book P.T. 109, which recounted Kennedy's heroism in the Pacific in World War II; the volume was made into a Homeric movie of the same name, with Kennedy played by the even-handsomer Cliff Robertson. Now Tour of Duty, which recounts Kerry's time as skipper of the PCF-44, a boat similar to the P.T. 109, may bring attention to another Massachusetts senator. But P.T. 109 depicted Kennedy's unqualified enthusiasm for World War II, while Tour of Duty portrays Kerry's disenchantment with the war his generation was asked to fight. Many veterans, historians and analysts now feel about Vietnam the way that Kerry was perceptive enough to feel in 1968. But in a time of international threat, will Americans want a president whose formative military experience was flavored by disenchantment?
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