For Clark, Kerry, full medal tactics
The Democrats' two war heroes have veterans' votes in sights
09:53 PM CST on Friday, January 23, 2004
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
MANCHESTER, N.H. – They both left Vietnam with medals and Purple Hearts. But for the last week, retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Kerry have been scrapping for the same strategic ground – the veterans vote – and making increasingly overt claims about whose military service should carry more weight with Democratic voters.
Gen. Clark has pointedly and repeatedly described Mr. Kerry's service as a lieutenant in Vietnam as that of a "junior officer." Mr. Kerry has responded that he's fighting for all veterans and notes that he has done so for years in the Senate.
Both candidates miss no chance to invoke their military roots. At a Veterans for Kerry rally Friday that drew hundreds of supporters, former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, introduced the Massachusetts senator as a "brother" who knows the high price of combat.
"He's been there, done that and gotten a few holes in his T-shirt," Mr. Cleland said.
For Gen. Clark, who graduated first in his West Point class and left the Army 34 years later with four stars, the military always serves as a starting point, even when he's not talking about defense issues. Pitching broader health care coverage Friday afternoon, for instance, he began by describing wounds he suffered as a 25-year-old infantry captain.
"I took a round through the hand, a bullet through the shoulder, another one through my leg. I think they hit me one more time as I was crawling away," Gen. Clark said at a nurses' conference hours before the Kerry event. "I was lucky. I had terrific doctors, and I had terrific nurses. ... The Army understood that without adequate health care, our soldiers cannot do their job. And I think it's the same thing for American families."
Democratic strategists say that with two Vietnam survivors in the race, veterans are focused on New Hampshire's primary as never before. Many are angry about the Iraqi war and occupation, others about spiraling medical costs and long waits for VA care. For Mr. Kerry and Gen. Clark, this is a natural base.
"The veterans of New Hampshire will decide who the next president of the United States will be," said Eric Massa, a retired Navy commander who spent four years as Gen. Clark's personal aide and now coordinates his campaign's outreach to veterans.
Two war heroes
Republicans have long painted Democrats as soft on defense. Democrats who have flocked to Gen. Clark or Mr. Kerry – and many say they're torn between the two – figure that's a tough sell against a decorated war hero or the former supreme NATO commander.
No other Democratic candidate served in the military, which may explain why these two campaigns spend so much time showing their candidates in uniform.
A Clark ad shows President Bill Clinton awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with the general in uniform in various settings. The Kerry campaign is running TV spots featuring footage of a young Lt. Kerry in Vietnam, walking purposefully in camouflage and body armor, holding a rifle. "The decisions that he made saved our lives," a former crewman says.
When Mr. Kerry returned from Vietnam, he led a group of veterans that opposed the war. As he likes to say on the stump, he got his first taste of politics "standing up with fellow veterans against Richard Nixon."
That's not just autobiography. It's also a subtle dig at Gen. Clark, who voted for Mr. Nixon and didn't register as a Democrat until October of last year.
Gen. Clark has gotten in a few licks in return, framing the race in terms of stars and bars – his own four stars trumping the single bar his rival wore in the Navy.
"It's one thing to be a hero as a junior officer. He's done that and I respect him for that, and he's a good senator," Gen. Clark said this week. "But I've had the military leadership at the top as well as at the bottom."
The Kerry team was irate. "What Wes Clark doesn't understand is that leadership doesn't come with rank. It's earned, and it's earned based on the integrity, the accountability, the courage," said John Hurley, national director of Veterans for Kerry and a friend since their days in the anti-war movement.
Gen. Clark has since insisted he never meant to denigrate anyone's service, just to point out that as a general, he had broader responsibility and "executive experience."
Emphasis on service
Mr. Kerry likes to emphasize the 30 years he's spent in the Senate, even as he plays up stories of his earlier heroism. At the rally Friday, he brought along a few friends as reminders – crewmen from the swift boat he commanded in the Mekong Delta. The former Green Beret he pulled from a river despite heavy enemy fire, earning him the Silver Star. And Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, awarded a Bronze Star in World War II, who put an edge on the Kerry-Clark rivalry by vowing that when his state votes Feb. 3, "we're going to teach that fellow ... that there are more lieutenants than there are generals."
Despite their rivalry, both spend far more time questioning President Bush's handling of Iraq than they do trying to undercut each other, punctuating their speeches with digs at the president's foreign policy acumen and use of the U.S. military.
A favorite topic is his landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln last May to mark the end of "major combat" in Iraq. Since then, more than 360 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. "I don't believe it's patriotism, when you're president, to dress up in a flight suit and prance around on an aircraft carrier," Gen. Clark likes to say.
Brian Hardy, commander of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in nearby Littleton, introduced Gen. Clark with a withering attack on Mr. Kerry. Sensitive to the backlash he had drawn with his own remarks, Gen. Clark went out of his way to distance himself and to praise his rival.
"I consider him a patriot. I consider him a distinguished senator, and I consider him a fine presidential candidate," he said.
Jim Helsley, 70, who spent 22 years in the Air Force, fixing engines on B-52s, said he came to the event torn between the two candidates – and left the same way.
"Both of 'em are Purple Heart veterans," he said. "That's what draws me to him and Kerry both." |
