The hypocrisy of MacAuliffe/Kerry's war record obsession is backfiring on them.
Ex-guardsmen say jab at Bush tars them
By By Bryan Bender Globe Staff, 2/23/2004
WASHINGTON -- Stephen Eckhardt was in the National Guard in 1968 when he was sent to Vietnam to run supplies into sniper-filled combat zones. Now he believes that service is being unfairly maligned.
Attacks by Democratic Party leaders on President Bush for his Vietnam-era service in the Air National Guard and questions of whether he fulfilled his requirements have angered former Guard members, like Eckhardt, who say some of the political jabs imply that anyone who served in the Guard was trying to avoid combat.
"I wanted to spit glass," Eckhardt said last week in an interview from his office in Miami, where he is a corporate executive recruiter. "It makes me feel my service was less than honorable and that I was just a draft dodger. I really got upset because I felt, for political purposes, a lot of people who joined the National Guard and fulfilled their duties were being portrayed as a bunch of privileged folks who got in to avoid service."
Enough Guard veterans share Eckhardt's views that Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, quietly sent a message earlier this month to the National Guard Association of the United States, recognizing the service of guardsmen. "There are many members of the National Guard who served as I did in Vietnam, and I honor their service," Kerry said in a statement sent to the association after the group told campaign aides of its members' anger. "Many of them died and their names are on the Vietnam memorial alongside some of those in my Swift Boat."
Guardsmen have made numerous phone calls and sent multiple e-mails to their association expressing concern that Democrats' criticism of Bush's service unfairly gives the impression that others who served in the National Guard did not do their part. Interviews with Guard veterans indicate a strong degree of concern that the criticism of Bush's service represents criticism of the Guard itself.
Kerry, whose supporters have contrasted his much-decorated service in Vietnam with Bush's infrequent training periods in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guards, said in the statement to the association on Feb. 13 that he "will always honor anyone who serves in the National Guard and carries out his or her service commitment."
Recent comments by Kerry and others, however, may give the impression that Guard service was an easy way out of the jungles of Southeast Asia, according to Guard officials and veterans. One controversial comment came from Kerry during an interview with FOX News Channel on Feb. 4.
"I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard," Kerry said. "Those are choices people make."
By lumping Guard service with individuals who avoided doing any service at all was "in effect, a slap in the face," said John Goheen, who retired from the National Guard in 2001 after 20 years and now works for the association. "Words can hurt a lot. They were intended for one individual, but the collateral damage has resulted in an awful lot of hurt feelings."
Kerry's standard answer on the campaign trail when asked about Bush's service record and Vietnam is that he respects Bush's service in the National Guard as well as all guardsmen who served, but he also notes that many young men -- at that time -- joined the National Guard expressly to avoid fighting in Southeast Asia.
Another stinging comment came earlier this month from Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He said, "George Bush never served in our military in our country." And a cartoon in The Miami Herald last week also touched a nerve. It depicted Kerry dodging bullets in Vietnam while Bush sat on the hood of a car at his Guard base stateside sipping a cold drink.
Some guardsmen fault the president for allegedly not fulfilling his duty and getting out of trouble when they believe they would not have been granted such an opportunity. Bush received permission to fulfill some of his Guard obligation with a different unit than the one he joined. But there are no records of his service for some time periods. Later, he requested and obtained an early release from his service to attend Harvard Business School.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Feb. 8, Bush warned that Democrats' attacks on him would backfire: "I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard."
Statistics indicate that thousands of guardsmen served in Vietnam, while others were called to duty for other dangerous missions at the time. But there was not a wholesale call-up similar to the ones for the 1991 Gulf War and the current fighting in Iraq, and Guard enlistment was, for some, an alternative to the draft.
In all, Army figures indicate that between 20,000 and 25,000 members of the part-time National Guard and Army Reserve served in the early years of the Vietnam War -- before President Lyndon B. Johnson decided that the reserves would not be utilized in large numbers. That was less than 3 percent of all who served in Vietnam, but retired Major General Richard C. Alexander, president of the National Guard Association, said: "The Guard during Vietnam was not all that different than it is today or any time in our 367-year history. Citizens joined and served their country. Some were sent to war. Some of those never came home. Anything else is just a misrepresentation of history guardsmen know to be true."
Retired Colonel Mike Doubler, author of "Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War," a history of the National Guard, said that at the height of the Vietnam War, the Army National Guard comprised about 400,000 soldiers.
"There was a cadre of guardsmen that had always been in the Guard and were going to stay in the Guard. They were disappointed that it wasn't mobilized for the conflict," he said. "It's incorrect to say that everyone in the Guard was avoiding military service. A large pool was already there, and that point has been lost."
Eckhardt, now 57, joined the Illinois National Guard in 1968, the same year that Bush got a slot in the Texas Air National Guard. That year, nearly 9,000 members of the Army and Air National Guard were sent to Vietnam. Of those, 94 were killed in action and three went missing in action, according to official Army statistics.
Eckhardt's unit helped quell riots after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He then served his Vietnam tour. A comrade was killed when the truck the soldier was driving was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. "I didn't use any influence to get into the Guard," Eckhardt said. "I went and came home." |
