Interesting letter published in Mark Steyn's mailbox
KERRY DREW A BLANK
I met John Kerry when I became a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971. If I were running for office, I might be tempted to say that I joined the WAW because I was opposed to the war. The truth was less noble. I was broke, their offices were a convenient crash pad and you could meet a hell of lot of loose women by going to demonstrations as a “Vet”.
I didn’t last long. Half the guys were outright liars, and the few who were sincere were either physically damaged (Ron Kovic, Jan Scruggs) or hopelessly addicted to Marxism. The most committed “radicals” were the FBI agents. They were right out of Conrad – trying desperately to incite to real violence a bunch of mostly lost kids who enjoyed having cameras pointed at them and getting stoned.
John was clearly on the make, but he was also a classic preppy mook. He wanted so much to be one of the people like Scott Camille who had been “stone killers” but after a few minutes of talking to him it was clear that he was one of the guys who never knew where the fire was coming from even when the enemy were using tracers.
The only lengthy conversation I ever had with him was about the Mekong Delta. I had been there from summer 1967 to late spring 1968, and I was genuinely curious to know how if the Mekong had changed as much after Tet as other guys had told me. I also wanted to know what he thought about our armament. Being even then a fervent admirer of Ulysses Grant, I had read a fair amount about his use of armored gunships in the Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg campaigns; and it had pissed me off that we had all been cruising up and down the Mekong with less armor plate than Grant had used. When I mentioned this to John, I got one of those blank stares you get from people who have no idea what you are talking about but are not quite confident that it is safe to be ignorant. His reply was something about “yeah, it was hell”.
I may have been a little touchy on the subject since I missed what would have been my one and only purple heart by deciding to get a cup of coffee about 30 seconds before an RPG cut through the outer bulkhead on the O-1 level of my LST and turned the mattress I been lying on into confetti. (Mr. Roberts in reverse; ever since then, I have never turned down an opportunity for caffeine).
John’s only replay was something along the lines of “Man, it was hell.” I doubt it. There were few safer places to be in Viet-Nam than the Mekong after Tet. The VC had been pretty much wiped out, and the NVA never made any serious attempts to use the rivers.
What I do not doubt is that John successfully gamed the system to get his 3 purples and his quick ticket home. I suppose I should be bitter about it, but life is too short; and you have to look at it from the point of view of his fellow sailors. The ones who knew what they were doing also knew that a guy that arrogantly dumb was a menace. He could get you killed. Better to ship him home.
John’s current stature as a “war hero” is a measure of how few Americans - even those of the “Greatest Generation” – have ever seen the sharp end of war.
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