Kerry: Tour of Duty

[Octafish]

This article shows why Kerry voted for IRW. He did what he thought best to protect the country. BTW: Character matters. A profile of Sen. Kerry, from The Atlantic:

Tour of Duty

by Douglas Brinkley

EXCERPT...

John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February of 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December of 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the guided-missile frigate USS Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June of 1968 Kerry was promoted to the rank of lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam, where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats. He received the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action, and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy's Silver Star for gallantry in action. Kerry was discharged from the Navy in January of 1970, and soon became one of the most prominent spokesmen for the antiwar movement.

The following excerpts are drawn from Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.

An Incomprehensible Moment

n the afternoon of February 26, 1968, the twenty four-year-old Ensign John Kerry was on watch on the bridge of the USS Gridley. His ship had just left Midway Island en route to the Philippines as part of a convoy that also included the USS Turner Joy, made famous by the August 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident. The Gridley's executive officer approached Kerry and asked if he had a friend named Pershing. There could be only one reason for the question, and Kerry did not want to hear it. His stomach went hollow, and he slumped onto a railing for balance. "I knew immediately it was all over but even when I read the telegram it took moments to sink in," Kerry wrote to his parents of the instant he learned—from his future wife Julia ("Judy") Thorne—that his close college friend Dick Pershing was dead. "Then I just ... cried—a pathetic and very empty kind of crying that turned into anger and bitterness. I have never felt so void of feeling before—so numb."

SNIP...

Kerry blamed the Johnson Administration. The very week Pershing was killed, General Earle G. Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his eleventh inspection tour of South Vietnam. Kerry suspected that Wheeler would return with the same message as always, telling the American people that their great nation was winning another war, and write up some overoptimistic reports for the White House. What Wheeler wouldn't mention was that 543 U.S. soldiers had been killed the week Pershing died. Nor would he note the 2,457 wounded.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/12/media-preview/brinkley.htm

[Racenut20]

1. I do not think the Senator can win...because

He does not sound bite very well, especially to a southerner..BUT..
I can tell you from personal experience that 3 purple hearts, a bronze star, and a silver star (the best the Navy could give)would not have come easy.

He couldn't have commanded that boat with a boil on his butt, nor have gotten the medals those days for getting lost and wrecking a truck.

We salute you Senator. You ARE a hell of a man!!!!!

[Octafish]

6. He does not translate into sound bites, Racenut20...

... Please, how would you recommend he make his complex policies and positions into more concise messages? I'm totally serious and I'm all ears.

FYI: There's a personal interest, as I volunteer for Kerry.

[sandnsea]

20. He's 3rd in NC

As of the Nov 10-13 poll. Duty, truth and personal responsibility. That sound-bytes in the south and Kerry is all of that 10x over.

[blm]

25. good description

.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

26. "Duty, truth and personal responsibility"

You good! That'll rock Bush's base.

[Octafish]

33. That is a great description, sandnsea!

Thanks!

[Octafish]

2. Kerry never heard of NSAM 263 orr 273...

... but he sided with Kennedy over Johnson in his analysis of the situation in southeast Asia. — Octafish

EXCERPT...

Kerry had little company in his wish to volunteer for Swift-boat school. A number of the men on the Gridley had already seen enough of combat, and preferred to stay out of harm's way to whatever extent possible.

As he walked along the Danang waterfront, Kerry was startled to see Maoist graffiti spray-painted on walls, and shocked by the gruesome sight of a pile of dead Vietcong awaiting mass burial. "The thoughts of what must have taken place turned my stomach," he wrote in a letter to his parents. For 2,000 years the Vietnamese had been warding off invaders—Chinese, French, Japanese—and now he was one of the latest wave, one of what the novelists Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer had called Ugly Americans in their 1958 book set amid the conflict in Southeast Asia. Kerry had read history books about how Vietnam's would-be conquerors had always been vanquished in the end, and it seemed to him inevitable that his own nation was next in line to lose. The first U.S. Marines had landed at Danang in March of 1965, and now, some three years later, the United States was already losing its grip. Kerry watched the local peasants matter-of-factly going about their business of cultivating rice as deadly explosions of U.S. ordnance echoed off the nearby Marble Mountains. His letter to his parents continued,

Every so often, there would be an open field where there were a few huts and people working in it with their pant trousers rolled up and their large hats covering up expressionless faces. How could these people really believe we are helpin them? It seemed so utterly crazy—the idea of all this modern equipment fighting for an ideal that meant everything to those who were fighting but that could so obviously mean nothing to those ... whom the fighting was supposedly for. I know it is easy to be emotional but I can't help getting the feeling that their faces seemed to say go away and let us alone.

[dfong63]

7. so, what does it mean to "serve with honor" in such a war?

[Pez]

10. perform the duty you were assigned to the best of your abilities...

...and be as upstanding and dignified a representative of your country as you could.

the soldiers don't decide when or where or what; they have the unenviable duty to serve the leaders of their country.

edit i can't spell today :-\

[dfong63]

12. yet he killed people who were defending their own country

... which as Kerry admitted, was being invaded by the US.

how "honorable" is that?

perform the duty you were assigned to the best of your abilities...and be as upstanding and dignified a representative of your country as you could.

the soldiers don't decide when or where or what; they have the unenviable duty to serve the leaders of their country.

i thought that notion was discredited after the Nuremburg trials.

[Pez]

13. your point being?

a little over 50 years ago we killed germans in germany, who were protecting their country, which i think we can all admit, was being invaded by the you.s.

what is your point, other than to imply kerry is a dishonorable war criminal for performing duties he was assigned by the you.s. government in viet nam.

[dfong63]

14. Kerry is proud of his "service"

... and his medals, which were awarded for killing those people Kerry admits were defending their country against an invader. and which country was no threat to the US.

a little over 50 years ago we killed germans in germany, who were protecting their country, which i think we can all admit, was being invaded by the you.s.

Germany was a real threat to the US. Vietnam wasn't. Iraq wasn't.

and it was the patriotic "good Germans" who enabled Hitler to do his dirty work.

i don't think those medals say anything good about Kerry's character.

[Pez]

15. "service" is more than killing

it wasn't killing people that he is proud of; he learned from being in war (which he didn't start, btw). afterwards he came back and led protests against the same war. you shouldn't read selective quotes; it's better to read the entire article because it gives a broader picture about his experience, and his feelings and thoughts.

under which circumstances do you permit people to feel proud about their service?

blaming soldiers or somehow insisting they feel shame for something they were ordered to do isn't the most generous comment i've ever come across...

[sandnsea]

19. He saved his troops lives

And that's what being a solider in Vietnam was all about, getting everybody home.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

21. Your attack on Kerry is an attack on all Vietnam vets and it's despicable.

[blm]

28. Did you even read the whole piece?

Can't you see that Kerry UNDERSTANDS the issues of war in ways that few have come to realize, let alone express?

Why you take this incredibly painful and epiphanal time for a good man who wants to use his experience to seek a greater peace amongst peoples, and dirty it for your OWN narrow political gains, is beyond me.

[Octafish]

23. Kerry protected the Constitution...

... he put the mission and the safety of the men under his command ahead of his own safety.

When he came home from the war, he did all he could to stop it. He even testified before the US Senate, asking them: "How can you ask a man to die for a mistake?"

John Kerry's actions were noticed by the Nixon White House. Nixon (who kept a warm place in his black heart for George H W Bush and "The Texans") put Kerry on his "Enemies List."

Don't take my word for it, read all about it:

With antiwar role, high visibility

EXCERPT...

The tone was sneering. But the secretly recorded dialogue illustrates just how seriously Kerry was viewed by the Nixon White House. Some of these conversations have not been previously publicized, and Kerry said he had never heard them until they were provided by a reporter.

Day after day, according to the tapes and memos, Nixon aides worried that Kerry was a unique, charismatic leader who could undermine support for the war. Other veteran protesters were easier targets, with their long hair, their use of a Viet Cong flag, and in some cases, their calls for overthrowing the US government. Kerry, by contrast, was a neat, well-spoken, highly decorated veteran who seemed to be a clone of former President John F. Kennedy, right down to the military service on a patrol boat.

The White House feared him like no other protester.

CONTINUED...

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061703.shtml

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. First off,

Let me say that I really don't question Kerry's character. He would probably make a pretty good president. My main beefs are the IWR and PA. Probably the same for many others here who don't have him as their first pick. You say:

This article shows why Kerry voted for IRW. He did what he thought best to protect the country.

The natural questions from many here would be: How was Iraq a threat to the US? What specifically did we need "protection" from?


I admit that I thought SH probably had WMD. I still saw Iraq as no serious threat to America. Can you answer those two questions? Thanks.

[Octafish]

5. The White House said Saddam was dangerous.

That is the Clinton White House.

The UN said the same thing. That was 1998.

Then there was 9-11 and all the warnings that BUSH failed to heed became reality.

Kerry didn't want to risk worse things — NCB — from happening. Shoot, he knew what Reagan and Bush had sold Saddam — from cluster munitions to the Ames anthrax strain.

[helleborient]

9. Wesley Clark makes a very good point that it was well known...

That Saddam Hussein was only tangentially (if at all) related to the terrorism that we were fighting in Afghanistan.

9-11 had nothing to do with Iraq...if John Kerry believes it did, he does have severe problems analyzing intelligence information.

[Pez]

11. bush made iraq an issue; negotiations were on his terms

problem = BUSH INC

[Pez]

8. eh; ok.

I admit that I thought SH probably had WMD. I still saw Iraq as no serious threat to America. Can you answer those two questions? Thanks.

the point of the resolution was to determine whether or not SH had WMD. kerry and other dems worked into the resolution to leave out syria and iran, go to the UN to build a coalition, and force SH to let inspectors back in to determine whether there were WMD in iraq.

after our unsuccessful trip to get bin laden in afghanistan (something which kerry was very critical of the president over in summer 2K2), dubya spit out the words "axis of evil" and IRAQ. the president of the united states can't basically declare war on a country on (inter)national television and then Take It Back, unfortunately. shrubby made a big deal out of iraq, and something had to be done. the fact that we could probably name the serial numbers of all the chem/bio weapons SH might have had since poppy SOLD them to him, and since SH had been giving the UN the bird for years, with dubya's little speech outburst made it an issue. the threat of force worked; hussein let inspectors in. now, that BUSH INC ignored the inspectors is another matter entirely, and responsibility for the war rests on dubya's shoulders. blaming kerry for the mess BUSH INC diverts accounbtability away from the jackholes who started this whole thing.

the security issue comes down to weapons proliferation, which kerry wrote a book on back in '97. SH was a potential threat, maybe not imminent, but the fact that the IWR got inspectors back in iraq has to be noted. and it also has to be noted that the person who brought it up and set the date to go to war was bush. he also made marriage an issue by that ridiculous piece of crap DoMA; not as lethal, but still an issue.

if hussein wasn't a threat before dubya started his posturing crusade, he probably got real itchy after all the spew that came out of shrubby's mouth.

[blm]

16. Iraq under Saddam wasn't so dangerous, imo.

Iraq under a Bin Laden who targeted Saddam for overthrow was a VERY dangerous prospect.

[Pez]

17. BUSH INC's rhetoric created that possible scenario

if that fuckup had gone after bin laden instead of mouthing off about iraq i don't think that scenario would have been a possibility. iraq was the only major secular country in the ME; had more effort been put into afghanistan to stabalize and form a secular government i think iran and possibly iraq citizens would have seen hope for an improvement in their situations.

of course BUSH INC fucked it all up.

[sandnsea]

18. We need a strong UN

The weapons proliferation is already discussed in a post above. We have to have a strong UN weapons inspection arm that will deal with this problem, not just in Iraq, but other countries as well. Not just today, but in ten years from now if someone like Osama gets control of a country. We've got to get these weapons off the planet. A strong UN is the only way do that and that was what Bush said he was going to do and that's what Kerry intended that war vote to do. Force the UN to take action on this problem. It's a LONG-sighted view of the security of the whole world, not a short-sighted imminent threat one. Bush screwed up BOTH the long-sighted UN WMD inspections arm and the short-sighted Iraq imminent threat regime change.

And more than anything, Kerry voted his conscience.

[blm]

27. Exactly. Few realize that the future of the UN was at stake here.

It's as if they have forgotten how the GOP driven media was repeating the mantra for months "Is the UN still relevant?"

Shame on those who refuse to acknowledge that simple truth for their own narrow political gains.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

29. There was nothing in the IWR that made a UN stamp of approval

mandatory. I appreciate the effort of Kerry and others to limit the scope to Iraq. That was huge. Biden-Lugar would have at least mandated UN approval and returned the issue to Congress. Most of my problem with Kerry on the IWR is not that he felt SH was a threat and needed to be dealt with, but that the IWR was too weak to accomplish anything other than what Chimp wanted. The bill was going to pass without Kerry's vote, he should have voted "no," stating that it was too open-ended. It's not as if he hadn't dealt with the likes of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz in earlier administrations. He knew what to expect. As did the many in the streets.

[sandnsea]

31. Biden-Lugar did not

Where do you get the idea that Biden-Lugar required Bush to go back to Congress? It didn't at all. We would be right where we are today, even with Biden-Lugar.

And if Dean and everybody on the streets knew what to expect, why did Dean support Biden-Lugar at all? If everybody knew Bush was going to lie us into a war, why didn't Dean just come out 100% against it like Kucinich did?

[blm]

32. He did deal with them before and they said they'd do the same

as they did before, build a coalition. They were the SAME team who had done it before. When they did not follow through appropriately, Kerry went after them saying it was the "worst diplomatic effort in American history."

[Pez]

4. a great article

i picked up the AM the other day. the excerpts from kerry's writings at the time are disturbing; so many kids (they were kids) went through the same thing... kerry's ability to put down in words his misgivings and concerns, and the daily atrocities they all witnessed ends up painting a disturbing picture. i don't really know all that much about the individual stories of viet nam, but this is a powerful piece, and i plan on getting the book.

there's also an intesting article by soros in there.

[mitchum]

22. kick

[NewYorkerfromMass]

24. awesome

If Kerry does not get the nomination it will be one of the saddest chapters ever for the party.

[adadem]

30. totally agree

In stature of public service no candidate, especially shrub, can stand next to Kerry. Clark, though a dedicated public servant in the military, has not been dedicated to the Democratic Party as Sen. Kerry has. Dean is a joke in comparison. That the DNC has allowed this nominating process to turn into the circus it has does not bode well for the party. We don't need another "three-ring" debate. I am very concerned.