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http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/letters_to_the_editors/article/0,1626,ECP_769_3119926,00.htmlIn Response: Area resident served with Kerry, saw courageous, respectful officer
By ANTHONY E. SCHMITT Special to the Courier & Press
August 19, 2004
I have never written to the Courier & Press before. Letters to the editor at times amuse me, sometimes anger me, but always, I put the newspaper down knowing that opinions can be freely expressed here. This time, I am compelled to write because I feel I have something to contribute. My feelings about presidential candidate John Kerry are drawn from my experiences and observations while serving in the U.S. Navy with him aboard the USS Gridley from June 1967 to June 1968. In June 1967, I was 18 years old and returning from my first West Pac deployment. That tour, along with the subsequent one with Kerry aboard, was spent on search-and-rescue duty, providing support to carriers and assistance to downed aviators and aircraft in distress.
Young and green as grass, Ensign Kerry joined the Gridley soon after we arrived in the ship's home port of Long Beach, Calif., just as I was departing for leave in Indiana. Returning to the ship 10 days later, I observed that Kerry had already made a favorable impression on my enlisted crewmates in the ship's office. In the year I served with Kerry aboard the USS Gridley, both in port and under way, and in hostile waters off the coast of Vietnam (for which we received combat pay), I observed this officer, always with a favorable impression. My recollections of Kerry are those of a serious yet friendly individual who, unlike many officers, did not look down upon a lowly enlisted man such as myself. Kerry was unassuming and respectful of everyone. In my duties both as a yeoman in the ship's office, and tracking surface and air targets in the Combat Information Center, I had many occasions to observe interactions between Kerry and others. He was honest and straightforward, a genuine person, unabsorbed in himself. I found Kerry to be quite charismatic, and he participated in activities with enlisted men, while other officers seldom did. He assumed a quiet junior officer role in the company of his senior officers, but appeared to garner great respect when he did speak. Kerry did not wear his religion on his sleeve, but as I recall, while under way, he was the only officer aboard who participated in the poorly attended nondenominational church services.
In my mind, John Kerry's military service is unquestionably honorable and beyond reproach. Many Vietnam veterans, myself included, have wrestled with our county's role in that war, the value of our individual service and the cost to our nation both in lives and treasure. My own impressions of that long-ago conflict continue to evolve, but I knew while in the service that our policies were not working. I chose to leave the United States and live in Australia after completing my military service. John Kerry came back home and enlisted in the fight to stop the war and the dying. At that time, he knew his involvement with a peace group was not the politically correct thing, but he did became involved anyway. Just as he could have stayed with the relatively safe white-water navy, John Kerry chose to volunteer to make a difference in the dangerous brown-water navy of the swift boats.
My observations of the man lead me to believe it was Kerry's sense of duty to his country and empathy for those he left behind in Vietnam that propelled him to join the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I don't know if that was the right thing to do at the time, or even now. However, I do know that I have a sense of guilt for doing nothing after my discharge from the military, while American soldiers continued to die in a war that I knew was going nowhere. It lasted another excruciatingly painful six years. In my mind, John Kerry had another kind of courage after his military discharge. He received no medals, only scorn, for attempting to do something about a war he knew to be wrong. Those who fought in that war have the right to judge him for that. After the war, I know I did nothing to stop it, and for that I am not proud. These are difficult times that require a leader with unique courage and the ability to bring the country, and the world, together for our very survival. At this time in our nation's history, I believe John Kerry possesses the very character, courage, and skills to do just that.