Kerry War Debate Hinges on Fickle Memories

AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/28/04 | Jeff Donn - AP

[NormsRevenge]

You'd think the details would be scorched into a veteran's memory like a cattle brand: ducking gunfire, seeing someone die in battle, bracing against a blast's concussion. Who could forget?

Yet such memories not only blurred over time in one classic psychological study of soldiers, but mutated too. Old recollections faded; new mental pictures took over. Whole new chunks of personal history materialized from the muck of memory.

"People went from, `Yes, I saw one friend killed,' to `I saw no friends killed,' to `I saw two friends killed,' to `I saw three friends killed,'" said Dr. Andy Morgan, a Yale University psychiatrist who helped run the six-year study.

Could such memory research help explain some of the dueling accounts of U.S. Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s war experiences?

Past presidential candidates and their critics have been known to shade the truth for political purposes. But to memory researchers, it doesn't take intentional falsifying to understand the discrepancies in the retelling of Kerry's story.

Was he really under gunfire when he yanked a crewman from the water as commander of a Navy patrol boat during the Vietnam War?

Some eyewitness accounts differ starkly. "I thought we were under fire, I believed we were under fire," says retired Chief Petty Officer Robert E. Lambert, who like Kerry earned a Bronze Star that day. He adds that "what happened, happened."

But Van Odell, a gunner who was also there, retorts: "When they're firing, you can hear the rounds hit the boat or buzz by your head. There was none of that."

There are other discrepancies. Who was the enemy Kerry shot?

One veteran says "a lone, fleeing, teenage Viet Cong in a loincloth."

Another: "He was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore."

Some veterans — and military records from the time — back much of what Kerry says, but some others who also served say otherwise. Does this mean someone is lying?

"I would give these people involved in the debate the benefit of the doubt that it's not political lying," says psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, of the University of California, Irvine, an expert on the reliability of eyewitness testimony. "It's sort of wanting to remember things in a certain way. That's probably why all these people seem so sincere. They may actually believe what they're saying."

Far from being an indelible recording, human memory is fragile, incomplete, malleable and highly subject to suggestion, researchers have shown in dozens of studies.

Time isn't the only factor that obscures memory. Great stress or danger during an event — as in combat — appears to gum up the mechanisms of remembrance, perhaps through a hormone rush that temporarily dulls memory-forming areas of the brain.

Later, our own, sometimes incorrect inferences about what happened gain equal footing with what we really saw or heard. The recollections of others, like old war buddies at a reunion, can overwrite our own.

"Memory doesn't work like a videotape," says Dawn McQuiston-Surrett, a psychologist at Arizona State University West.

In the experiment with soldiers, Yale researchers interviewed about 150 at intervals over six years, starting soon after their return from the first war with Iraq (news - web sites) in 1991.

They asked the soldiers questions about their experiences, including whether they took incoming gunfire, faced Scud missile attacks and witnessed a friend's death. About 15 percent changed their recall of something significant, like seeing a friend die, the researchers reported.

Some veterans were upset when their own discrepancies were pointed out. Some even asked for help. "They would say, `Which one is it?' to me," Morgan said. "I'd say, `I don't know. I wasn't there.'"

Veterans with psychological or emotional problems tended to change their memories more often, the researchers found. But nearly everyone changed recollections over the six years.

Memory experts say a mild state of vigilance during an event boosts its commitment to memory. But being scared for your life, as during a crime or combat, impedes memory.

Other researchers say memories are especially fickle when the events unfolded on a broad stage or in multiple parts. Such recollections are inevitably partial, and a soldier will tend to fill in blanks unconsciously with personal inferences and the memories of others.

In unconsciously remolding memories, people often substitute details that make more sense or enhance their personal self-image, like turning a routine act of soldiering into heroism. People reshape their memories under pressure or encouragement from others.

"Even if it was my own memory, I'd be skeptical about the details," says Christine Ruva, a psychologist at the University of South Florida. "Memories aren't stored in a data file of fact. Instead, we take all the information we know about the world, we know about ourselves, and we construct something."

Where does this leave Americans trying to evaluate Kerry's war record? Researchers say some memories obviously are true. But they tend to favor the ones expressed soonest afterward, especially when backed by documentation from the time.

[NormsRevenge]

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., waves as he arrives at a town hall meeting in Everett, Wash. on Friday, Aug. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

[NormsRevenge]

Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) holds up a copy of the book created by him and his running mate Senator John Edwards (news - web sites) at a town hall meeting in Everett, Washington, August 27, 2004. Kerry said on Friday the latest report showing a slowdown in economic growth is proof President George W. Bush (news - web sites) is presiding over a downsizing of 'dreams and possibilities.' Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters

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Don't miss sKerry's new book coming out in December, if elected....

The UN's Plan for America

[Chuzzlewit]

Haaaah !!! Fickle memories.. Hi Norm..

Kerry needs to sign the release form. That would clear up all these fickle memories.

[farmfriend]

I said on an earlier thread that Kerry always looked awkward throwing a football. I would like to amend that and say he just always looks awkward.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Where does this leave Americans trying to evaluate Kerry's war record?

It leaves Kerry trying to change the subject from his extreme left-wing politics to something happening a long time ago. He hoped he could use the "fading memory" trick to defend against those who expose him as a big liar. It didn't work because those who were tortured and heard the traitor smearing them WILL NEVER FORGET THAT!

[NormsRevenge]

The UN's Plan for America

Patty and Jim can hardly wait!

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., Sen. Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash, and Congreassman Jim McDermont, D-Wash., left, arrive at a fund raiser in Seattle on Friday, Aug. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

[farmfriend]

Ok, you know what he looks like here? That character in the first Men in Black movie. The alien who walks around in a brand new Edgar suit.

[tbpiper]

You'd think the details would be scorched into a veteran's memory

SEARED! DAMNIT, SEARED! STICK WITH THE PROGRAM!

[NormsRevenge]

One of the grains of rice was this long..

'Long Rice' John

Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) (D-MA) speaks to voters at a town hall meeting in Everett, Washington August 27, 2004. Kerry said Friday the latest report showing a slowdown in economic growth is proof President George W. Bush (news - web sites) is presiding over a downsizing of 'dreams and possibilities. REUTERS/Brian Snyder US ELECTION

[Drango]

I can believe most of the memories are muddied. But Cambodia, it was seared, SEARED into his memory.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[T'wit]

Aw, c'mon, Mr. Donn, HE LIED. The "failing memory" defense doesn't work. Kerry has a long history of lying and self-promotion.

Besides, who appointed you to clean up the muck after Kerry raised his tail to the world?

[Question_Assumptions]

What I've discovered looking into the Bronze Star incident, for example, is that a lot of this really doesn't depend on memory. Kerry's medical records (which he won't release), the damage reports for the boats, the after action reports, etc. all tell a story that could help reporters sort out the truth from the lies without having to rely on anyone's memory 35 years after the fact.

[Abcdefg]

was just at the newsgroup "alt.binaries.e-book" and found Kerry's 1971 book "New Soldier" is posted

[NormsRevenge]

fickle

SYLLABICATION: fick·le
PRONUNCIATION: fkl
ADJECTIVE: Characterized by erratic changeableness or instability, especially with regard to affections or attachments; capricious.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English fikel, from Old English ficol, deceitful.
OTHER FORMS: fickle·ness —NOUN
fickly —ADVERB

[John Thornton]

And remember the story yesterday about what a great memory Kerry has? How he remembered that Batman guy twenty years later when he ran into him at the Capital subway?

[Tacis]

Absolutely true!! So true, that I'll agree that maybe, maybe Traitor John isn't lying about his 4 months in Nam, maybe, maybe, he has misremembered. Hey, it could be!

But then, I'll want whatever proof he has and that is his complete military record. I want to see records for the drills he was supposed to attend and any courtmartials that took place from 1972 to 1978. It is not the combat mendacity that proves Deserter John is unfit to be CinC (he was, after all, actually in Nam), it is what he did in the years after he returned that proves it.

If anyone has the Kerry files from "paperlessarchive.com," do the reports on Kerry and the Viet Cong meeting in Paris burn him really badly?

[Polybius]

"Even if it was my own memory, I'd be skeptical about the details," says Christine Ruva, a psychologist at the University of South Florida.

How about an entry in John F. Kerry's own journal written nine days after the incident on 2 December 1968 for which Kerry was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries allegedly recieved in combat?

As historian Douglas Brinkley explains on pages 188 and 189 of Kerry's authorized HarperCollins biography, Tour of Duty], Kerry and his crew set out from Cat Lo, South Vietnam in Swift Boat PCF-44 in high spirits in mid-December, 1968. As Brinkley writes, Kerry "who had just turned twenty-five, on December 11, 1968 — was a fine leader of his men." At about that time, Kerry himself wrote this in his notebook: "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky.".............. Hadn't been shot at yet?

[freddiedavis]

bump TO SUPPORT THE NEW SWIFT VETS AD AND GEORGE BUSH... http://swift2.he.net/~swift2/gardner2.mpg