This Soldier's Story

I remember lazy moments standing watch on the U.S.S. Gridley — out on the fantail, the fo'c'sle, anywhere, looking at the sea, enjoying glorious sunsets and sunrises on the bridge.

Then, on the afternoon of Feb. 26, having left Midway Island, the reality of Vietnam hit me right between the eyes. Gridley's executive officer came to me and asked if I had a friend named Pershing — and I knew immediately why he was asking.

I fought to restrain an empty crying. I didn't even have to read the telegram; I knew that Dick Pershing, my childhood and college friend, was dead. For days on the empty Pacific I could barely stand the knowledge that I would never see him again. It was the loss of someone irreplaceable, a loss of innocence, a loss of the sense of invincibility and bravado that young men have as they go to war.

Soon after, off Vietnam, we learned that Senator Eugene McCarthy and a band of college students living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had rocked the foundations of the political world in the New Hampshire primary, sending the message to President Lyndon Johnson that he couldn't be president any more. Weeks later we heard of the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated while campaigning for justice in America. We knew that cities across the country had exploded in riots and much of Washington itself was in flames. There was war all around us and war at home.

After a few months of search and rescue work in the Gulf of Tonkin, the ship was returning to California when the crackling radio picked up the end of Robert Kennedy's victory speech, the shots fired in the kitchen, the chaos. We docked early the next morning — June 6, 1968. Robert Kennedy died that day.

I spent a lost weekend in Long Beach glued to the television set. It was strange, leaving a place of violence to come home to violence — violence that shook our sense of the order of things.

Later that summer I reported for swift boat training in Coronado, Calif. We lived with the deep-throated roar of phantom afterburners streaking out of the naval air station, carriers dominating the harbor, Marine recruits surviving basic training, and we watched the turmoil in our own country. I had been a participant and an observer, and my beliefs were challenged during that difficult time.

Soon I found myself back in Vietnam, on the front lines of a very different war from the one I had known on my first tour of duty. We were outsiders in a complex war among Vietnamese. Too many allies were corrupt. Adversaries were ruthless. Enemy territory was everywhere.

It is hard still to explain the clashing feelings. There was the deep and enduring bonds forged among crewmates, brothers in arms from all walks of life fighting each day to keep faith with one another on a tiny boat on the rivers of the Mekong Delta. And there was the anger I felt toward body-counting, face-saving leaders sitting safely in Washington sending to the killing fields troops who were often poor, black or brown.

But that was Vietnam, where the children of America were pulled from front porches and living rooms and plunged almost overnight into a world of sniper fire, ambushes, rockets, booby traps, body bags, explosions, sleeplessness, and the confusion created by an enemy who was sometimes invisible and firing at us, and sometimes right next to us and smiling.

I found understanding only in the shared experience of those for whom the war was personal, who had lost friends and seen brothers lose arms and legs, who had seen all around them human beings fight and curse, weep and die. At times it seemed that we were the only ones who really understood that the faults in Vietnam were those of the war, not the warriors.

I returned home to America and moved to New York City, prepared to serve out the remainder of my naval duty in Brooklyn. Part of me wanted to forget Vietnam and get on with my life, but part of me felt compelled to tell the story. I was unsure how.

Then, in April 1969, I received news so eerily similar to what had happened on that first voyage to Vietnam. Another close friend — Don Droz — had been killed in a swift boat ambush in the Duong Keo River.

At that moment I knew I couldn't wait. There was no further thinking to do. It was time. That's the day I decided to give all my energy and strength to one more mission: to end the war in which I'd fought.

Kerry really comes off like the biggest wussie boy you'd ever meet.

"Bleeding heart liberal" isn't even a good description of Kerry. It's too tame.

Read the link above. And Kerry wants to be leader of the free world? If he really thinks the way this story depicts him he has no business being president of the US at this point in time. We need men to fight against people that want to kill us. Today is not Vietnam. Today has nothing to do with Vietnam. And this war cannot be fought like Vietnam was.

But from all I've seen Kerry thinks he can hug the terrorists and they will all join hands with him and sing "Anybody here seen my old friend Martin? Can you tell me where he's gone? He freed lotta people ... " and the world will be hearts and flowers and love will fill the sky and the age of Aquarius will reign.

What's REALLY weird about the "Tour of Duty" writing in the above link is how thoughtful and sensitive Kerry is. His great concern for all around him. But I don't believe it. It appears to be more fabrication to me. Why? He does not care if kids get killed by abortion. What kind of gentle person supprorts such a thing?

"Another close friend — Don Droz — had been killed in a swift boat ambush in the Duong Keo River.
At that moment I knew I couldn't wait. There was no further thinking to do. It was time."

Yes,it was time. Time to be puttin' on his boogy shoes and cutting a cho-gi outta there before he got his little ivy league a$$ shot at again. Thank goodness he had the forsight to scratch himself during those three fire fights so he could take advantage of a technicality that was meant for guys that were seriously wounded three times. What a sorry excuse for a man he is.

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