Kerry's War-Hero Image Attracts Veterans

AP | 2/17/04 | NANCY BENAC

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Kerry stands astride the decades, reaching back 35 years to his days as a Vietnam War hero to show the measure of his character now as a presidential candidate.

The pitch has been a powerful energizer for Kerry's campaign and now critics are hoping to use the rest of Kerry's war story to the opposite effect.

Kerry rarely gives a speech anymore without thanking the "band of brothers" who helped catapult his presidential bid from lost cause to apparent Juggernaut. With phone banks, personal appearances and campaign ad testimonials, Kerry's war buddies and other veterans have been a surprisingly potent mobilizing force for the Massachusetts senator.

"We noticed it first in Iowa," says Max Cleland, the former Georgia Democratic senator and decorated Vietnam veteran who has campaigned tirelessly for Kerry. "It is a generational phenomenon. ... John Kerry empowers veterans to feel good about themselves."

Veterans, says former Clinton administration Veterans Affairs Secretary Herschel Gober, typically are more like submarines, running beneath the surface in American politics. "But I think this year they've come up," he says. "They're excited because they've got a chance to have a Vietnam veteran sitting in the White House."

As with so many aspects of Kerry's personality, there are multiple sides to his Vietnam story. Kerry came home from the war with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and growing disillusionment about the war effort. His three war injuries - all minor - were enough to allow him an early return to stateside duty. And after petitioning for honorable discharge six months early, Kerry became a leading force in Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

At one Washington protest, he tossed away the ribbons he had received with his war medals, and threw away the medals of other veterans who weren't able to attend. On Capitol Hill, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

In the same hearing, he testified that U.S. soldiers had been involved in gruesome atrocities - rapes, beheadings, random killings of civilians. "We feel because of what threatens this country - not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it - that we have to speak out," he testified.

Kerry's anti-war activities still make some veterans uncomfortable, and that is tinder Kerry's critics hope to turn into a bonfire.

Gober worked to mobilize veterans for Wesley Clark until the retired Army general dropped out the race, and Gober now has endorsed Kerry. He says of Kerry's anti-war efforts: "Some people will not forgive him for that." But he predicts that more veterans will vote for Kerry because of his war-related actions than against him.

Exit polls from the Democratic primaries show Kerry running strong among voters from veteran households, just as he has in the general population. But political analysts caution against thinking veterans will be a decisive voting bloc in November.

"Every group in politics, from the religious right to people who want to save the whales, has their day in the sun as the allegedly critical, decisive group in an election," said William Bianco, a Pennsylvania State University political scientist. "This year, it's veterans. However, there's little evidence of a sizable veterans' effect."

Bianco said veterans tend to be Republicans and vote for Republican candidates at very high levels.

Michael Coale, a Vietnam veteran who was volunteering his help at the Vietnam Memorial on a recent cold, sunny afternoon, said he doesn't understand some of Kerry's anti-war conduct but was unsure whom he'd support for president.

"We were out there laying our lives on the line," he said. "I was drafted. I say, don't stab us soldiers in the back and say we were baby killers."

Cleland, who came home from Vietnam a triple amputee, said most veterans he talks to are glad to see Kerry validate their military service, but he encounters occasional negative sentiment from vets who are "not comfortable with the fact that he was the lead dog back in the early 1970s."

"But what I suggest is that John was articulating what so many of us felt deep in our gut," Cleland said. "I wouldn't have joined an anti-war parade, but John came back and began to see that the greatest service to his veterans was to fight (President) Nixon and to stop the war."

Cleland, who lost his 2002 Senate re-election race after his patriotism was questioned when he refused to vote for creation of a Homeland Security Department, said a "slime machine" was gearing up to turn Kerry's war record against him.

Ted Sampley, a retired Green Beret who has started a Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry Web site, is happy to volunteer.

Sampley, who has long been a Kerry detractor, has posted a photo that shows Kerry sitting three rows behind Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally in 1970, two years before her much-criticized trip to Hanoi.

Kerry, asked about the photo Friday, disassociated himself from what he called Fonda's "terrible" choice but said he thought his stance against the war was "a measurement of character."

"I didn't love coming back from the war I fought in and having to tell people, 'This is wrong, this is screwed up.' But it was," he said.

"And one of the things I'm proudest of," Kerry added, "is that throughout that period we didn't just talk about the war, we talked about the way veterans were treated."

John Hurley, who heads Veterans for Kerry and has known the candidate since his war-protester days, dismissed the anti-Kerry veterans as a fringe, "noisy minority" and predicted that even Republican veterans will be drawn to Kerry's campaign because of the "painful similarities" between Nixon's handling of Vietnam and how President Bush has approached the Iraq war.

"I think veterans are beginning to feel that this is our guy, this is our voice, this is someone who will stand up for us," he said.

[river rat]

Bull Squat...
Kerry is a French surrender monkey...
Semper Fi

[observer5]

"Kerry's anti-war activities still make some veterans uncomfortable, and that is tinder Kerry's critics hope to turn into a bonfire. "

Hahaha, Reuters doing some damage control for free?

[AmericanVictory]

The writer, like most of his ilk, is completely ignorant of what happened in Vietnam after Nixon went into office. Those vets who support Kerry are only those who were in the first part of the war under Johnson who don't have knowledge of what happened once Abrams replaced Westmoreland and Admiral Moorer became JCS Chairman. Almost all of the negative stuff, including the lies Kerry told, relate to the pre-Abrams period of the war. There are good books about the latter part, which we have cited, but the lamestream is forever fixated on the pre-1970 conduct of the Vietnam war and this has resulted in over 30 years of lies by professors, intellectuals and media types to support their Marxist presuppositions. Even pundits like O'Reilly appear to be ignorant of what actually happened. It seems like we could correct this, which is the kind of thing Admiral Moorer meant when he called for information warriors in a WNC article posted here long ago.

[archy]

"I think veterans are beginning to feel that this is our guy, this is our voice, this is someone who will stand up for us," he said.

Yeah, but how many North Vietnamese veterans vote in U.S. elections....?

[USMCVet]

I am a Vietnam veteran and remember Kerry's support of the enemy very bitterly: he fell right in with Hanoi's line that we were all war criminals and rode that wave to his present political fortunes.

He may very well have committed crimes against the Vietnamese people, but the rest of us didn't. I'll always be proud of the bravery and discipline of my fellow Marines and soldiers over there. He allowed himself to become a tool of the people that were actively supporting the enemy (one of the most interesting parts of that war has been the camouflage of the treason by the ardent American Left as "antiwar protest" when they weren't trying to oppose warfare - they were working to support the Communist victory).

One of the greatest sadnesses of that war is that the lies of Hanoi and people like Kerry endure and the truth of how honorably and bravely the men of our Vietnam war did serve has stayed hidden.

[Nick Danger]

I wanna see if they can keep this up until November. Surely not even the AP can come up with a new and fresh sales pitch for John Kerry every single day for months.

This is exactly what McCain-Feingold was about. Silence everyone but the media, and the Democrats get $4 billion worth of free advertising, and nobody else can make a peep.

[ASA Vet]

camouflage of the treason by the ardent American Left as "antiwar protest"
when they weren't trying to oppose warfare - they were working to support
the Communist victory

Bingo! This should be the FR quote of the day.

[tet68]

This is one vet he doesn't hold an attraction for.

Repulsed is more like it, reviled is closer.

What a piece of slavering propaganda.

Kerry a colossus stands astride the decades, Hrumph!

. "I wouldn't have joined an anti-war parade, but John came back and began to see that the greatest service to his veterans was to fight (President) Nixon and to stop the war."

Max, you pathetic toad, Nixon was saddled with the war run by the party of Kerry, he was the one that stopped the war!
He was the one that brought the North to Paris. Idiot.

[kcvl]

Kerry activists in Iowa include John Hurley, a 60-year-old retired lawyer from Wellesley and a Vietnam War veteran who heads Veterans for Kerry. His group is mailing campaign literature to 73,000 Iowan households with veterans, politicking at American Legion posts, setting up phone banks, and arranging screenings of the documentary ''Brothers In Arms." The film tells the story of Kerry and five crewmates on a swift boat in the Mekong Delta in 1969.

[dennisw]

He served honorably but is not a war hero. This is bllsht. He betrayed his fellow Vietnam soldiers (Vietnamese as well as American) by his was protests.

[kcvl]

Herschel Gober, Arkansan, who organized veterans for Clinton in '92 and '96 and who was rallying
them for Clark, is now rallying them for John Kerry...

[dennisw]

Mega dittos!!!

[Bluntpoint]

Believe me, the press is going call any veteran that is for Kerry: a "Veteran."

Any veteran for Bush: a "Right Wing Conservative Veteran"

[kcvl]

Kerry, asked whether he is certain a rule enabled him to leave Vietnam after three Purple Hearts, responded: "Yep. Three and you're out."

For the past several weeks, Kerry's staff said it has been unable to come up with a Navy document to explain that assertion. On Friday, however, the National Archives provided the Globe with a Navy "instruction" document that formed the basis for Kerry's request. The instruction, titled 1300.39, says that a Naval officer who requires hospitalization on two separate occasions, or who receives three wounds "regardless of the nature of the wounds," can ask a superior officer to request a reassignment. The instruction makes clear the reassignment is not automatic. It says that the reassignment "will be determined after consideration of his physical classification for duty and on an individual basis." Because Kerry's wounds were not considered serious, his reassignment appears to have been made on an individual basis.

Moreover, the instruction makes clear that Kerry could have asked that any reassignment be waived.

The bottom line is that Kerry could have remained but he chose to seek an early transfer. He met with Horne, who agreed to forward the request, which Horne said probably ensured final approval. The Navy could not say how many other officers or sailors got a similar early release from combat, but it was unusual for anyone to have three Purple Hearts.

Kerry did not complete his tour of duty in Vietnam. Instead, in an appeal to Commodore Charles F. Horne, Kerry abused a loophole in the rules to secure an early discharge – Kerry suffered three minor, superficial wounds.

[Sir Gawain]

haha

[FreedomPoster]

Every time I hear the phrase "Band of Brothers" in connection with Kerry I want to throw up. He demeans the men of the 101st, who would often sneak back to their units while still assigned to hospital, by his misuse of their legacy.

[mewzilla]

I see AP's still in bed with Kerry.

[FRgal4u]

The media is still sucking up with the veterans for Kerry thing, I do think it will have "some" positive impact on Kerry's image, but they better be careful, if the public thinks Kerry is using a divisive war to divide us all once again, and use that to gain political points, it could backfire on him big time.

On Bush, the most dangerous situation for him is to ignore how the media and the left are twisting his record. The continue total silence from Cheney is extremely damaging. Bush can't pull the weight if Cheney continues to have his 30% approvals and 60% disapprovals. Cheney can't go out in public to do anything, it is time for him to seriously decide, get out and set the record straight or just get out. Of course if Cheney is out - a Bush/Rudy, Bush/powell or Bush/McCain ticket will rock the whole political landscape.

Even though the general election is a referendum on the sitting president, but no sitting president ever won the re-election when his veep is at 30% approvals. Conservatives may think Cheney is a plus but I bet the angry left think Cheney is an even bigger plus for them. The media did a great hack job on Cheney and Cheney personifies all the ills of this administration (rightly or wrongly; wmd "lies", corporate ties, corporate corruptions, cia leaks blah blah blah - how many more hits can he take before he takes the whole ship down).

BTW - Papa Bush 41's veep in 1992 has higher approvals than Cheney now, this is quite stunning indeed.

jmho.

[section9]

What a squalid, Kerry-fellating puff piece.

I strongly suspect that this will backfire. There were, literally, millions of people who served in the Army National Guard, the Air Guard (like Bush) and the various Reserve Components. The Democrats are busy insulting all of them.

That is all to the good.

Be Seeing You,

Chris