Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) speaks during a fundraiser campaign event in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Four ex-soldiers are among those backing the Vietnam veteran's run for the White House(AFP/Getty Images/File/Mark Erickson)
Posted on 05/04/2004 9:52:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LAUREL, United States (AFP) -
Jan, John, Jon and Stosh have two things in common: They are all veterans or former combatants who served in the US military and they also want to see Democratic presidential contender Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) sitting in the White House in 2005.
The four ex-soldiers who range in age from 54 to 71 sat down amid a dozen veterans to talk with an AFP correspondent just outside Washington last month to explain why they are marching in step behind Kerry's presidential campaign.
"I remember hearing about a young navy guy who was going to run for Congress," Jan Barry reminisced of Kerry, adding: "He made a big impression on people."
Barry is the co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), for which John Kerry served as a spokesman in 1971 after a tour of duty as a Navy swift-boat commander in the southeast Asian war.
"He spoke very well and was on target on issues we cared about. He felt very strongly, I admired him for it," Barry, 61, said of Kerry whom he met during the Vietnam era.
Barry said Kerry helped give veterans opposed to the war a focus and direction, and that it was clear back then Kerry had his eye on the political world in Washington.
A key turning point occurred when Kerry, who had returned from Vietnam two years earlier, helped moderate a panel in January 1971 in Detroit dubbed "The Winter Soldier Investigation" where former veterans related their war crimes.
After the harrowing testimonials, Kerry persuaded the assembled veterans they should take their complaints to the nation's capital.
"It was quite clear he wanted to run for Congress, it was kind of suicidal, he was not voicing a popular position," Barry recalled.
In a celebrated speech in front of the US Congress on April 22, Kerry denounced the Vietnam war as a "monster" created by the United States, and instantly "became a household name," remembered 71-year-old Jon Bjornson.
Some veterans were initially suspicious Kerry was just seeking a public platform.
"I was kind of leery of him at first, thought of him as an opportunist, upper class guy," explained Stosh Comisiak.
"But he stayed consistent. He was a good communicator, an asset conveying what the group had to say," Comisiak, 58, said.
It was a period when many of the veterans had "long hair," were "unshaven, dressed in old uniforms," Barry explained.
"The group was mostly made of blue-collar families, working class, more likely to be drafted, not officers," underlined John Beitzel, 54. "Some people were upset that he wasn't radical enough, too moderate because he was going to run for office."
Kerry "did not mix with the boys, wasn't comfortable," Bjornson said.
But his image as a clean-cut young man from a good family enabled Kerry to deliver the group's concerns into the homes of Americans who were wary of the long-haired veterans, but who sat up and listened to Kerry's appeals.
"My grandfather, after listening to Kerry on TV said to me: 'Now I understand why you're so disillusioned by the war.' He couldn't get it from me," Barry said.
Kerry also had a contacts book that facilitated entry into wealthy homes.
"It was surreal," Barry recounted.
In order to finance the veterans' group, Kerry worked to garner donations from affluent contacts.
"We would go to rich people's places, major corporate people. Two or three of us would go into someone's living room that we had read about in the business pages of the newspaper," Barry added.
Kerry's run to challenge President George W. Bush (news - web sites) ahead of the fast approaching November 2 US presidential election encouraged the former veterans to resume contact.
Come that date, all the veterans said they will mark a clear cross in the voting booth next to Kerry's name.
Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) speaks during a fundraiser campaign event in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Four ex-soldiers are among those backing the Vietnam veteran's run for the White House(AFP/Getty Images/File/Mark Erickson)
Democrats are stuck in the past. Someone needs to help them Move On from their decades old Vietnam war...
These so-called journalists make me sick!
"The Band-Aid Brothers"
I'd oppose him for money but I'm just as happy to do it for free. Is there someplace to put in for back pay? :=)
And I can't stand rich leftists.
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