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I vaguely recall an article someone posted here maybe two months ago, in which it was revealed that Kerry had given an anti-war speech before going to Vietnam, which destroys his contention that he became disillusioned there or was betrayed by Nixon. I believe it was a commencement address, but maybe not at Yale. Does anyone recall that article, or the details?

I'm sorry Henry, I don't remember that.

I vaguely recall an article someone posted here maybe two months ago, in which it was revealed that Kerry had given an anti-war speech before going to Vietnam

From Kranish in the Boston Globe, 6/16/03:

He enlisted as a Navy officer candidate despite his criticisms as Yale's class orator of America's intervention in Southeast Asia. He would become a war hero, recipient of the Silver and Bronze stars, but would also become an antiwar leader, causing some former crewmates to feel he had betrayed them.

There's a lot of other goodies in this article, such as this reference to Christmas Eve in Cambodia:

The Christmas Eve truce of 1968 was three minutes old when mortar fire exploded around John Forbes Kerry and his five-man crew on a 50-foot aluminum boat near Cambodia. ''Where is the enemy?'' a crewmate shouted.

>>snip<<

"On the same night, Kerry and his crew had come within a half-inch of being killed by "friendly fire," when some South Vietnamese allies launched several rounds into the river to celebrate the holiday.

To top it off, Kerry said, he had gone several miles inside Cambodia, which theoretically was off limits, prompting Kerry to send a sarcastic message to his superiors that he was writing from the Navy's "most inland" unit.

And then there's this reference, explaining why he chose swift boat detail:

Kerry initially hoped to continue his service at a relatively safe distance from most fighting, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. While the 50-foot swift boats cruised the Vietnamese coast a little closer to the action than the Gridley had come, they were still considered relatively safe.

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."

To sum up, he was near Cambodia, but also in Cambodia on Christmas Eve; he was against the Vietnam war before he was for the Vietnam war before he was against the Vietnam war; he -- according to Clinton's convention speech, said "Send me!" -- but only where there was "very little to do with the war."