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photographer, while being followed around by someone to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way. Plus he did this for about 2 seconds (slight exaggeration).

I believe Gore eventually got a BA in . . . Journalism (duh!). That's how as a draft volunteer with 2 years on active duty he got to be an Army journalist without having to go to the highly competitive Defense information school in Indianapolis.

As a former OJT Army combat journalist/photographer in Vietnam (1968-69, 5th SFG(A)), I wouldn't knock his Army service. He volunteered for Vietnam, but the brass were terrified of having a serving Senator's son get hurt, so Al wasn't assigned to Vietnam until his father left office. By then he had only 5 mos. left on active duty. It's funny--when I got back after 20 mos. in Vietnam, I had less than 5 mos. left on my 3-year enlistment, so per policy, I got an early out.

True, he went in the Army because he saw that he needed to get his ticket punched for his political future, but unlike Kerry he was pretty much a conventional pro-American conservative Democrat then. When the New Left took over the party, he adopted all the Leftist shibboleths--anti-war, pro-abortion, anti-American, anti-human, etc. He's not stupid. He's just leftist.

Kerry's defeat is a good thing for the Republic. Thanks to the Swifties and everyone who supported them for exposing Kerry's lies and lying and the vicious lengths his supporters were willing to go to. But this "parade we never had" stuff is veering perilously close to sentimental slop. As Dr. Johnson told Boswell, "Clear your mind of cant!" We haven't won. We have just prevailed in one battle. Half the country is proud to embrace the lies that stuff Kerry’s empty suit.

Personally, I don’t want to walk in a parade. I dream of walking down the street and seeing one of those proverbial homeless Vietnam vets—Oh! It’s John “Band of Mongols” Kerry, kicked out by Teresa, sitting on the curb in ragged wet suit and his old fatigue jacket, holding up a sign:

Will Marry for Money

Stanley Kurtz at NRO writes about this as a national phenomenon. When will we see the headline:

Supporters of Kerry "razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan"

I just read Tour of Duty.

While Kerry was on the Gridley in 1968, one of his dearest friends from prep school and Yale, Dick Pershing, was killed while serving with the 101st Abn. Div. After Kerry left Vietnam, a good friend of his, Droz, another PCF skipper, was killed.

No one on Kerry's crews was killed, but while Kerry was with CD-11, another OinC was killed. The memorial service is described in ToD. There is also a description in the book of a sailor who was decapitated by a RPG-7, but I'm not sure that happened while Kerry was assigned to the unit. I think the only Purple Heart injuries on Kerry's boats discussed in detail are Kerry's and Gardner's, but I think I recall some of the other crew members getting PHs. Alston has a PH, but he was wounded before Kerry took over PCF-94 and had been back on duty only a few days when Kerry left.

Way to go.

Can't say I've ever gotten harrassed for being a Vietnam vet. Even at the very anti-war campus of the U of MD, College Park, in the early '70s, I never had any trouble. Arguments, yes (I worked on the campus paper), but no baby-killer stuff.

One time in the early '80s at a church discussion group, a young guy made a remark to me about US soldiers in Vietnam "killing everybody". I deliberately lost it and told him to retract the statement or I would break his neck. He was struck speechless, and I was about to start breaking up the furniture with his head when my sister intervened. The guy gathered his wits and apologized.

Thanks again.

"I don't really know what was done with the hecklers. "

I can tell you what happened, because I was thrown out of the rally. As they did the guy in the MoveOn.org tee-shirt, the police escorted me to the steps at the North end of the park and told me to leave. The cop did say that a rally marshall had asked that I be removed. Why? Beats me.

No harm done, except that I missed Pitkin's speech. For a fuller account, see here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1228740/posts.