| John Kerry: Vietnam's answer
to Audie Murphy?
OMED: Former Portlander, Tom Lipscomb,
often contributes to Oregon Magazine. Herein, he addresses the subject
of Vietnam heroics by John Kerry of Massachusetts What struck us
when this topic recently came up during Kerry's run for the Democrat nomination,
was the brevity of the span in which the senator Another problem is that we can't determine who wrote Kerry's citations. From here, it looks like he did. With respect to the other honors, Purple
Hearts are a specific category of their own. They are not a measure
of heroism above and beyond the call of duty. It would be more accurate
to describe them as recognition for suffering harm while doing one's duty.
It is possible for a soldier to win the Congressional Medal of Honor without
suffering a single wound. In that case, the soldier who got the CMOH
would not get a Purple Heart. As with the Silver and Bronze Stars,
it is the actions of the soldier as described in a citation which determine
if the CMOH is given.
The problem with Kerry's Purple Hearts is that three of them in four months raise questions. Below the Lipscomb piece you will find some text from veterans of that war. They contain in-country experience which asks similar questions to ours. (LL) A Little Sunshine for Winter Soldier, John Kerry
February 28, 2004 -- Presidential candidate John Kerry recently wrote a letter to President Bush complaining that “you and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war” and warning "I will not sit back and allow my patriotism to be challenged." In the absence of any evidence from Kerry of an attack from the Bush campaign, Kerry seems to have originated his own doctrine of “preemption.” How valid are his concerns?
No one denies John Kerry’s bemedaled four months in “Swiftboats,” (OMED: some doubt the quality of that service, which you will see discussed below this piece) or his seven months service as an electrical officer on board the USS Gridley during its cruises back and forth to California, or even his months as an Admiral’s aide in Brooklyn before he was able get out of the Navy six months early to run for office. (OMED: Rather similar to Bush getting out of the National Guard to work on a political campaign.) Taking a look at Kerry’s much-promoted Vietnam service, Kerry’s military
record was indeed remarkable in many ways. Last week former assistant secretary
of Defense and Fletcher School of Diplomacy professor W. Scott Thompson
recalled a conversation with the late ADM Elmo Zumwalt that “… the fabled and distinguished Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, told me -- 30 years ago when he was still CNO -- that during his own command of US naval forces in Vietnam, just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass, by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets. ‘We had virtually to straight-jacket him to keep him under control,’ the admiral said. But Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions -- but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage”. And this statement was made despite the fact Zumwalt had personally pinned a Silver Star on John Kerry. Kerry was assigned to “Swiftboat” 44 on December 1, 1968. Within 24 hours he had his first Purple Heart. Kerry accumulated three Purple Hearts in four months with not even a day of duty lost from wounds according to his training officer. It’s a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Senator John Kerry. By his own admission during those four months Kerry continually kept ramming his Swiftboat onto an enemy-held shore on assorted occasions alone and with a few men, killing civilians and even a wounded enemy soldier. One can begin to appreciate ADM Zumwalt’s problem with Kerry as commander of an unarmored craft dependent upon speed of maneuver to keep it and its crew from being shot to pieces. Kerry now refers to those civilian deaths as “accidents of war.” And within four days of his third Purple Heart Kerry applied to take advantage of a technicality which allowed him to request immediate transfer to a stateside post. Once back in the States, Kerry joined “the struggle for our veterans,”
as he called it last week in Atlanta, by joining a scruffy organization
called the “Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” The VVAW’s Executive
Director, Al Hubbard, supposedly a former Air Force captain wounded in
Outside of his own “accidents of war” there is no evidence that Kerry had then or has now the least idea what may or may not have been the realities of ground combat. But he had no problem reeling off for the Senate a series of unproven second-hand allegations that would have been perfectly at home at the Nuremberg trials indicting his fellow veterans Kerry stated there were "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia...not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do." Kerry got specific: "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam...we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam." In other words My Lai was just another day in the life in the Vietnam War. This wasn’t a one-time occasion. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War had been peddling this line from the day Kerry joined them and had been publishing charges like this for the previous two years. Kerry repeated them on “Meet the Press” with Al Hubbard who was found to be a total fraud who never served in Vietnam, much less was wounded. But Kerry has never renounced the charges he made. Recently his fellow VVAW supporter Jane Fonda has tried to minimize a potentially damaging picture of him a few rows behind her at the three day VVAW Valley Forge rally in September of 1970. And many members of the press fell for the line that it was accidental or coincidental including Fox’s Chris Wallace and ABC’s Tim Russert. But there were only 8 or 9 speakers that day including Donald Sutherland, Mark Lane, Bella Abzug, Jane Fonda. And far from being a casual audience member, Executive Committee member John Kerry, not Jane Fonda, was the lead speaker. Jane Fonda had been funding VVAW events since before Kerry had joined its Executive Committee. At Valley Forge Fonda said: “…My Lai was not an isolated incident but rather a way of life for many of our military.” Their appearance together in this picture may be a lot of things, but it was not a coincidence. Kerry has already confessed his complicity in killing civilians as “accidents
of war.” But he has offered a classic Nuremberg defense that this was not
only a commonplace occurrence thoughout the Vietnam war, but he was carrying
out a policy “with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”
His commander of naval operations in Vietnam, who
An examination of the truth behind this disagreement is not an attack on Kerry. It is a matter of vital historical interest.
--- TL
OMED: My combat experience is limited to Hollywood war movies. The forum text above was not included with Tom Lipscomb's original piece. I had it in a file in my computer, and thought that what Vietnam combat vets had to say about this is what in court is known as "best evidence." In the end, it is they who must judge the veracity of Kerry's record. Column text © 2004 Thomas Lipscomb, who is the founder of (New York) Times Books, and was the publisher of ADM Elmo Zumwalt’s bestselling ON WATCH. Presently, he heads the Center for the Digital Future and is a nationally-known columnist, appearing in major U.S. newspapers. |
achieved
his citations. It looks like four months. Combat medals like the
Silver (or Bronze) Star are, like the Congressional Medal of Honor, given
for extraordinary bravery. We have been unable to determine the true nature
of Kerry's extraordinary bravery.
clearly
had a slightly different take on Kerry’s recollection of their discussions: