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Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor
J.F.
Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who
writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident
of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]
 Wasting
a Presidential Election Campaign
Issues?
What issues?...
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 9/1/04
“America likes quiet heroes.” So
said one of the quietest of them, former senator and presidential
candidate,
Bob Dole. To the detriment of his political campaign, John Kerry
has been anything but a quiet hero, raising inevitable questions
about the details of his heroism and inviting responses from
those who, for whatever motives, question whether he deserves
hero status at all.
When Kerry “reported for duty” at the Democratic
convention in a conspicuous manner, evoking memories of Candidate
Dukakis perched on top of a National Guard tank, trying to look
like G.I. Joe, he symbolically inserted his combat service in
Vietnam into his campaign. His campaign’s subsequent political
ads elevated that service to center stage. This has not been
a notably successful tactic for past presidential candidates,
including such heroes as Generals Douglas MacArthur and Curtis
Le May and they had full military careers as compared to Lieutenant
Junior Grade Kerry’s hitch of less than three years.
I wrote in an earlier
column that, based upon our year together
onboard USS Gridley, I felt that Kerry was certainly intelligent
and talented enough to serve as president but that he carried
some excess baggage that would weigh him down, namely, his anti-war
protest activities while his comrades were still fighting and
dying in Vietnam. But the heaviest baggage of all was his outrageous,
blanket assertions that our troops, himself included, committed
widespread atrocities.
I spoke with several
Vietnam veterans who were prisoners of war while Kerry was
uttering these accusations before the Senate.
I asked them if they had heard of Kerry’s charges while
in captivity and if their lives as POWs were made more difficult
because of them. They answered both questions in the affirmative.
Kerry has since tried to downplay his words by describing them
as somewhat “over the top”. Too late. The damage
has long since been done. His words went way beyond expressing
honest criticism of an unpopular war. There should be no doubt
that they provided comfort to the enemy and harmed our servicemen
in captivity, which, in my book, amounts to treason.
The protestors that John Kerry led thirty-five years ago, can
perhaps be forgiven some of their youthful enthusiasm. It was,
after all, in style at the time. But the fact remains that their
actions did contribute to an American withdrawal under circumstances
that were less than desirable for our country and disastrous
for the South Vietnamese. Our hasty abandonment of a war in which
our political leadership, starting with John F. Kennedy, should
never have gotten us involved in the first place, resulted in
a bloodbath in South Vietnam and massacres in the killing fields
of Cambodia.
To be sure, Kerry’s protest activities and rhetoric regarding
atrocities would have haunted him during the campaign, whether
or not he had made his Vietnam service a centerpiece of it, but
at least his hero status would have presented less inviting a
target for the political opposition. In this regard, the attacks
against Kerry’s service are, in my view, a discredit to
all veterans. Challenging personal decorations awarded over three
decades ago, is an attack on the entire system of military awards
which, as everyone who served knows full well, were liberally
dispensed in wartime. It calls into question every award given
in that era. It’s best not go there. The subject often
involves much emotion. Recall that Chief of Naval Operations,
Admiral Mike Boorda took his life, reportedly depressed over
allegations that a combat “V” device on his bronze
star was not earned.
The real losers from all this misdirected campaign focus are
the voters who deserve to have the issues of real importance
discussed and debated. Instead, they are largely ignored by foolish
news media, intrigued by medals, war stories, Swift boats and
a miserable war fought over thirty-five years ago, now being
relived. The real issues, in case the media have forgotten them,
are the economy, jobs, tax reform, health care and who best to
lead and defend us in the war on terrorism, the latter being
of paramount importance. I say the rest is spinach and I say
to hell with it, to recall an old New Yorker cartoon.CRO
copyright
2004 J. F. Kelly, Jr.
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