Veterans know
I didn't serve with John Kerry in Vietnam, but I was with him when Vietnam Veterans Against the War hurled their war medals at Congress in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1971. He spoke to the U.S. Senate about why Vietnam veterans from all over the United States were in Washington to oppose the war, while I said similar things to the House of Representatives.
He had been a U.S. Navy officer, I was a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant, but the VVAW traversed military rank and thousands of the war's veterans hoped the American people would heed our protest, because nobody knows about a war better than those who have been in it.
In my opinion, John Kerry, three times wounded and holder of the Silver Star, demonstrated the same courage and respect for American values when he acted against the war that he had in war. Now that he just might be the next president of the United States, his political adversaries are hinting he was a traitor for protesting against Vietnam; a fake photograph circulation all over the country pairs him with the right-wing's favorite pinup "Hanoi" Jane Fonda in the same type of odious smear campaign George Bush Sr. fabricated with the black felon Willie Horton in 1988.
It might be remembered that the nation's original patriots were traitors (and, heaven forbid, revolutionaries!). Our first president, the "Father of Our Country," was the greatest traitor of them all. Today's "Sunshine Patriots" act as if they have forgotten our history. In particular, those who are impugning Kerry are quite likely the same people who call foul when George Bush Jr.'s dereliction of military duty during Vietnam is made a campaign issue - yet he boasts he is the nation's "War President," which makes his military service a fair inquiry (Bush claims he supported the Vietnam War but was apparently will to let other fight it).
By implication, not only Kerry but all who dissented against Vietnam - especially we who are its veterans (as well as Jane Fonda) - are traitors, an insinuation conferred upon present-day dissenters to the Iraq War and to Bush administration policies in general.
The issues about Vietnam and Iraq are in many respects similar: In both wars the nation was committed to attacking another country by deliberate deceptions by leaders callous to everything but their own agendas. It is the same argument now as it was then: Do we continue to send American troops to kill and die for questionable purposes or do we best support them by ceasing fire and bringing them back home alive?
We in the VVAW called ourselves "Winter Soldiers" (in contrast to Sunshine Patriots) because we bitterly opposed the war we fought in and defied the omnipotence of the presidency and the Pentagon we had previously served.
Bush wants everybody to think he's the Sword of God and that any dissent is unpatriotic heresy. John Kerry disagrees. So do I. Jane Fonda probably does, too. Perhaps that makes us traitors. November might reveal that a majority of Americans are.
MICHAEL PAUL McCUSKER
former Oregon Coordinator VVAW
Astoria
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London (from Nashville)
360-665-3248
Rich dickweeds.
Skull and Bones has their own priorities that view us as cattle.
How nice of the media monolith to choose who to push in front of our face.
Elitist roach dropings.