Vietnam looms its head for presidential candidates, including Bush

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/7103399.htm

Presidential candidates right age for Vietnam, but few served in war
NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Democrats Wesley Clark and John Kerry are basing their presidential campaigns largely on military service that includes combat in Vietnam - a distinctive qualification in a race full of candidates who came of age during the war but did not fight.

Their White House rivals did not serve in Vietnam, even though most turned 18 while young men were being drafted. They escaped combat with deferments for college, medical problems, fatherhood and by serving in the National Guard.

President Bush was the National Guard during the war and did not see combat.
>>>>>>>>

I would have done everything I could not to go. Same for this Iraq thing. I would however have gone to afghanistan or WWII if I was called.

This is an issue to very few I think.

Lets first put aside modern day politics and who did and didn't serve in the war. And second, let me say, knowing what I know about the Vietnam War (plenty), I too would have preferred not to serve in hindsight.

However, from March 1965 (when marines landed at Danang) to Tet, the conventional wisdom was that we were winning the war, and in turn winning the fight against global communism. Given that all these kids who served thought they were joining a winning effort in a battle against the evils of communism, and because most kids dads were Korean or WWII vets, I do think that there was a great feeling of duty for young people to serve. People wanted a chance to be in their own greatest generation.

Subsequently, of course, things went horribly wrong and it didn't take many americans long to notice. And not only did we not produce a greatest generation, but we lost approx 50,000 american lives, 2 million vietnamese lives and created a sense of depression and anger about our national identity that wont fully die until the members of that generation do.

So the question is this, straight up, straight down, no hindisght: Do you think you would have volunteered to serve in 1965?

I wasnt born till a year later so i cant say how i would have been caught up in the reaction of when it started. The only thing i can compare it to is the Iraq war. 70% of the population suposedly suported the Iraq war when it started but i was fully against it and screaming of the lies involved even before it started. Granted the internet is available now and information is more easily accesable, but I tend to believe were I alive and of age at the time I would have done what I could to take an honest look at it before I dug in one way or the other.

I wasnt alive then and therefore i dont get the uncensored version of the events leading up to it so its imposible to tell for sure. But looking back i know positively I would not have gone.

Its a good question and i wish i could give you an honest answer on it but without having been there and being able to watch it unfold its imposible for me to say. Yes there is a chance it could have been sold to me as a just war but I am not the type to go join up to kill people without a compelling reason. I dont actually see the comunist hord in a third world country as a compelling reason but the times were different then perhaps my attitude would have been different.

However the fact that we do know now the things we do. Goes a long way to giving the pass to anyone who chose not to fight then. It may or may not excuse things like joining and going awol after but I certainly can relate to people that didnt go because they were oposed to it.

It just doesnt have the teeth that say dodging WWII would have.

I think alot of people had massive questions about the relevance of the domino theory and using as a rationale to make Vietnam a battleground. Ive been there several times and would just say, based on my experience there and covnersations with vets, that the best evidence that we shouldn't have been there came when a soldier landed and quickly understood that

a) he wasnt wanted there by either side of the population
b) the vietnamese and their country are beautiful people/land/culture
c) socialism is rural vietnam is and was the relevant economic model

If you served in Nam, it's an issue.

he was supposed to be in the guard... geez. :eyes:

teeth. He/she actually wrote "President Bush was the National Guard during the war and did not see combat.
He not only was NOT THE NATIONAL GUARD he was not IN the National Guard when HE WAS supposed to be: he was AWOL!

in this next election cycle. They need the right candidate to make that contrast. This will blow a HUGE hole in Bush's "sterling character" image that he gets yo enjoy undeservedly at this point.

* was AWOL.

Too many know the truth now.

for the candidates.

because of Bush's lack of service, and because we are in a similar war now. Bush has made it an issue by his own actions.

And the privilege of all those surrounding him now making the bad decisions about war and the welfare of the military personnel, current and veterans.

The Democrats would be fools not to play this card to the hilt. Just one campaign featuring this issue will bury that legend that the Republicans understand military matters and can be trusted on that issue. Dems have lost too many races and congressional seats based on that lie.

A decade ago, however, Kerry rose in the Senate on two separate occasions to decry presidential candidates who used their military service record as a qualification for the highest office.

On Feb. 27, 1992, Kerry defended then presidential candidate Bill Clinton against an attack by his Democratic rival Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.). As the primary season unfolded, Kerrey, who lost part of his leg in Vietnam, had peppered Clinton with uncomfortable questions about whether the Arkansan had evaded the draft.

Kerry hit back at his Senate colleague, saying: “I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way… What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be re-fighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary.”



In October 1992, Kerry again defended Clinton from remarks by President George H.W. Bush. In a television interview, the president had questioned Clinton’s involvement in anti-war protests while a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and a trip by Clinton to Moscow as a post-graduate student in 1969.

In prefacing his Senate remarks, Kerry recalled the words Bush had spoken four years earlier. “This is a fact: The final lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a memory,” Bush then said.

Kerry proceeded to ask a series of biting rhetorical questions of Bush from the Senate floor.

“What has happened to the George Bush who made that statement?” Kerry asked.

“Why, President Bush, now do you choose to break another promise? Why do you choose to break your own statute of limitations?

“Why do you choose yourself to bring back the memory that only four years ago you said sundered this nation? Is your desire to hold office really so great that you would betray your own sense of decency and fairness? Is your desperation now really so great that you would adopt a conscious strategy of reopening and pouring salt on some of the most painful wounds that our nation has ever expected?

“You and I know that if service or non-service in the war is to become a test of qualification for high office, you would not have a vice president, nor would you have a secretary of defense, and our nation would never recover from the divisions created by that war.”

Then Vice President Dan Quayle served in the National Guard. Dick Cheney, then
Defense secretary and now vice president, never served.

“It’s unfortunate that has become the stock answer for almost every issue for Kerry’s campaign,” said an aide to a rival campaign. “At a certain point, Kerry’s going to have to articulate a vision that speaks to voters across America and not simply lapse into his military record.”




http://www.hillnews.com/news/101503/kerry.aspx

To anyone who actually bothered to look at Kerry's policy papers and speeches thoroughly, it is quite obvious that his policies on EVERY issue are the most comprehensive and thought out of any of the candidates put together.

and Kerry is always seeking to position himself politically, regardless of the ethics or the consequences of his lapses in judgement.

He touts his military status because he feels it singles him out of the pack---even if he frowned on the same such practices of others in the past. Now he feels he can use it to his advantage, even though, as someone pointed out on another thread yesterday, it is little more than building on the same fear-mongering that Bush has so successfully exploited.

Is this the face we want to show to the world? Why is the criteria for foreign policy expertise automatically assumed to be soldiering? That is exactly the mindset the rest of the world resents--US as the big bully weilding a club.

A true leader forges the way with an alternative plan and policy for US participation in the world. A true leader does not have to compensate for his lack of political courage by bragging of military credentials that he was most well-known for testifying against:

"I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times 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 Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/VVAW_Kerry_Senate.html

he's dealing with the reality of the RNC and Bush's exploitation of 9-11.

Kerry is playing by RNC rules.

What is the point of showing up Bush at his own game when it is a losing, fradulent and failing approach? The point is to oppose Bush and the policies and priorities he represents or admires and NOT imitate them.

Kerry wrote the book on the new war on terrorism back in 97.

Kerry has Gary Hart of the Hart-Rudman report saying Kerry is the one to trust to protect our national security.

Kerry has the Firefighters trusting him.

Kerry does not have to imitate Bush.

It's irrelevent. In fact, due to the emotional problems associated with a lot of Vietnam Veterans, I'm more inclined to avoid voting for anyone who served in Vietnam. I want someone who can balance a budget and has executive experience. Most Americans agree with me because they almost always vote for a governor over a senator.

People really better think this primary through. They are acting like there won't be any negative ad that will stick to Dean. You have shown that NINE WORDS can hurt.

However no Dean supporters should be made at me. Dean gave the RNC the ammunition

From the article:
"Edwards was assigned No. 178 for 1973, but the draft ended that year before his number was called."

Even if you're for Dean, it's a reality that needs to be faced. Plus, it takes away a beautiful campaigning point for our side. It wasn't relevent in '92 or '96 or 2000. Events have made it very relevent for 2004.

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What events justify us strutting around the world, demonstrating our strength in military images? This is how we have alienated the world from us--through the display of unwarranted aggression and military attacks that have landed us in the mess we are in.

It is profoundly disappointing that Democrats, without thinking it through, have been so easily hoodwinked by the symbols the Right employs as illusions of security. Illusions that have been shattered by the harsh light of reality.

National security and the ability to evaluate intelligence received is in the forefront now and the fact that we say we don't want to play that game isn't going to change the facts. Not only that, the Bush administration used it to get us into a situation that it's going to take some expertise to get out of.

The fact that the Bush administration doing a really bad job on a military agenda with little important input from people who actually have military experience is a rather important campaign issue. And, the way that we look at the people we've sent to serve has come under the microscope because we're sending a whole new bunch out there. If our guy got out on a bad back, it kind of makes the flight suit moot, too.

in decisions surrounding the military. THAT'S an important contrast and issue for the Democrats. Why throw that BIG advantage away.

It is an excuse, cynically exploited to further an agenda. NOTHING the Bush administration has embarked on has produced greater security on any level anywhere, from doctoring intelligence to down and out lies, to violations of international law. So for Kerry to use the opportunity, in yet another in a long line of positioning for political gain, he attempts to compete with Bush's poor military record, to make it appear that Kerry is better qualified to play the same failing game.

Ha! "Ability to evaluate intelligence", something enough of his fellow senators saw through, but he claims he was mis-led.

"They told stories that at times 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 Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

Perhaps you better read the quote above from Kerry's own testimony in 1971 for a picture of just what war is, so you don't suffer the lame illusions of aircraft carrier fantasies in a Ronald Reagan war movie. Maybe someone should remind Kerry.

It's interesting that killing other human beings gives one "gravitas" these days.


What's the real point of this posturing? Really?

That's the point.

is that 911 does not mean competing with Bush for the same failed Patriot act-Homeland security-Iraq invasion mindset that Bush used to push his agenda and increase his political capital by banging the drum and raising terrorist threats. Military solutions are not the cure-all of a civilized culture -which obviously some have yet to learn, although the evidence is glaring from every headline--another soldier dead, terrorism on the rise.

Killing in the name of Country is something that should be viewed as a regrettable, although perhaps necessary, event in one's life. I still get phone calls in the middle of the night from friends that are still dealing with having killed someone. Overrunning Bedouin refugees in GWI. Honorable? No. Dishonorable? Not necessarily. Something to be proud of? Never.

pretty valuable in this election.

Of course, it's impossible to have the "proper" morality without having killed first. First blood, and all that.

Hmmm. How could one forget their first fratricide? And the lessons it taught?

Deep.

that is an absolutely frightening revelation.

The experience of killing someone is the measure of the best presidential candidate?

I am absolutely flabbergasted.

where the U.S. is accurately viewed by many as cowboyish. My family preferred not to 'engage' in Vietnam and heard many cretin remarks that we found unimpressive. 'Some poor kid from some poor place went instead of you... O.K.' Elect some representatives like Dennis and it won't happen anymore. It wasn't just the rich and politically connected that avoided fighting in the jungle. There were many that by their wits avoided this unnecessary chapter in America's history. I've always thought that the Vietnam War should be a part of Black
History Month.

To avoid sending or serving in an old white man's war for profit or pleasure is hardly anything to be proud of. In 40 years I'm sure the young men and women who were sent to bomb sheperds 10K miles away in Iraq will 'use' this in a political campaign to enhance their political ambitions. It will be distastful to watch... particularly to those are were here in '03-'04.

Dean '04...Never Killed on The Battle Field!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I served in Gulf War 2. My opponent didn't!" -anonymous presidential candidate, 2037.





Kick that one around the block.

My problem with Bush is not that he did or did not serve. It is that he thought Vietnam was fine, he just didn't think that he should have to risk his life.

Kerry defended Clinton because he believes that if people took an ideological stand against the war, they should not have it held against them.

That is the difference between Bush and Clinton. Kerry went to war and through his experience saw first hand why it was wrong.

I get that Dean got rejected and i do not hold it against him that he went on with his life. But where did he stand on the war? He wasn't exactly an ideolgical draft dodger.

People who served and people who took a dodged, took chances and were willing to sacrifice for their country. I have a problem with people who saw themselves above the whole thing. Bush was one of those people. Where was Dean?

Thanks, cindyw! You've put into words my thoughts about the question of Vietnam. A person can't be neutral, and, if one is not going to go, must be an adult and say why. Muhammed Ali said he had nothing against no Vietnamese, who never called him a racial epithet. For saying he wouldn't join the armed forces, Ali went to jail.

The post 9-11 America needs real leadership. The safety of the nation demands it. The armed forces deserve it. The peace of the world depends on it.

Furthermore, the Oval Office is not the place for on-the-job training. Consider the smirking unelected fraud Bush. For three years, the Little Turd from Crawford has been unable to do more than fundraise and vacation. Sneering Dick Cheney may have a handle on things like Congress' throat, but he's got the world outlook of Joachim von Ribbentrop.

America — the people who truly believe ALL people are created equal and have inalienable rights — deserve the best. That's another reason why I'm for Sen. Kerry.