It's Kerry's antiwar acts they resentPage 2 of 2 -- That is what thousands of Vietnam veterans, not to mention countless other vets, have never forgiven or forgotten. Bob Dole, whose right arm was crippled in World War II, suggested on Sunday that Kerry apologize to the 2.5 million veterans he defamed. His words -- which drew immense media coverage at the time -- helped poison public attitudes about Vietnam veterans and the cause they had fought in. Even worse, they gave encouragement to the enemy.
"The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," says Paul Galanti, who appears in the second -- and far more devastating -- Swift Boat Veterans ad, "because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington." Galanti has good reason to remember Kerry's testimony. He first learned of it in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton," where he spent nearly seven years as a POW. Kerry has never taken back his terrible slur against his fellow soldiers -- men he now calls his "band of brothers." The most he has been willing to say is that his words "were a little bit over the top" and that he could perhaps "have phrased things more artfully." He certainly doesn't regret the propaganda coup he handed the Viet Cong: "I'm proud that I stood up," Kerry told NBC in April. "I don't want anybody to think twice about it." And therein lies the fundamental hypocrisy of the Kerry candidacy. He came to prominence as a radical opponent of the war in Vietnam, yet now he runs for president on the strength of his service in that war. He portrayed the men who fought there as unspeakable savages, yet now he surrounds himself with Vietnam vets at every turn. He lent respectability to those who demanded that America cut and run, that it abandon a beleaguered ally, that it drop "the mystical war against communism." Yet now he insists that he would be a tough and vigilant commander-in-chief, one who would never disrespect allies, one in whose hands the security of the United States would be safe. Even after 33 years, Kerry's 1971 testimony, and his refusal to either repudiate or corroborate it, remains unsettling -- and relevant. For the Swift Boat vets, this fight may be personal. But all of us have a stake in its outcome.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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