Unfit for Command: Chapter 2
Chapter two – The Reluctant Warrior
Sources of this chapter:
Douglas Brinkley, “Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War,” William Morrow, New York, 2004
Samuel Goldhaber, “John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress,” Harvard Crimson, Feb 18, 1970
J. F. Kelly Jr, “Living with His Anti-War Past: Should John Kerry become commander in chief?” California Republic, June 20, 2004
Kranish, Mooney & Easton, “John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best,” New York: Public Affairs, 2004
Basic assertions of this chapter:
John Kerry has portrayed himself as a warrior, and has used his experience to belittle his opponents who didn’t serve. However, Kerry’s experience was not heroic.
(Unfit For Command): But Kerry’s (war) record is important because Kerry himself says it is important.
(UFC): Kerry runs on his short record of three combat months (plus one training month) in Vietnam thirty-four years ago. He has placed full-page campaign ads in the New York Times with photos of himself receiving a medal…Kerry has pursued the war-hero theme with a persistent purpose, repeatedly demeaning the purported nonexperience of his opponents.
(UFC) Kerry petitioned the draft board for a student deferment. At Yale, Kerry’s antiwar political views were well known. He was chairman of the Political Union and used his commencement address in 1966 to criticize the foreign policy of President Lyndon Johnson.
(UFC) The top choice was the Navy Reserves where the duty commitment was shorter and a larger proportion of the period could be served stateside on inactive duty.
My Opinion
This is a weak chapter because it deals with the past, although it does methodically demolish Kerry’s image as a “reluctant warrior”. What I find interesting, is the media inattention to the fact that Kerry did not join the US Navy, but the Navy reserves – a safer alternative than, say, the Army or Marine corps since the Vietcong didn’t have a navy worthy of the name.
Also, I learned that the swift boats were originally a plush assignment – at least according to Kerry himself. They patrolled the coastal waters “and had very little to do with the War” (Kerry’s entry in The Vietnam Experience (1986)). That changed in late 1968 when the boats were ordered into inland waterways.
My Questions:
Why did Kerry join the antiwar movement?
Why does Kerry refuse to release his military records by signing Form 180?
September 18th, 2004 at 10:05 pm
Kerry protested the war because it was a bad war - we were in it for the wrong reasons, fighting among an enemy and his supporters. It was not America at her finest. Can anyone say Vietnam was a good thing? He courage to sign up when he believed in it, and he had the courage to protest it when he saw the horrible mistake that it was. Bush has never had the courage to change his course of action or to listen to a dissenting opinion. Iraq is just another Vietnam, and people like Bush are pushing ahead with blind ideology - while others with courage will need to protest. Despite being labeled unpatriotic, or flip-flopping.
September 20th, 2004 at 9:48 am
Brian
According to Unfit for Command, Kerry never believed in the war. In fact, at Yale he spoke out against the war in an address to the student body - and was an outspoken critic of the war to the point that people were shocked to learn he enlisted. O’Neill’s assertion is that he enlisted to avoid the draft after his deferment was refused. Keep in mind that he joineda “safe” service - the Navy Reserves (not the USN) - and chose a “safe” job - the Swift boats - since the Vietcong didn’t have much of a navy and the Swifts weren’t used to patrol inland waterways until after he enlisted. Remember that his first “tour” was on a ship that spent most of its time patrolling off the coast of California.
As for Bush & Iraq, Bush believes in his goal - a democratic Iraq - and will not change that goal. However, he has shown flexibility in meeting that goal, as shown by changing US military tactics.
Sorry but everything is not “Vietnam”. If anything, I think that Iraq is closer to Yugoslavia - a country flying apart after being held together by a tyrant. Things are quiet in the Kurdish held North, and relatively calm in the Shi’a held south. The Sunni controlled middle is where the trouble is, but most of that is Jihadist vs Iraqi - not Iraqi vs US violence.
In the past I have advocated the dissolution of Iraq, and I still believe a loose federalist system along the lines of Serbia/Montenegro is the only medium-term solution for the area.
But Vietnam? Our mistake in Vietnam was being blinded by our anti-communist ideology to the fact that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and a Communist second. Given the state of the world at the time, I think it was an understandable - yet costly - error. Iraq has been independent from foreign powers for generations - unlike Vietnam.
Don’t let your anti-Bush ideology blind you to truth about Iraq in the same way that Kennedy’s anti-Communist ideology blinded him to the truth in Vietnam.