For Vietnam veterans, wounds are opened anew by campaigns
Timothy Egan The New York Times
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Many of them are bent and broken, grayer and wider. Some carry shrapnel
from a step too
far, an ambush replayed over and over. All of them carry memories. And now
as the debate
over service 35 years ago in a war that will not entirely fade roils the
presidential
campaign, Vietnam veterans wonder if they are doomed to take the arguments
that divided a
nation to their graves.
"It really upsets me, pitting one Vietnam veteran against another," said
Frank Stephens,
55, of Granite Falls, Washington, who was awarded a Purple Heart after
being wounded
during his tour with the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1969. "I feel like the
politicians are
using us. They just won't let that war go."
For the more than 2.5 million veterans who served in Vietnam from 1965
through 1973, the
clash over Senator John Kerry's service on a U.S. Navy Swift boat moves
them into a new
phase of their evolving place in the national consciousness. After being
called both
baby-killers and heroes, they now feel like something else: political
footballs.
They profess to be brothers, and in veterans halls around the country the
people who
fought in Vietnam stress their common bonds and a view that most of the
country may never
understand them. But the advertisements by one group of veterans attacking
the war record
of Kerry, advertisements that are closely tied to supporters of President
George W. Bush,
have reopened wounds related to class and service and frayed some of the
unifying threads.
"We didn't see any rich boys out there, not any at all, and if they were
they had cushy
jobs," said Ambrose D'Arpino, a 57-year-old former U.S. Air Force medic
from Arizona who
said Bush should not be criticizing Kerry because the president did not
serve in Vietnam.
D'Arpino was touring the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which
carries the names
of the 58,245 Americans who died in the war. The Swift boat ads have
infuriated D'Arpino,
who said Bush and Kerry should focus on the issues of the day. It is a
sentiment expressed
by many veterans.
"Kerry earned medals. Bush didn't. Who cares?" Curtis Hamilton, a U.S.
Army veteran from
Maine who served in the mid-1980s.
The hurt and divisions have always been there, veterans said, but they
come and go.
"This new stuff from the Swift boat opponents of Kerry does not surprise
me," said Charlie
Brown of Seattle, a U.S. Air Force medic in Vietnam and 1967 and 1968.
"There was a right
and a left among guys in Vietnam back in the '60s. And there's a right and
a left now."
It is unclear how the advertisements will affect the vote of the nation's
26.5 million
veterans. Kerry had hoped that his war record would help him to make
significant inroads
with a group that tends to vote Republican.
A poll by CBS last week showed a drop in veteran support for Kerry, but
the margin of
error in that poll of the small number of veterans sampled, plus or minus
eight points,
was too large to give a true picture of veterans' sentiment, other
pollsters said.
But interviews with veterans across the country found a hard-edged
cynicism about both
Kerry's using his Vietnam service to advance his candidacy and Bush for
his ties to a
group that has renewed some of the divisions of a long-ago war. None of
the veterans
interviewed said the challenge by the anti-Kerry group, Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth, had
actually changed their minds on the election. But a handful said the
attacks were making
them rethink support for Bush.
"I'm a Republican - I voted for Bush last time - but I may go to Kerry
this year," said
Ron Ostrander, who served in the U.S. Army from 1966 to 1969 and lives in
Vancouver,
Washington. "To me, it's irrelevant whether Kerry's boat went into
international waters or
not, or how he got his medals. The fact that he served and did his duty -
don't try to
take that away from him."
Ralph Bozella, a 55-year-old veteran who lives in Longmont, Colorado, said
the more he
followed the Swift boat controversy, the more he drifted into Kerry's
camp. "I feel like
what they did to attack his record is an affront to all veterans," said
Bozella, who
served as an infantry soldier in Vietnam in 1971.
Few veterans interviewed said it made much difference whether the
candidates saw combat or
not. "We all tried to get into the Air National Guard," said Gary
Franklin, a supporter of
Bush who did two tours of duty as an U.S. Air Force sergeant from 1969
through 1972 and
was wounded. "Bush was smart. Who wants to get shot?"
Franklin said it did not bother him that Kerry had later protested the war
and said U.S.
soldiers had committed atrocities. "He earned that right to protest,"
Franklin said
outside the veterans hospital in Seattle. "He didn't have to go over
there, but he did."
Charles Nichols, 57, of Matteson, Illinois, a retired U.S. Marine Corps
veteran, said he
would like to see the campaign focus on other issues. "I truly think it's
a big waste of
the public's time," said Nichols, who was awarded two Purple Hearts, one
for being shot in
the knee, the other for a bullet in the shoulder. "They're trying to
discredit him, taking
our minds off the issues."
Stephens, the army veteran from Granite Falls, said he had never harbored
any bitterness
toward his fellow baby-boomers who did not serve. But the Swift boat
controversy has made
him rethink his feelings toward people like Vice President Dick Cheney,
who avoided the
draft by college deferments, he said.
"The vice president said he had 'other priorities,'" said Stephens,
gesturing toward his
war wound. "Didn't we all."
Radsch, Mindy Sink and Katie Zezima contributed reporting for this
article.
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