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War of words
Sunday, August 29, 2004
By WINSTON GROOM
Special to the Register
The firestorm of malediction which has erupted in recent days over the military service of John F. Kerry and George W. Bush is threatening to derail the entire rational debate over the future of this country.
So many of the so called "facts" and accusations are rolling around out there that unless one has made a very careful study of the actual facts, it's almost impossible to sort out the truths from the untruths. I have made such a study because it was in effect forced upon me (a point I will get to later on).
I know both of these men slightly, having met Kerry when he was dragged over to my desk in the newsroom of the Washington Star by a famous columnist and dear friend, the late Mary McGrory.
This would have been about 1972 or '73, when Kerry was in Washington either to give his controversial testimony before the U.S. Senate or to throw away his medals or ribbons or whatever -- I forget which. McGrory, a fellow Bostonian well known for her anti-Vietnam War stance, had fervently hoped Kerry might persuade me to join his protest group, since I had returned from Vietnam myself several years previous.
Kerry seemed nice enough, and we had a long talk, but I was not interested in joining his group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, because, while I was not particularly for the war, I felt we should try to bring it to an honorable conclusion. As well, I did not appreciate many of the things these disenchanted veterans were saying about our military -- especially accusations of wholesale atrocities condoned at all levels of command.
Were there atrocities committed? Of course. There hasn't been a war yet that I know of where there weren't.
A look at court-martial records from the North African campaign in World War II reveals a depressing litany of offenses committed by American soldiers against the Arabs, many involving rape and murder. In Vietnam there was the unforgivable My Lai massacre, as well as lesser-known incidents of similarly dark character.
But anyone who believes those acts were condoned officially, in any way, lives in a fools' paradise.
As an example, when I was serving with the Fourth Infantry Division I was once put in charge of a second lieutenant who had cut off the ear of a dead Viet Cong and wore it around his neck as a souvenir. He was told to get rid of it, but he did not, and so he was brought up for court-martial on charges of willful mutilation.
How this creature became an army officer, I do not know, but he was duly brought before a military court and severely punished.
The military courts operated efficiently the entire time I was there to deter atrocities against the Vietnamese people.
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The question of legitimacy about John Kerry's medals and injuries is perplexing, because there are so many conflicting reports.
According to available information, Kerry was wounded three times, for which he received three Purple Hearts. None of the wounds was apparently serious, but Kerry put in for and received his Purple Heart medals and this should not be denied him.
The only question that comes to my mind is, did Kerry's injuries actually warrant Purple Hearts? In the Army, a Purple Heart was generally not put in for unless the wound required considerable attention.
I knew many fellow soldiers who had slight shrapnel or "splinter" wounds (wounds made by objects sent flying by mortar or artillery fire) that were little more than scratches. I myself had one such wound. In the unit I was in, the First Brigade of the Fourth Infantry, you would have been laughed at for claiming a Purple Heart for anything insignificant.
But Kerry was in the Navy, and perhaps they had different criteria. In any case, it seems to me his Purple Hearts are legitimate.
Of his medals, the question is harder to answer, and the answers may never be known. I can only say that two Silver Stars and one Bronze Star in the short four months Kerry served in Vietnam are quite extraordinary.
It would be interesting to know how many medals of this distinction the Navy gave its speedboat drivers, vs. the ones the Army handed out so sparsely to its combat infantrymen who fought the VC and North Vietnamese in the jungles on a daily basis.
But all of this is subjective, and Kerry should not be challenged on his medals unless there is clear proof that he deceived his superiors as to whether he deserved them. So far, such proof is, at the very least, unclear.
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Now we turn to George W. Bush's service. From the Democrats' campaign, all sorts of accusations have been hurled. One often repeated is that Bush "avoided the draft by having his father pull strings to get him into the National Guard," presumably because the Guard was a safe place to be during the Vietnam War.
Let me enlighten those who believe that last speculation, with this passage from the unit history of the Iowa National Guard: "On January 26, 1968, the 185th Tactical Fighter Group, Iowa National Guard, was mobilized, together with the 174th Tactical Fighter Squadron, its subordinate unit. The 174th, along with other Air National Guard fighter squadrons, flying F-100 aircraft, were ordered to Vietnam. The 174th, code name 'Bats,' flew over 6,500 close air support and bombinstrafing missions from its base at Phu Cat. The performance of the 174th earned the Presidential Unit Citation. Individuals were awarded 12 Silver Stars, 35 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 30 Bronze Stars. The Group returned to state control on May 28, 1969."
The Iowa Guard also had a mechanized infantry battalion (1,000 men) mobilized in May 1968. Fighting in Vietnam, "12 members of the battalion were killed and 76 wounded and the unit earned 2,600 awards and decorations." That is according to the unit's official history.
Does that sound like joining the National Guard was going to get you out of the war? The Iowa National Guard was only one of 50 state National Guards around the country. Go and visit their Web sites and look at their histories; you will see more of the above.
Between 1967 and 1969, when the old first-line units of the Army and Air Corps had finished their one-year tours and were rotating back to the United States, they were calling out the Guard to fill the gap. Believe me in this: I met a number of National Guardsmen during my Vietnam tour, and let any doubters go and trumpet their doubts over the graves of those dead Guardsmen.
Now, backing up a bit, did George W. Bush's father, then a congressman, help him get into the Guard? This is repeated over and over as mantra in the Kerry campaign ads, and accepted as gospel by many if not most news and media people, despite there not being a shred of evidence to support it.
Did he? The answer may never be known, but so what?
These are the facts I know: George W. Bush knew he faced the draft when he graduated from college in 1968, so at the beginning of his senior year at Yale he satisfactorily completed the Air Force officer qualification exam. Bush wanted to be a fighter pilot like his father was in World War II.
He was no doubt aware that fighter pilot slots in the Air Force and Navy -- the only services with fighters -- were and are almost exclusively reserved for graduates of the Air Force or naval academies, and he wouldn't have stood a chance.
So he turned to the National Guard, where he would have a much better opportunity to fly fighter jets. If his father helped him, so be it, though there is still no evidence, besides supposition, to show that he did.
The similar charge -- that Bush "avoided the draft" by joining the National Guard -- is patently ridiculous. If that were the case, then anyone who was commissioned as an officer by the college Reserve Officers Training Corps program (ROTC), the Officer's Candidate School (OCS) or, for that matter, through the service academies also "avoided the draft."
Yes, they went through the rigorous courses and afterward signed up to serve as commissioned officers, me included, and I don't particularly consider myself a draft dodger.
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This past Tuesday a short letter to the editor, one of many similar ones to have appeared on the Mobile Register's editorial pages, began thusly: "Facts released by (his) campaign office prove that George W. Bush acted cowardly during his service with the Texas National Guard."
None of the "facts" promised were forthcoming in the letter, which was written by somebody in Montgomery, but these are just the sort of unsubstantiated accusations being pounded into people's heads on an hourly basis by both the Democratic and Republican spokespeople who appear on the national television news shows, write columns or send letters to the editor.
Let's review the real "facts."
George W. Bush was commissioned a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard (his home state) and trained to fly the F-102 fighter-interceptor, which was the only fighter plane in use by his unit. He could have applied for a college deferment, perhaps a medical out, or even run off to Sweden. He did none of these.
Fact: For the next four years Bush flew the F-102 jet fighter, which, both physically and mentally, is one of the most demanding -- and dangerous -- jobs on this planet. Of the 675 F-102's produced during the aircraft's active span, 70 of its pilots died in crashes.
Fact: Flying a supersonic jet fighter plane is no child's play, as anyone who has watched a Blue Angels' flying show will attest. Cowards and shirkers do not volunteer to fly those things.
Fact: Though Bush's unit was subject to being called to Vietnam, it was not, and a principal reason was that the F-102 was a fighter-interceptor, designed solely to shoot down other planes. By the time Bush finished his training in late 1970, there were no Russian or Chinese Migs to be found over the skies of Vietnam: most had been shot down by American planes and the rest grounded, and the North Vietnamese never rose in the air again to challenge U.S. Air power.
Fact: Perhaps they could have sent Bush to another unit and retrained him in one of the fighter-bombers which were then needed for close ground support, but by the time he would have finished this training, his tour of duty would have been almost up, and the money and effort wasted.
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After Bush had flown the F-102 for four years, with excellent efficiency reports, he was asked to join the Alabama U.S. Senate campaign of Winton Blount, an old family friend.
This he was allowed to do: Under National Guard rules, a Guardsman is allowed to move anywhere in the nation, so long as there is a National Guard unit that he or she can and will join there.
Fact: In May 1972, Bush joined the Air National Guard unit at Montgomery and began to work on Blount's campaign, headquartered there. Unfortunately, there were no planes in the Montgomery Guard unit that Bush was qualified to fly and, according to available information, he found himself flying a desk -- literally with nothing to do.
The Vietnam War was winding down then, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen were pouring back into the United States, many seeking positions with the Guard, which itself had become somewhat lax.
Fact: For the next four or five months, Bush apparently skipped his unit's monthly Guard meetings in Montgomery -- and for this, he has publicly been called a "deserter" by the left-wing "documentary" maker Michael Moore, "AWOL" by Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, as well as a "coward" by the letter writer in the Mobile Register.
Fact: In May 1973, following Blount's unsuccessful run for the Senate, Bush returned to Texas and rejoined his old unit full time, making up the four or five missed meetings from Montgomery -- perfectly permissible under National Guard regulations. (The National Guard rule is that if you miss meetings, you must make them up or you do not get your discharge, and must stay in the military charge until you do).
Fact: Then, with six months left before his six-year tour of duty was to have ended, Bush applied for and received an "early out" to go to the Harvard Business School. This was an extremely common practice in those days, when there were so many military people returning to the States.
I myself applied and received an "early out" of four months, after my Vietnam tour. (It might also be recalled that Al Gore received an "early out" to attend divinity school, after serving only four months of his 12-month tour in Vietnam).
But Bush's being granted an "early out" is characterized by his opposite camp as damning evidence of his "cowardliness," or "shirking."
Fact: After five years and four months of active duty, Bush was thus placed on inactive reserved status and given an honorable discharge, which he fully earned.
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Spokesmen for Sen. Kerry never miss an opportunity to impugn Bush's service in Montgomery, claiming that he never went to Alabama, that he was "AWOL," etc. But I can personally vouch that he was in Alabama then -- which leads me back to my earlier remark about being "forced" into a study of Bush's military duty.
Back during March and April, when the famous "deserter" and "AWOL" charges were being leveled at Bush by the Democrats, the press had worked itself up to a feeding frenzy.
My phone began to ring off the hook: Newsweek, Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, etc. Somebody had somehow learned that my former wife had worked on the Blount campaign, and that I had been seen in Montgomery while Bush either was or wasn't there -- take your pick.
They were frantic to learn anything I might tell them. Unfortunately for them, it wasn't much.
Back then, in late 1972, I had been passing through on my way back to Washington and had dinner with Bush one night at a Montgomery restaurant where the Blount campaign workers were having an informal gathering.
I sat next to him, for that matter, and we had a nice long chat, most of the details of which are long forgotten over the 30-odd years that have since passed. I do remember him asking about my Vietnam experiences, and I think we might have talked about Texas.
In any case, my information at that point was of little use to the news people, except that Bush was certainly there. I remember one of them asking, "Can't you remember anything else?"
"Well," I told him, "if I'd known he was going to be president of the United States maybe I'd have paid more attention."
After all that, I began to study up and try to find out what the big hoopla was about. Perhaps my use of the word "forced" was too strong, but I felt that, since I had been dragged personally into the thing, I'd best get myself up on it.
The account I've given here is a result of that study, and I hope it proves useful. It is as true and fair as I know how to make it.
It is a shame and a pity that such a controversy has to overshadow the important issues in this campaign, but that's politics.
My appreciation of it is this: The Democrats started the thing a year or so ago, with the stuff about Bush's father sneaking him into the National Guard where he would be "out of harm's way" -- if you can call flying a supersonic jet fighter plane as putting yourself out of harm's way.
The Republicans then responded by attacking John Kerry's war record, or at least rejoiced in the attack upon him by the swift boat officers. All of this has now escalated into a war of words almost beyond reasonable comprehension, slopping with rabid vitriol, half-truths and out-and-out lies.
At one point during all this, I had a conversation with a former Marine colonel who staunchly informed me that in his opinion, George W. Bush should have been awarded the Medal of Honor for his military service.
Naturally, I asked him: Why?
"Because," he said, "anybody who would fly a jet airplane maintained by the National Guard has got to be one of the bravest s.o.b.'s on Earth."
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